Search results

My sister lives in Cambridge and is normally pretty good at flower identification - however this one has her stumped. I've tried to identify it using internet based plant id websites but have not succeeded. Can anyone put us out of our misery please? :)

We use a normal telephone answering machine for our business - I get a text message from it if we are out when someone calls and leaves a message, then I can call in and hear the message. However we get situations where someone leaves a message wanting us to get back to them about a quote for a...

This year I've made up 3 apidea - 2 first time round and 1 yesterday. I kept the first 2 in the cool for 2 days, then added the QCs, 1 more day n the cool then put the apidea out in the main apiary. I had noticed that the apidea seemed to be constantly 'roaring' when in the cool which was...

Has anyone used these from Th*rn*s? Unfortunately I have discovered that they seem to act as a Global Bee Excluder, not just Queen excluder. It seems that the thickness of the plastic has an impact on the ability of the bee to work their way through the excluder. I had put a couple of these...

Was having a mooch up at my apiary this afternoon just to have my daily fix of watching the bees. A particular bee caught my eye as she was on the side of the hive, not doing a lot herself, but there was a worker bee generally fussing over her - no other workers were interested. On closer...

One of my colonies seems to have a DLQ. There are clumps of drone brood (capped) along the bottom third of a few of the frames, plus QCs (unviable I suppose)) but def no worker brood. I don't think it is laying workers - can't see any eggs - multiple or otherwise - in any cells. As it is a large...

I hived a caste swarm on 4th June. Didn't disturb them then had a quick peek on 16th June - they had been busy drawing out 3 frames (they went onto foundation) and dummied down the box as there were only about 4/5 frames worth of bees. Bees were calm and busy flying and collecting pollen and...

One of my colonies has been busy piling in the nectar and has filled a few frames of a super with capped honey. However I am pretty sure the colony is queenless - the history of this colony is that it was the brood plus QC side of an AS back in mid May. QC emerged but it seems the VQ got...

Was having a 'mooch' near my apiary when I became conscious of a crescendo of buzzing, with the area above the hives becoming more and more populated with flying bees. The bees were pouring out of one of my colonies - the one where I decided they were superceding when I found capped QC's and the...

Did an AS on Wednesday - brood and stores in original hive on new site - flyers all returned to original site to new box. Now the brood colony are evicting their drones - should I be worried?

I did a late unite late in the season last year so the colony was left on double brood over the winter. I had expected that when I was able to do my first inspection HM would be laying in the top box and I would be able to remove the bottom box and go back to single brood. So - the bees decided...

I did a very late unite last year (Sept) because of various things and left the resulting single colony on double brood over the winter. I am working on the basis that the queen and cluster would have moved up to the upper brood box given that it would be the warmest place (I have insulation...

We 'forgot' about the mint in our herb garden so it has had a jolly time spreading and gaining new ground in the bed - it is now in flower and the various bees, bumblebees and butterflies are having a grand time. The plans are just outside our back door so I get a ringside seat every time I go...

Our SBI came to have a check through my colonies today - in connection with an AFB outbreak down in this neck of the woods. She was very thorough and helpful, plus was quite happy that there were no 'nasties' going on which was a relief :winner1st: When looking at one of the colonies there was a...

Sorry - LONG! The background: This was the bottom BB from a Demaree colony containing a couple of unsealed emergency QC's - I had messed up and removed the Queen in error when making up a nuc from QC's the previous week. Originally there were 9 frames made up of about 4 frames brood and the rest...

The background: Colony with 2013 queen, building nicely during April/May. Numpty newbie (me) managed to relocate HM when making a nuc with 2 QC's from hive when I had Demaree'd the colony. The next inspection showed me multiple creations of QC in response to me relocating queen so I pared down...

It was stunning weather down here in West Cornwall today so took the opportunity of doing 'Spring Cleans' on my 2 colonies (as recommended by my bee assoc) Both colonies seem to be doing well - BIAS and stores in evidence. A couple of play cups in 1 colony, and both colonies had a frame with a...

I applied Apiguard to both my hives last Sat. Today I had a look at the boards. I couldn't see any varroa mites at all - though there were quite a few earwigs in evidence so perhaps they could have been chomping on the mites if there were any. I am a bit non-plussed by the appearance of black...

So, did an AS on my hive and to cut a long story short ended up with capped queen cells in both parts on 6th June. I left both sections in peace and then inspected on 26th June hoping to see some eggs/brood given an optimistic timeline on VQs mating and laying by 24th or so. However optimistic...

Ok - last Thurs I did an AS on my colony as there were charged QC (uncapped) I left the uncapped QC in the original hive (OH) in a new position with all the brood bar 1 frame - that went with the Queen to the new hive (NH) in the original position. I swear there were no queen cups/cells on the...