Recent content by Herbalist

I made this hive for my daughter 4 years ago. It is a "Tudor Inn" hive. The "Ground Floor" has internally a standard Commercial brood-box dimension. The first floor is a Dadant standard with an extra frame to make it square. Between the two is a QE in wide frame that supports the first...

I think that this is a wind-up. :LOL:

An American show where treason is displayed for entertainment purposes.

I love the exuberance of it. I am also a woodturner AND hive builder. If I listened to my "er indoors" I would never produce anything worth looking at other than bog-standard bee-hives. Woodwork can be art. It does not all have to be utilitarian or boring.

I have made a couple of hives from oak. They looked beautiful - but were heavy as Hell. I have tried plywood but it was very difficult to stop it delaminating after a year or so - and it was prone to mould. I now only use plywood for the roofs. Western Red Cedar is very expensive but I have...

I have a successful long-hive. If I were you I would not use plywood for the main chamber. Plywood is prone to delaminate when it is kept moist. The bees create a lot of humidity. It is also prone to mould growth. I used 20mm pine sealed with Danish oil and when dry, yacht varnish over the...

I make all my own hives from pine board. They will last for a long time if you seal the wood properly. You will need to equip yourself properly if you are going to make any number (I have built 15 and a literal shed-load of supers). You will need a reasonable table saw, a good chop-saw and...

i recently bought an Einhell from Toolstation. The fence was not square with the blade (a good centimeter out over the length of the table). There is no way to adjust it. This makes it totally unuseable. Toolstation said it had been delivered direct from Einhell and they will contact me to...

I was inspecting one of my hives yesterday and noticed that the workers were attacking drones. Three workers were having a go (biting) each drone. What is going on? It is high summer, there is plenty of forage and the weather is fantastic (for bees). Can anyone advise as to why the workers...

There is an update to this since my OP. The large swarm left the hive the following morning. They decamped into a neighbors hedge. They were duly collected by me and installed in a hive 30 miles away. The hive that they overnighted in seems to be functioneing as normal. No damage seems to...

I have a hive that was over-populated. I did a walk-away split and all was going well. The hive that retained the queen had about four frames of bees/brood/eggs and all appeared fine. Yesterday when I walked outside I was enveloped in a swarm-cloud of bees that settled all around the hive and...

I had a swarm move into one of my bait hives last year with an unmarked queen. They are black. They are also very docile. I could probably handle them without a beesuite. They are extremely prolific and have now (24th April) filled a commercial brood-box with lots of capped brood still to...

Working on the kitchen table I sterilised a miller feeder on the kitchen table (picture attached) by closing it off with plywood and duct-tape and attaching a pipe from an ozone generator and pumping the gas in. My wife asked what I was doing when it got a bit smelly. I told her that I was...

Ozone Gas Chamber I must agree with Softley. I am very reluctant to use chemicals anywhere in my hives. If I can I will attach a picture of how I use ozone to sterilise equipment. If it works this is a picture of my rather simple set-up. I have an ozone generator (I used to grow medicinal...

Hives made for Sales to generate public interest