Recent content by irishguy

Im wanting to build a stone smoke house and bbq area at the side of my house however i have my bees roughly 1 acre away from the hives on the same side of where i want this smoke house/bbq area to be. Been wanting to build this for some time now, even before i got into beekeeping but now ive...

Forgot to mention, this hive is fully insulated from top to bottom in 100mm xtratherm insulation.

**** happens. every beekeeper makes them. I knew it was going to happen anyway so dont really care. Now i know what the hive is like. If i leave them, sure theyll just brood up the 2 supers fully and then itll be more difficult to sort it. Im sure if i reverse the brood box above, theyll...

Was going to leave it another while to inspect but so busy with work and thought id jump in today. This is a hive that has been untreated in 2 years, came out of winter excellent. Has lots of stores, bias in the 2 supers and some stores in the bottom brood box however the most of the BB would...

They look like a stand on top of a stand with hives on top. Unless you are 8 ft tall, Get that saw out and cut the middle part stand out. What was the thinking behind having them so high and so tucked into the hedge? I wouldnt like to be tending to them if they ended up with full supers on top...

They have plenty of stores. Just no frames that are fully capped yet. What im afraid of is if i feed, the queen will swarm. I know its late in the season but im near sure ive read on here a queen throwing queen cells so late in the season before.

I dont mind this. I wasnt even looking any honey from this hive. I was just curious to see how theyd do without a QE. Ive been surprised at how fast the hives fill compared to any time ive used a QE

Whatll happen thou if i feed, the weather changes for the good and theres no more room in the hive. I have winter feed ready there to feed but since the hive is near full, i as thinking is there even any need to fed them.

One of my hives I've let the queen go into the super. Awhile back when I added the super, they queen started laying in the centre and was filling all other cells with honey thou they where uncapped and capped. We got a bit of bad weather so the bees started consuming the store's. Weather picked...

Last time I treated bees was 2 years ago. Bees still alive. Maybe I'll be wiped out this winter or maybe I won't. The fact is, I won't be treating them. They'll either learn to live with them or die. They've lived with them for a few years. Maybe this is the year they'll die, if not, well get...

Twice those single frames have built into nucs, then full colonies. That's all I can go on. I've also lost good size colonies so I'm not saying I'm Billy big bollix here looking some sort of prize because I've successfully wintered with 2 frame. All I can tell you, twice I've overwintered with...

I have overwintered with 1 frame of brood successfully on two occasions! If you start a thread asking would it be OK to overwinter with one frame, the majority on here will tell you its a waste of time to try it. I say, go for it. It's worth trying and don't be surprised when them nucs are...

Defo dont have a drone layer! Its only on this frame that the drone cells are.

Sort of agree, however the little feckers are stealing all my honey:hairpull:

Right simple! What ya mean words fail you:hairpull: Its like this, i fecked up slightly in the heat of the moment. I have a very busy schedule and made a stupid error. At the time, it was either a frame with foundation or a frame with drawn comb. I took the latter and only realised after the...