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Hi Jim, In answer to your questions.... Do you use swarm traps ?? Yes, we leave small nucs in sheltered, (from rain and sun) places. Painting the inside walls with melted wax seems to help. The entrance should be very small. Swarms usually move in, in Nov/Dec. They stay for a few days...

Hi Jim 134, Here in Chiangmai in northern Thailand, we always keep a few Apis cerana colonies. What do you want to know about them?

Dropped a queen cell into a queenless colony last weekend and checked on it yesterday morning. It hadn't hatched, so dropped a caged laying queen into the same colony. This morning when I checked on her, the queen was dead in the cage. Closer inspection of the colony revealed a viable mated...

Here in Thailand we grow Clinacanthus nutans bushes around the apiary. The plant is used traditionally for treating skin rashes, insects and snake bites. A few leaves plucked from the bush and rubbed on the sting site is all that's needed. The plant probably wouldn't survive a UK winter outside...

In defence of North American Beeks, I recommend watching A Canadian Beekeepers Blog on You Tube. Now there's a guy who knows how to over-winter bees and is not afraid to try out new ideas.

Last year in Chiangmai, the Willow (Salix tetrasperma) flowered on 25th November. A decade ago, we planted quite a lot for the bees and It's a great source of pollen and the trees grow incredibly fast. The problem is that it only flowers for two days a year.

Well I thought it was beautiful... Its well known that Apis cerana. japonica pollinates the orchids Cymbidium kanran and Cymbidium goeringii despite not having nectar for the bees to collect, instead they release pheromones as a scout bee deception tactic in order to be pollinated. You can read...

A few years ago my daughter purchased some 'honey' at an airport in Indonesia, as a present. Upon tasting it, I had to comment..."well that's the closest it got to anything that flies" ;) Happy New Year everyone.

Rice is flowering in northern Thailand, so frames look like attached. Interestingly bees only seem to collect rice pollen from around 6am-9am.

Not much, Sometimes we move our colonies from Chiangmai to Chiang dao, towards the end of the lum yai season, as the flow goes on for longer there and the subsequent maize crop provides good pollen. Oh.. and if hornets or bee eaters become impossible, then we might move them around a bit.

Quite a lot of Chinese honey comes through Thailand, on its way to somewhere else. Thailand's honey production appears to be in decline but the amount exported is increasing. A common way of adulterating honey in this part of the world is feed large volumes of sugar syrup during nectar flow...

Yep. Thats me. and I'm still keeping a bees in Chiangmai.

In Thailand, a few years ago I tried quite a few screening arrangements at the hive entrance. Pot plants, allowing grass to grow, bamboos, netting. All failed for the same reason, VV is a superbly evolved flying machine that is able to maneuver/hover in even the smallest space, a returning...

Last year in Thailand, I had some success with muzzled entrances that had an outer screen of wide (5cm) spaced vertical wires and an inner screen of narrower (2cm) wires close to the entrance. The idea being that the bees could fly in fast through the outer screen and hornets did not like to...

That would be Apis dorsata, the Giant Himalayan Honey Bee. Its an impressive bee. Imagine a colony of mellifera queens! Found high up in trees throughout S & SE Asia and featuring in many nature documentaries. Apis cerana is a much smaller species that establishes colonies in cavities- house...

This year in Chiangmai, Thailand we have not kept any A mellifera colonies at home and have instead allowed a few native bee Apis cerana colonies to take up residence. What is interesting is how little interest Vespa velutina hornets show in A. cerana. At this time of year, there would be...

In Northern Thailand, maize pollen is known to be one if the most important sources of pollen for bees. The pollen is a lovely creamy white color and the bees come back fully loaded. One odd thing that I have observed is that the bees only seem interested in the male flowers, (the ones at the...

[Hi Mazzamada, I will definitely try this out next year, (the hornets are winding down now here in northern Thailand). It makes a lot of sense. We have had no measurable success with poison-&-release this year or last, but we weren't using food attractants in the paste, and poisoned hornets...

https://phys.org/news/2017-10-luring-hornets-scientists-sex-pheromone.html Lets hope that this pheromone becomes available at a reasonable price, very soon.

What is bit odd is that Woolacombe is on the north Devon coast. I wonder if this is a new invasion from the Continent or did a fertile AH queen hitch a ride down the M5 from Tetbury last year?