Recent content by leonotron

I prefer double brood as well after doing brood and a half for a bit. I found single BB wasn't large enough on it's own and they wanted to swarm as a result.

It's making me think about selling a couple of over wintered nucs myself!

Where are you based Tony and have you a link to your ad?

I've no poly hives! Only wood. I prefer working with wooden hives.

Can I not leave them to overwinter in the poly? Will they not be better insulated in that? What's the benefit in moving to a regular hive? All frames are drawn out. It's the same size as a standard brood box expect 6 top and 6 bottom.

Just inspected a hive that started off as a small caste at the end of May. They were building up fairly slow but then started to come on nicely so I added a second box on top, extending to another six frames. So six in the bottom and six in the top. There was a large amount off bees in the...

Gone as in the hive gets rid of her? She's a good layer but I guess her pheromones are reducing?

If it's supercedure, will the old queen keep laying until the new one comes into lay? I've opened a hive today and found what I think is two supercedure cells. One each on the first and last frames of brood in the hive. I removed what looked like the younger cell and left one that looks like...

I did a full inspection yesterday. I'm keeping brood and a half and the half on top was totally full of honey. There was tons of space in the brood box though. No brood at all except for a few capped drone cells. Perplexed. It's the only hive that seems to have lost a large amount of bees. I...

Have a hive that swarmed that has me stumped a bit. It's on brood and a half. The hive swarmed about 4/5 weeks or so ago. (Don't have notes of dates with me). Queen was clipped so all the flying bees came back. Made up two nucs with queen cells from this hive. No eggs appeared in the...

Any update on your situation?

I always wait a month. I understand the desire to have a look and see what's happening but there's no point disturbing them when you don't have to.

Do they not need a certain balance of workers vs drones? I removed some in my earlier days, after reading that varoa prefer drone cells. These days I feel bad removing it as I'm starting to think it's better to let them do what they feel they need to do. If that makes sense.

Well there are eggs on all ten frames. Reason I was worried was last year I had early queen cell production and it caused a bit of a headache for me (great learning experience though). Based on the rate she is laying it looks like she will run out of space. I can't put a box on the bottom as...

I'm a little worried and looking for some simple advice. I've transferred two nucs into two full hives. I had drawn frames to make up the extra space. So in ten days I went from a six frame nuc to an eleven frame hive. After inspecting I've found bias on ten of the eleven frames. It's left me a...