What equipment should I have

[Beefriendly]

There's nothing wrong with last year's queen's the probability of them swarming if looked after properly is very small .

Depends on what your bees genetics are like.
My local mongrel bees are habitual bi-annual swarmers; regardless of the age of the queen....or how well they are looked after.
Not necessarily the case for mongrel bees in other areas, but a topic difficult to generalise about.

 

[Curly green fingers]

Depends on what your bees genetics are like.
My local mongrel bees are habitual bi-annual swarmers; regardless of the age of the queen....or how well they are looked after.
Not necessarily the case for mongrel bees in other areas, but a topic difficult to generalise about.

This has always got me wondering mongrels are what genetics Amm X buckfast X carnica ???
Why are they called mongrels .
If my amms are 80% Amm does that make them mongrels.
In three years ive had one hive swarm this queen was three years old

 

[Beefriendly]

This has always got me wondering mongrels are what genetics Amm X buckfast X carnica ???
Why are they called mongrels .

Not bred from pedigree strains...see dogs...
Composition is incredibly variable from region to region. One of the big problems in beekeeping is people generalising that the properties of their own local mongrel population is the same as every other area. They aren't...

 

[Maddog87]

One item of essential equipment often not mentioned - a large shed to store all the stuff you will have accumulated after a year or two of beekeeping.

���� I’ll put up a shed and thanks everyone for your knowledge. On a serious note, I have been looking into hornet traps as we noticed some last autumn. ����