Recent content by Simon Mills

Shake out? So meaning shake the frames of bees from the weak hive over the brood box in a strong hive and put the crown board and roof back on?

Thank you, I will follow your advice.

Last month only one of my four hives had a super on with enough honey to extract, I had put a second super on it but that had minimal honey. I cleared the full super and extracted the honey leaving the second super on. All my hives have BB and a super on at the moment. My question is should I...

I've got a couple of garden centres within a mile of my apiary, I hope my bees are taking advantage of their flowers. I did pop down to one of them a couple of weeks ago and saw lots of honey bees though I couldn't tell if they were mine 🤣 Hopefully a few sunny days will speed up the ivy flowering.

My bees are in a mixed woodland, I haven't seen many wasps at all thankfully.

Is there any reason why I shouldn't nadir the super?

I inspected my four hives and found hive 1 had lots of bees but no brood and very little stores. Hives 2 and 3 had some brood and stores on a couple of frames. Hive 4 had more brood and stores and still has a super on with honey in that was too small a quantity to extract. Is the lack of brood...

I'm only in my second year but agree that the Haynes manual is a great go to book.

Joints are comb/finger joints (straight sided not sloping like dovetails) cut using my homemade machine router table. Very important to treat the end grain of timber as this is most likely area to take in moisture.

The wood is from old wooden lockers, two pieces glued together and just over 300mm wide so great for brood boxes. The wood is some type of pine as it has a number of knots but they seem pretty flat and stable, unlike more modern timber. So far I've made three stands, four floors with slides...

I have made three hives from reclaimed pine probably more than 50 years old. I have given them 2 coats of Cuprinol Clear wood preserver. I only coated the outside surfaces and edges and left them 6 weeks before introducing bees.

In hot weather would it be a good idea to use fine mesh to cover the feed holes rather than solid wood pieces. This would give better ventilation or will the bees regulate the temperature themselves anyway?

Thanks for your comments. I don't have a spare brood box but have supers and frames so will take some with me when I inspect. I will ask what has been done with the bees so far, I suspect not too much as he has poor health. I do have a Haynes bee manual and do use it regularly as it's an easy read.

I have been given another hive of bees by a retiring beekeeper unable to cope with them. I left them to settle in my apiary but noticed yesterday there is no queen excluder between the brood box and super. Not sure if this was accidental or is it a brood and a half set up? When I do a full...

Good idea, easier than lighting the smoker!