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  1. garlicpickle

    Difficulty clearing supers

    I put clearing boards with rhombus escapes on both my colonies yesterday morning with a shallow home made eke underneath each clearing board, to allow the clearing bees space to disperse. Both colonies have 2 supers which need to come off. Last year I did this and 24 hours later the supers were...
  2. garlicpickle

    Don't despair

    I should have taken pics, but normally I expect to see drone brood in "clumps" either up near the top of the frames or in wild comb added to the bottom of frames. I would say about half and half. It is dotted around seeingly randomly although as I said, there was some worker brood mixed in too...
  3. garlicpickle

    Don't despair

    unfortunately I didn't renew my membership in January due to domestic circumstances. I do have a couple of contacts and wil email them to see if anyone can pop over and give me a hand. Tried to find the DLQ again this morning but without success. She is still laying some worker brood as well...
  4. garlicpickle

    Don't despair

    I'm in my second full year and struggling. I had high hopes during the early spring build up, did my Snelgrove A/S on my 2 colonies in a timely manner (or so I thought). Had to skip 2 weeks inspections because I was ill, went back on Monday hoping to find effectively 4 colonies, 2 of which would...
  5. garlicpickle

    Snelgrove board supplier ... Who's the best?

    My husband made one for me last year, but we aren't living together any more and my woodworking skills are non existent. So when I needed another one this year I bought it from Richfield (go*gle for the link) It was 15 quid plus postage which is a bit cheaper than the main suppliers and it's...
  6. garlicpickle

    What did you do in the Apiary today?

    Quick check after the weekend's strong winds and before today's showers hit - both QC above both Snelgrove boards had emerged. Fingers crossed there's a healthy virgin queen in each one, so no more door changes or disturbances for now :) Hopefully there will be some clear weather windows for...
  7. garlicpickle

    What did you do in the Apiary today?

    Still couldn't find the Q in hive 1 despite splitting the colony between 2 brood boxes and putting a QX between them last week. I knew she wasn't in the top box as there were lying-down eggs in the bottom one. Unfortunately there was also a sealed QC in there which I must have missed at the last...
  8. garlicpickle

    What did you do in the Apiary today?

    Went back to finish yesterday's AS which got rained off. Went through the mother box above the snelgrove board checking for QC. Tried to do the same with my other colony but couldn't find the Q. She's been busy though. There's a few play cups but they aren't seriously in swarm mode yet. So I...
  9. garlicpickle

    What did you do in the Apiary today?

    Dodged the showers today to try and get AS done. Managed to spot the Q in Hive 2 so whipped that frame out into a fresh box of foundation and put the snelgrove board in. Broke down a couple of charged QC in the mother box and removed some burr comb hanging from the other frames which was getting...
  10. garlicpickle

    What did you do in the Apiary today?

    I popped down briefly to take the mouseguards off as I'm just about to go away for 2 weeks. There's still fondant on both hives and they were up in it, so I decided to leave it on until I come back.
  11. garlicpickle

    What did you do in the Apiary today?

    Took advantage of a sunny morning for a brief visit to the apiary. One colony was up in the fondant which I put on last month, the other colony hadn't touched theirs. Plenty of bees flying and orange pollen coming in.
  12. garlicpickle

    Hi From Hampshire

    Welcome - I just moved to Locks Heath but my bees are in Stubbington :) I've been to a couple of the Fareham association meetings, they seem a friendly bunch apart from that Pargyle chap who is a bit of a weirdo :icon_204-2:
  13. garlicpickle

    What did you do in the Apiary today?

    Oxalic today, I've been hanging on in the hope of a cold snap but thought I'd better do it before it gets too late. I had to smoke one of the colonies down as they weren't too happy when I took the lid off. First time I've visited the apiary since the recent storms, lots of trees came down and...
  14. garlicpickle

    Beekeeping Bag

    Luckily I already had one from my winemaking days :)
  15. garlicpickle

    Beekeeping Bag

    It's a pain for me, mine are at an out apiary and I only have a 2-seater car with quite a small boot! Driving down there with a 3 gallon bucket of syrup sloshing around in the passenger footwell is a good way of ensuring I don't corner too hard :)
  16. garlicpickle

    Does anyone have a blog away from the forum.

    I used to have one on Wordpress - I don't any more so can't link you to it, but Wordpress makes it pretty easy to set up and run. You can customise it to look nice with various themes, add tags, add photos etc It's very straightforward to use.
  17. garlicpickle

    Beekeeping Bag

    I use a plastic tool box with an inner tray which is big enough for hive tool(s), gas lighter, queen cage, uncapping fork, box of drawing pins, matches, screwdriver and small magnifying glass. The bottom bit of the box contains the stuff I'm less likely to need such as mouseguards, spare...
  18. garlicpickle

    What do you smoke ?

    I "smoke" an e-cig but it doesn't seem to work on the bees. :) I have been using a big bag of wood chips I was given, and a bit of dry straw to get it going. The wood chips are about finished now so I'll need to find something else for next season.
  19. garlicpickle

    Melissa officinalis (Lemon Balm)

    I've got a load of it growing in the garden and saw some bumbles on it over summer, but no honey bees.
  20. garlicpickle

    How much "following" is too much?

    hmmm I didn't mean in that instance - I was more hoping for a random visit "just because" my hives haven't been inspected yet :) But I guess as you say, they are probably too busy to do spot checks when there are no reported problems in the area. There was a bee disease day last year which I...
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