Search results

Just wondering how exactly people here do a Bailey Comb change in terms of entrance position? I've seen various methods described, but I'm unsure what counts as the 'best' approach. 1. Leave the main entrance at the bottom. 2. Put an upper entrance on top of the QE. (most commonly recommended)...

Every winter I end up with frames all over the place as I clean/repair/assemble them, and I never know quite how to manage them. I've got a variety of storage boxes I use, but none of them are quite right - they're either much bigger than they need to be, slightly too small for 10 or 11 frames...

I've got 4 or 5 apideas which have mated queens in them - but they are suffering from wasp attacks and are low on numbers. The weather this weekend is pretty terrible so I don't have time to do the inspections/queen removal/caging & requeening to get the queens into their new homes, and I'm...

I was just talking to someone about apideas and was wondering what the going rate was for them these days... I've previously used beequipped, but their website seems to be down (and archive.org says it's been down since late last year). A quick hunt around for other suppliers (and there aren't...

Ivey managed to acquire a small incubator and am keen to try raising some queen cells using it. I've been struggling to find some detail on when to move the cells across though - some places say day 14 (i.e close to emerging) while others say day 8 (after capping). The former seems to be to get...

Something I've seen on and off over the years, and never found a good solution for, so I thought I ask what the rest of you do in this situation... Afer completing a split (and this seems to happen for me more with Snelgrove than with Pagden) the bees seem to focus on working the supers, often...

Nisbets (catering suppliers) have Gastronorm pans on sale just now, as well as free delivery until the end of December. https://www.nisbets.co.uk/kitchenware-and-knives/food-storage/stainless-steel-gastronorms/gastronorm-pans/_/a33-4 The 1/1 pans are big enough to take BS and 14x12 frames (get...

Just had contact from someone who is doing renovation work and has found an established colony in an old chimney flue, and needs them removed ASAP (have seen some picks, and it's definitely honey bees on wild comb). I've asked for more info as to size, accessibility etc, but although I've done...

I've turned my hand to grafting for the first time this year, having previously just used 'natural' queens, and one partial success using a cupkit. I set up a queen-right colony as per the Ben Harden method (brood box about a QE with a frame of open brood and 2 frames of pollen and spacers) and...

I currently have 2 queenless colonies next to each other at one apiary, and wanted to unite them, then collapse down to a single box before moving them to unite with a queenright hive at a different apiary. I've just realised that I've never united 2 queenless colonies - only ever 1 queenless...

I was up at the apiary on the 5th of May and found one hive (out of 8) with a high number of dead and dying bees on the OMF and on the ground in front of the hive. Looked suspiciously like poisoning to me, and I sent samples off for analysis to SASA. There were probably around 500 bees, but the...

I'm just looking into oa sublimation, and currently have a number of wide dummy boards in my hives made of kingspan, sealed with aluminium plumbers tape. I was just wondering if anyone knows if it's safe to use oa on kingspan, or if something nasty is going to happen to the foam and/or...

Hi, I've just received some flatpack BS brood frames, and have just opened up the pack to start assembly. I'm used to just running an old blunt knife down the paper-thin strip of wood that holds the bar in place and then using the knife to 'peel off' any excess... but on these ones the wood...

I've been watching winter round here fail to really arrive in the traditional cold and snowy sense, and instead be replaced with warm, wet windy weather - which never bodes well for the bees... Normally I would pick a cold weekend in mid-January to do an oxalic trickle, relying on the cold...

Been looking at getting a new honey extractor, and have stumbled across Logar : http://www.honey-extractors.co.uk/honey-extractors/all-honey-extractors/ Prices look very reasonable - it's not clear whether or not they can take BS frames (though I've emailed to ask) but if they can, they're...

Hi, Been keeping bees now for 7 odd years, and am currently seeing some unusual behaviour in a hive which I can't easily explain. I inspected the hive on the 5th - all seemed fine, with marked queen seen, plus eggs, uncapped and capped brood etc - pollen and honey coming in and some supers on...

I currently have 2 nucs which haven't taken as well as I'd have liked - one had a queen which is now being superseded, and I don't like the look of the other one (she's the same size as the rest of the workers). I have another hive which is doing ok, but isn't as strong as I'd like, so I want...

Just read this article on the BBC news today about the high rate of disease and parasites found on imported bumble bee colonies used for pollination. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23347867 Most worrying is the quote: Given the current controls on honey bee importation, and...

I recently split a very busy hive into the original hive and a nuc, taking a good number of house bees and brood off to create a nuc to pass on to a friend who lost some colonies last year. However, I had mistakenly recorded that the queen was marked, when she wasn't, so, confident that she...

We've had a nuc stolen from our apiary just outside Edinburgh - a single Thornes style cedar nuc with metalled roof with a small colony of bees in it, and a nuc feeder (yellow plastic). Most bits should have the initials FG on them. Very annoying and disheartening, since we lost all but one...