Recent content by Mint Bee

more days over 30C in the summer, longer warmer autumns, very little in the way of cold weather in the winter, variable springs in duration, rain and temperature. Very general observations, and from the south of the UK, but I'm certain all have an impact on forage and bee behavior

Worth giving the swarm queen a chance. Some swarms I've collected locally have been excellent, some have been awful both in terms of temperament and productivity and need re-queening. However, if they are any good, you could always combine with the small hive to save buying in a queen

I think there should be more respect in general for those work and make a living in the wider agriculture industry with the vagaries of the weather. Certainly more pressure and costs without any corresponding increases in honey price generally for beekeepers, even without this years poor...

careful, that's a slippery slop there with 'processing' natural set honey in buckets into crystal clear runny honey ;). Most of my honey sets in the buckets within a couple of months, but I'm constantly amazed at the quantity of runny honey sold locally as 'untreated, raw, etc.,'... Spring...

first full frame inspection of 15 hives / nucs at a site where there is no OSR locally. little to no nectar in most hives, and very limited egg laying in these. removed a couple of empty supers from hives that actually look to have gone backwards in the last few weeks. Will be feeding a...

no problem @Twin4Me. Nice to meet you. very well behaved bees considering it was not much more than 10C and overcast. Odd thing was that even though they in the middle of swarm preparation, there was a collection of dead drones outside the hive

I'm not far away from Reigate, so if you want to chat DM me. I think you need 5 posts to start a conversation? Hover over username on LHS, and then click start conversation.

just when the weather's supposed to be getting warmer, OSR is starting to go over, after about 5 /6 weeks in flower. Reckon I've got a week or so to get the frames out. Note frames rather than supers :( Bugger

Welcome to the forum. Your local beekeeping club is just starting their Wednesday meetings at the teaching apiary. If not a member its worth it to get some reassurance from other fumblers :)

insulate whatever you extract in. my 70 liter tank extracts the wax in about half the time when insulated with hot water tank jacket wrapped around it. lots of the heat is lost when steam extracting with bare metal vessel, not wonder people think its expensive

not an exact observation, so shouldn't be taken as an absolute certainty that brood rearing is on-going. Its taught buy some that pollen collection = brood rearing, and therefore there's a common comment from newer beekeepers that 'I must have a queen in the hive as they are bringing in...

bringing in pollen does not indicate that there is brood raising going on. There might be, there also might not be. Just means that the foragers have found pollen to store. Another myth.

Must be living in a cold microclimate. Not forecast to get above 12 until next Saturday. I haven't completed a full inspection yet. The few occasions its been warm enough I've been working or unavailable. Checked on a few frames and put full nucs into brood boxes, but most inspections are just...

Bees will forage at 11/12C, just that the OSR doesn't produce much if any nectar at that temperature. Tends towards a sliding scale of nectar production with an increase in temperature. If it ever gets warm enough this spring whilst the OSR is in flower, the flow of nectar is impressive.

what ever happened to the analysis that was supposed to be published on the self sustaining wild Blenheim Forest bees?