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I have built up a reasonable amount of clean beeswax , and have to admit that I will probably never get around to making candles ( and there's only so many candles you can use!) and I still have the last batch of furniture polish hanging around as noone I know seems to use polish. I have found...

I have just bought an steam wax extractor( I know i could have made one but I'm just not very 'handy) but I need a solid wooden floor to be able to use it, and I got rid of mine before the last move, as myself, like most people use the varroa floors. Does anyone have one that I can buy from...

has anyone any experience of this? I managed to do my first very thorough inspection of my hives over the last couple of days and , out of 6 hives, 4 had a queen wasp sitting on the bottom of the hive. One was dead, but the colony was also queenless , so I don't know whether the wasp was...

I went to take a couple of supers from my bees yesterday that I had put clearer boards on the day before ( Friday) and found a group of bees clustering just above the entrance. There were also a load of dead/dying bees under and around the hive, which makes me think that they had been there...

I would like to try turning my latest lot of honey ( bees have obviously hunted for and found some OSR from somewhere!) into creamed honey; at least it will be less like lard! The trouble is that i am having trouble sourcing any already creamed honey as a 'starter". Would anyone have any that I...

I have had to combine 2 late swarms and remove 1 ( as far as I can tell) perfectly good mated queen. I couldn't bear to squish her and would love for her to have a second chance. She's already in a queen cage with fondant and a couple of workers, so , if anyone can offer her a home, they need to...

For the first time since I moved my 2 colonies of bees to their new location about 10 days ago, it was warm enough to check through yesterday. I went all prepared with spare equipment to do an artificial swarm, but wasn't really prepared for what I did find! All was fine in the first hive; no q...

Please forgive me if this has already been covered on the forum, but I can't find it anywhere. I have one hive going great guns on heather at a nearby golf course. It wasn't really planned as we had to move them quickly while awaiting an improvement in temperament early in the season so I...

I came across this on ebay, which is used in poultry for getting diatom powder into the crevices of chicken houses to prevent red mite. Powder Pesticide Insecticide Dust APPLICATOR Diatom On the face of it, it looks like it might work to puff icing sugar either in between frames or up through...

I have a colony that it seems just has a laying worker. The only brood that would appear to be there is sealed drone ( spaced out on 3 frames) I was waiting on another 'spare' queen to start laying but her colony has been robbed out by wasps and I assume she has been killed by them as there was...

I was intrigued to notice that the bees seem to be really attracted to my son's drying neoprene boots( much to his consternation!) Anyone any idea what it might be that holds the fascination for them? There is a weed covered pond that they drink from much nearer the hive. Do they go for salt...

Hi, I was hoping to try making osr honey into creamed honey but as far as I understand I need to 'seed' it with a fine crystal honey. Does anyone have any that I can buy off them to start me off? I don't really know what proportion I need of the 'seed honey' . Any help or advice given gratefully...

As soon as I can confirm that I still have a laying queen in another hive, this will be ready to go. It's on National frames. It is already bigger than your standard nuc and the queen is very prolific so by the time it does go, it will be pretty much a full colony. If anyone is potentially...

Hi everyone, I have enjoyed having a nose at all the wonderful info on here. Having opened up a hive that is building up nicely, I noticed that there were quite a few dead bees outside the front of the hive. On closer inspection, most of them seem to be drones. There were quite a few large...

This is the first full year I will have had with my bees and , living out in the countryside ,I am surrounded by growing oil seed rape. I have been reading up a bit and was wondering whether anyone has any practical experience regarding management of colonies in this sort of environment. Do I...

Hi, I am rather hoping that this year I will have some honey to jar. I wondered if anyone else could offer advice on the pros and cons of printing your own versus getting some from one of the big bee equipment suppliers? The one main thing that I am a bit worried about if I print them myself, is...