Recent content by Rio

Checked one of my hives yesterday. Thought that they had swarmed as there were sealed queen cells. Thankfully the marked queen was still there. Supersedure? Harvested a few queen cells and performed artificial swarm.

Failte isteach!

Carried out my first Snelgrove on Saturday past, so this evening I closed top door at the back of the hive and opened the bottom back door to bleed flying bees. I watched a few flying bees return - very reluctant to use the new entrance. Also opened the top side entrance. I'll take a quick look...

I'm hearing reports from across Ireland of substantial losses, despite hives being well fed and treated. I'm in the north, Ard Mhacha, and went from 12 hives at the same time last year down to 4 now. Of those 4, 3 were very poor but are improving slowly now. No obvious signs of disease, but bee...

If you have health insurance, keep it for your own consumption. Shame to waste it!

Thanks for this post! I checked my hives this evening and found one robbing another. The beggars! I think I stopped it in time by closing in the robbers, but will keep a good eye on them.

Going in today and hope to find and mark queens in 5 hives.

Made two Snelgrove boards in an ambitious effort to manage swarming and keep the bees under some sort of control. Many thanks to John Tait and the Scottish Beekeepers for the excellent guidance...

Shone a torch up through the mesh floor of each hive to check if they were all ok. All alive, some better than others. Nollaig shona daoibh!

Just watched this bee documentary on Al Jazeera: http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/101east/2015/11/bee-buzz-niue-151109130839969.html Simiul go leor.

Took my final crop off today and put on the first autumn varroa treatment. Overall i'm happy with the crop considering the lack of sunshine this summer.

Frosty morning so I gave 5 hives a light coat of boiled linseed oil and checked fondant (which is being cleared at a pace now). Fondant will need to be topped up at the weekend or if the temperatures stay in day time teens I might add a small amount of strong sugar syrup. Mouse guards all off...

Tá fáilte romhat! Welcome to the forum!

Yesterday - used oxalic acid trickle (home made) on 14 hives. All hives alive, but some more alive than others. Three were getting a bit light on stores so I gave them some fondant.

I never like to see this. As Jenkins says, this sort of effluent spells disaster for invertebrates and fish until it is diluted further down stream. Unfortunately it is an all too common site at older council run effluent "treatment" facilities which can't handle today's loads. I hope the...