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Over the next six weeks I need to move six hives to a new apiary around 100m away. They are currently on stands in pairs. I'd really like to avoid taking them off site if possible so I'm planning to wait for a period of forecast bad weather (to minimise flying?), then move one hive from each...

At last weekend's BIBBA/SICAMM conference, Wally Shaw (who wrote the WBKA 'Simple Methods if Making an Increase') told us there was nothing wrong with emergency queens at all, cited papers and 100+ successful colonies headed by such queens. However the following day, Gerry Ryan, from Ireland was...

Can anyone point me towards data on the UK honey market? How much honey doe the UK consume each year and of these what proportion is local, UK honey and what proportion is imported? I'm guessing we are far from self sufficient, but it'd be good to see the numbers.

I took this photo at the weekend, not one of my hives: By the multiple eggs in the cells, it's laying workers. However there wasn't much if any drone present and, as you can see, a queen. Not many bees and only one frame of brood. No sign of queen cells. I guess the queen is failing and her...

On 11th April we split a colony, taking the queen away in a nuc (which is now doing well in a new hive). Unfortunately we must have left more than one queen cell as on 28th April a cast swarm emerged. This we caught and hived in a poly nuc. Inspecting that nuc today, all six frames were drawn...

As I was moving some boxes around yesterday when it struck me as odd that a 14x12 box is 12 ½" deep. Wouldn't it have made more sense for it to be 11 3/4" deep. That's only 3/4" shallower, but would allow two supers (5 7/8" deep) to double up as an emergency brood box.

Taken from the What did you do in the Apiary today? thread: Am I right in thinking AFB spores are common in imported honey? Does that suggest AFB is common in "EC and non-EC" hives (wherever they are!) or does a single bad hive/batch contaminate a huge quantity of otherwise clean honey...

I have one hive with two recently filled and capped supers. A couple of days ago I added a third box of foundation below these two. I want to remove and extract these two this week. When I add the clearer board below the two full supers, should I also add a (fourth) super of foundation below...

June 2012 we received a swarm from our local association. Colony did well for the rest of the summer and overwintered well. In May a lot of swarm cells were produced (around a dozen, mostly at the bottom of the frames). On 13th May we moved the queen on a frame of BIAS and two frames of...

Hive surprised me today. Here's what's happened over the last few weeks, what do you think's going on. Thu 25th April: 5 frames of brood. Fri 3rd May: 6 frames of brood, several queen cups with eggs, a couple torn down before deciding to leave the rest and a super of foundation added (no QE)...

I have a old hive I'd like to bring back into service. I want to run a torch over it but don't have one. Can someone recommend a cheap and simple torch that's suitable for scorching no more than a few hives a year? Is something like this suitable? How long does 170g of gas last...

I need to move a beehive this week. Would have liked to do it sooner but it wasn't possible. The new site is pretty much exactly 3 miles from the old. Temperatures for the next few days are forecast to be a high of around 7-9C mid afternoon and a low of -1C first thing in the morning. I'm...

So I know freezing frames will kill off insect pests, like wax moth eggs - but is it good for anything else? Is there a definitive list of the potential ailments that a few days in the deep freeze will kill off and those that are unaffected by freezing? Does freezing kill of any bacterial or...

This hypothetical question came up in conversation last night: Say I lived in Devon, and had an apiary of six hives. Say I was to move house, to the Scottish highlands - near Inverness. What would I do with my bees? Pack them up in a van and drive the hives north (I guess it would take two...

I've recently seen a British company that keeps some 30 hives indoors. With a couple of kW heating, they are kept at 21C and fed pollen substitute and syrup. This lets them raise bees all year around? How does it work? There are holes allowing them to fly outside - for toilet breaks and...

I've been given an old WBC hive (two supers). It was used by my parents until they gave up around 4 years ago, since then it's been stored in a garage. The white paint is pealing off in places and there are some cracks in the wood. It's generally sound though. I'm thinking to scrape/sand as...

Here's a quick blog on one of our frames: http://chrisvernon.co.uk/2012/07/a-week-in-the-life-of-a-frame-of-bees/ The left hand images, 4th July are 19 days after the swarm was hived, the right hand side, +27 days. Brood emerged and cells recharged! High-resolution images on the blog.

We hived a swarm (with mated queen) on Saturday 16th June. We're using a 14x12 hive and only give them fresh foundation. On 28th June, 12 days later, there were eggs on three frames, plenty of larvae and just a few cells of capped brood. Checking again today 12th July, 26 days later, the...

Based on Martin Adams' plans, I've built myself a 6 frame 14x12 nuc from 12mm ply: Blog about it here: http://chrisvernon.co.uk/2012/06/building-a-nucleus-bee-hive/ No bees in it yet - but there's always a chance a swarm will take a likely to it.