Recent content by colinc

If you put 10 foundation in you may get masses of bridging comb. Get them to draw with 11 or 12 squeezed in then once drawn and filling remove 1 or 2 and space them evenly.

My bad. After doing the math for the full volume weight, I confused it with the 340g and didn’t read what I wrote.

I have been playing with this in its crudest form this winter. Home grown raspberries worked better than some shop bought I tried, blueberries did nothing, added some vanilla essence to raspberries which smelled good in fermentation but not noticeable when finished. Blackberries have been my...

Sorry ignore this. I was missing a load of posts which didn’t load properly, probably due to using my phone. Looks like you got a good result.

How did it go with just honey for the sugar component? Interesting thread and wonder if using purely honey over pure sucrose will affect the setting due to variation in the caramelisation (and temperatures or timing needed) of the sugars??? Maybe could try making with sugar then adding honey...

Honey density is around 1.4g/ml so 275 is 385g. 12oz is 380g approximately.

There may be a niche market for bee pizzas.

I have 2 hives that had taken no fondant all winter and still seem heavy on hefting that are sizeable colonies and have smashed the “security” fondant in the last 2 weeks. One of my lighter hives has taken fondant steadily in the milder spells all winter long. I was lax in 21/22 and my colonies...

I am aware of that. It is shelter that they need, my point was that poly is better for insulation but most definitely lighter. I hope my back thanks me. But an experiment in concrete for one colony in one hive only proves survival. Bees will adapt to living where they must if they are able.

I am moving all my brood boxes to poly this year. I am told better insulation than the older wood ones but I only hope that my back will thank me too. Not sure even “lightweight” concrete is actually a good idea on this front. derekm worded it better than I could, but as beekeepers we hear...

I think this may be the reason for derekm’s comment from post #13 in this thread. Sounds like you accusing him of “technobabble” to me.

I can’t remember the source but saw it stated that given free choice and adequate supply bees would preferentially choose sucrose rich nectar as a food source over fructose or glucose rich. They cannot generate the heat required to supersaturate sucrose solutions though so invert it to simple...

Pretty sure the ones I saw were 500g pots and looked pretty solid like soup pots. Not as good presentation as glass but he has a customer base buying in larger volume plastic pots by the look of the videos.

I am sure I saw a YouTube video by Richard Noel of Bees in Brittany saying he was in the process of switching to ‘commercially’ compostible pots, the type that looks like plastic but can be commercially 60degC composted. Europe still has the economies of scale to push these newer technologies...

That sounds wise. Good luck. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro