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I'm in the South East and am very keen to start queen rearing, still a little cold but looking at the weather forecast I think if I started the 2nd week of May I'd have virgins out when the day time temp was >18oC and plenty of drones. When do you start and where are you?

My google-fu is rubbish, I've had a look but not found a good answer. I'm looking for some reference on the proportion of flying bees (i.e. foraging) to housework type bees. If you moved a hive without shutting it up in the middle of the day roughly how many flying bees would you lose? Not...

I'm not to World's best grafter, to be honest, I think I'm at the other end of the spectrum. To be fair I only do it three times a year :) I use the Chinese tool and get about 70% take, which for what I need is fine. Because I'm very bored I've been looking at other tools for grafting, just to...

'elo, I've got a few poly nucs sitting in my garden waiting to be cleaned, I leant them to a friend and last season his colonies took a pounding from CBPV. Typically with poly nucs I scrap off the wax etc and clean the insides with spray bleach which I assume kills off pretty much everything...

My polynucs were hammered by wasps last autumn, I don't want to be put traps up because they don't seem that effective anyway. I made the entrance one beespace but it didn't appear to deter the wasps, not such if the round holed entrances have much space for the bees to mount a proper defence...

Quick question. I'm planning to use the method on the NBU site. Split the frames, leave the queen in a box below an excluder and put the eggs in another box above the excluder with grafts. I'm not the most gifted grafted and typically get a 60% -70% take, so just graft ten at a time. My...

This is an interesting article. https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/French-scientists-fight-Asian-hornet-in-its-own-language-in-new-Manche-research-project Using pheromones to attract or repel Asian Hornets, the fact they have a launch to market date of 2022 is encouraging.

This year there are a few things I want to make for myself. I've a small shed so size is a critical factor. My budget is ~£500 and I want one which can handle 25mm ply but has a small footprint. Ta.

I'm going to use Apiguard this year for varroa treatment. I've never used in polynucs before so I have a question, on six frame paynes poly nucs is it okay to use a whole tray? I suspect it is but it's worth asking a silly question than losing a colony.

Once or twice every year I'll see a new virgin queen go out, mate and start laying up. 'Great' I think job done. A few weeks later I'll find swarm cells and no sign of the queen. I'm curious how often other people see this and are there any practical things I can do to reduce it or do the...

Moving brood frames between colonies to bring them to roughly the same strength. I'm wondering for someone like me with about a dozen hives would it make sense to do this?

I've tried full-size poly hives in the past and struggled to get on with them, but, I want to try again. I run standard national double brood, what polys would be a good choice for this. Also, is there a chart anywhere showing the relative thermal performance of these hives? Thanks in advance

I've googled this and read various accounts of why & when bees start to make winter bees. I'd be interested on the BKF folks views on this topic.

Over the winter I like to look into things that I struggle with during the season. So I'm revisiting swarm control. I find a lot of the methods a bit of a faf what with all the box juggling required. However, I've come to the conclusion I'm just being lazy. This season I've set aside four...

I very much enjoy the National Honey Show. It’s well run, a wonderful venue, I mooch around the trade show and buy stuff I shouldn’t. Attending three days lets me have a pub lunch and chat about bees. The talks this year were particularly interesting. Heather Mattila was excellent, but the...

I was listening to a beekeeping podcast this week and one of the hosts said she buried queens she pinched out under a flower. It was very sentimental but quite funny. I wonder what do you do with a dead queen - if you pinch them out?

I'd like peoples' opinions on this. A friend of mine has kept his bees on a pick your own farm for a few years. He's got a good deal where the farm shop buys all his honey and they always sell out. Autumn last year a local semi commercial beekeeper ask if he could his bees on the farm and was...

I got pinged about a beekeeping kickstarter today I normally sigh went people do this, because the typical beeking kickstarter is rubbish. However, seeing this one I back it as they are foldable swarm traps and seem rather handy. I'm not going to put the link here but if you search for bait...

I've seen this mentioned is several places that putting rhubarb leaves into a hive is a treatment for varroa. This seems to be based on the fact that the leaves have a high concentration of oxalic acid. Although I've not seen anyone suggest how it is extracted and utilised by the bees. I've...