Recent content by rolande

Finman said lots of 'stuff', that certainly sounds like a direct quote.

Two questions here. Yes they can be reused but as for suggesting that's what you do.... I'd be more inclined to suggest you cull the combs and invigorate the bees by getting them drawing new comb but of course this is only a suggestion.

Difficult to make hard and fast rules with biology. Some clearly will/do result in good queens but I've seen enough good queens superseded in their first year to be dubious of emergency queens.

Yes, it's me; three smashed metacarpals and five severed tendons, but (@The Poot ) healing extremely well, I've even had hives open one handed over the last couple of days. Not easy but someone's got to do it . Grafting may be an issue but the Miller method should be a doddle.

DEEP travel screen and a second, good, pair of hands. Yes, this is a serious answer.

Should blend in well with the multitude of robotic beekeepers out there then. On a serious note it was actually nice to skim through this old thread.

Holding the cage upright so that the opening is at the bottom helps, the queen and workers tend to walk upwards away from the door; as madasafish said, thumb over the door between loading individual bees.

I reckon that nostalgia keeps me going through the winter - some of my earliest memories involve bees in one way or another; and beekeepers who I'll never see again outside of those memories. Once we get to this time of year it's now just sheer enjoyment of being around bees. Having had major...

and, a young queen looks younger than an old one, I don't think this is a matter of experience, just eyesight.

Quite possibly a supersedure queen from last autumn that failed to mate

Not sure it's scare mongering, simply that times have changed. We did lots of stuff before that perhaps wouldn't be a brilliant advert if repeated today. As always, I take the view that everyone should do what's right for themselves but there's no point in asking a question if there's only one...

Informative interactive herdlike

The first part of my post pretty much covers the actual reality. We all do as we see fit. Personally, going forward, I see no gain to myself or anyone else who sells honey by advising the use of such boards. So I don't.

I can remember some of the old boys soaking hive bodies in sump oil as a standard procedure and I'm sure there are still lots of very old creosote *soaked* hive bodies in use which no longer show any sign of the creosote -until you cut in to them to make a repair, then you smell the stuff...

But it's not the diverse combination which we might expect from an uncontrolled congregation area either, which might be of real concern outside of a very intense breeding program despite B+ stating: "it isn't the number of drones a virgin queen mates with that is significant but that they are...