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After having a swarm take up residence in a spare BB in my garden last Thursday, I get home to another making it their home today. There were a lot of bees flying around, fighting going on where bees were trying to enter whilst others were protecting it...lot of casualties all around the ground...

As the title says....got my first swarm today :) came home from work tonight to find one had decided to make home in a spare brood box that was in my garden. Hopefully they will stay put, currently looking at 5 seams all working away cleaning the frames, box etc... I will move into a clean hive...

Checked my five hives today....first check this year and mixed bag.... All colonies are way behind last year at this time. Small colony was a 'mating nuc' had plenty of pollen going in any days the sun was out (in my garden so see what happens every day)...was buzzing and busy..eggs. brood...

Took a walk around a couple of my hives yesterday afternoon, poly hives, 4 Centigrade max, with frost around them.......could hear a light hum from one box and as I turned towards another hive I see a bee flying back to that, landing and strolling in.........brave little sod possibly on...

Out checking on my hives today and found one that has all but died out....handful of bees and the queen is all that remains. Looking through the frames it looks like they have isolated themselves and starved as a few frames in from where they are there was another 7 frames of stores. Have...

Just a quick question peeps..... Has anyone made Mead from ivy honey and, if so, did it taste ok? I know ivy honey is an 'acquired' taste for some but would be interested to hear from those that have. I have some in bucket and about 5 supers full that have set (will be aiming to feed this back...

Follow up to an earlier post re laying workers in one of my hives and several failed attempts to requeen with bought in queens. Shook out all bees from hive 100' from hive location two weeks ago and destroyed as much of the drone brood that I could see. Next day I placed a small swarm colony on...

One of my hives which is queenless, has failed to accept new queens now has laying workers. To address this could I move the hive off its spot, replace with a small queen right colony and allow the flyers to return to the new one and gradually drain off these bees for a week or two by changing...

I have a colony that I may have to split for swarm control.... Had initially thought of doing an AS and then splitting brood down into two nucs but going on holiday and may get too many QC's when away and lose too many bees. So, as per title, if I split the colony in two as an AS, how soon...

Just got a nice little surprise.....found a small swarm / cast in one of my spare nuc boxes. Have a couple of empty hives and nuc boxes at back of garden and went to pull a nuc to use for a split tomorrow....lifted lid and seen a few bees and a bit of white comb under clear cover board, lifted...

I am going on holiday from next Tuesday and having checked some of my colonies last night I have one that had a couple of QC's with an egg in them.... So as not to lose a swarm when I am gone I would welcome suggestions (nice ones please :) ) I had added another super last night and this may...

I think it was because I pulled both supers off at the same time....too quickly, rather than one at a time and also found that they had built some comb between bottom of super frame and top of brood frame (no QE on colony) They had also been very active and weather is a bit miserable.... Just...

Have been wearing waterproof trousers and a bee suit jacket when checking my bees for past couple of months, have hives in field of long grass and others at a river overspill area, so keeps me dry. All has been well until today.... One colony went ballistic when I took off top two...

Just been checking colonies tonight and one had around ten play cups across the frames in one of them and mostly empty. Now, thoughts were going towards a potential AS being needed as I found an egg in one but strangely there was a hole in the side of the cell... small hole not like a pulled...

Checked one of my hives that I did a newspaper unite on last week and thought I had screwed up and lost a very nice queen when checked on Saturday and couldn't see new eggs or queen. Was pleasantly surprised to find eggs and larvae and see the queen... Happy days.

As per title, what is best way to combine a small Q+ nuc to a queenless colony? I have a nice new queen, good brood pattern etc in a small nuc and would like to combine it with a Q- colony that I have just done an AS on a week ago. My original plan was to unite the AS but thought a fresh young...

Did an AS on Monday night, moved 22 super frames of brood (not all of them have wall to wall brood)to a new box next to original, left queen and frame of brood in old hive.......checked today and queen still there with eggs etc. (colony is in super frames as over wintered swarm and just can't...

How quickly can you give a queen less hive a new mated queen after all brood has been capped? One of my hives will be queenless for one week this Saturday, I will have knocked down all QC's from the existing brood and expect most if not all the brood will have been capped by then. When will...

Checked hives yesterday and one was in swarm mode, QC's on a few frames so knocked them down and planned to do an AS today as needed to sort stand and kit. Couldn't find queen and was on a double 14 x 12, 3 supers and no QE....not the best set up to try and find her and we have a heavy flow on...

Had several virgin queens and made up some mating hives for them.....first two run in and no probs, everything looked ok and bees accepted them (or appear to have). Went to run 3rd one in (the biggest and best of the three) and, as bees were trying to get out I thought upon a magnificent stupid...