Recent content by Joe Bee

Hi Jamez I am currently using a 3 year old Makita mitre saw / chop saw to make replacement national hives and associated kit. I would normally make 10 hives per year and a similar number of nucs plus some light work for furniture restoration. I was amazed to find that the front end bearing was...

Scots Pine. Properly treated it lasts 10-15 years.

I would normally make 10 to 15 brood boxes/ supers every year from red deal or cedar and have found that cracks and splits are inevitable. I use a good quality water proof glue to fill the cracks and rub down when the glue has dried. If the gaps are greater than .5 mm you can insert wood...

I also use deep insulated roofs with ventilation but of the wooden variety, but they seem perfect for the job

No that's as a result of dyslexia and dialect, but you know what I mean

As a beekeeper in central Ireland I have always used treated red deal or cedar national hives which I have made myself, as an alternative to poly nukes I used either timber 6 frame nukes or a full brood box with a 5 frame block, with good success. I have found over a long number of years that...

Why shake them out. As you have a reduced colony due to drone laying it would be a simple process to finding the queen. I dont think putting a sheet of newspaper above a brood box and putting a brood box on top is either fiddley or complicated. Lastly I disagree with your theory of remove a...

In the case of a drone laying queen it is not necessary to shake out the bees if you intend uniting them. If the queen is removed and the colony is left queenless for 3 or 4 days uniting the queenless and queen right colony's is the logical route to take if there are sufficient worker in the...

About 60% of the Queens would last 2 seasons. A further 30% would last 3 seasons and 10% would either be swapped out or not survive their first season/winter

As a beekeeper of 30 years all my colonies are AMM and living in central Ireland I see winter feeding as one of the most important undertakings during the bee year. I have come to the conclusion that strong colonies of bees going into the winter make high yield colonies the following year...