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Hello everyone For some of the honey I got this year, I used the crush-and-strain method. (I put the cut out comb in a bucket and crush it with a wide putty knife, then transfer it to a flour sieve over a bucket to let the honey drain. 12-18 hours later about 80% of the honey is drained out...

G'day everyone Local hobby beekeepers sell their honey mostly in bottles with a screw-on lid, but I was wondering if it is a good or a bad idea to sell honey in bottles with a rubber-ring type press-on lid. Do you have any experience about this? These bottles have a higher charm factor...

G'day everyone The cast-off club extractor seized up when it was my turn to use it, and we (me and a friend) "repaired" it by cleaning it out and lubricating it with sewing machine oil. The mechanism was filled to the brim with bearing grease, and sand and dirt got into the grease. I do...

G'day everyone I took the plunge this year and fed the bees soy flour mixed into the fondant. They seem to be taking it up (or perhaps they're just carrying it around and I'll find it all again when I clean the hive). The only place where I could get soy flour was at a health shop. The...

Hello everyone I'm investigating fondant recipes posted by beekeepers. I've narrowed it down to Doug Brown's recipe and Rusty Burlew's recipe (for the moment), and right now I'm trying to determine the viability of Rusty's recipe. For this, I need some calculations, if you are able. Suppose...

Hello everyone I've melted wax from about 250 combs recently, and I'm left with a lot of slumgum. I can see that there is a lot of pollen in the slumgum. I know that there is still some wax left in it, but I was unable to get much more wax out of it than what came out of it when I steamed the...

Hello everyone Normally, when I have very little wax to melt, I simply use the kitchen stove, but I've recently obtained about 250 one-year-old frames with drawn-out comb that I would like to clean out of wax efficiently (the foundation used in them was "contaminated" with about 5-10% paraffin...

Hello everyone It looks like three of my seven overwintering hives may possibly be suffering from nosema (signs of dysentery both outside and inside the hive). The hives are located in a club apiary where there are hives from other beekeepers as well. There may be other reasons why the bees...

Hello While researching the Hancock hive, I came upon this unrelated observation hive. The flight entrance is high above the observers, so you can have a live observation hive in a fairly public location. * video * web site I wonder to what degree one can replace the wooden chimney with just...

Hello everyone Those who are interested in what happens across the narrow sea may have heard that the Dutch and Belgian beekeepers suffered quite a blow due to bad foundation in 2016. This foundation was manufactured by a Belgian company who also sold foundation to the Dutch national...

Hello everyone Does anyone here have any actual experience with using MDF or triplex (plywood) for making frames? Thanks Samuel ==

Hello everyone I, too, have a bucket full of old comb to be converted to wax. I don't have straining cloth, but I do have two metal wire honey strainers (one fine and one coarse). Is it safe to strain the wax through those? I mean, will it damage the strainers? Has anyone done this before...

Hello everyone I'm considering buying twenty British National supers from Mann Lake UK, but I would like to hear some comments about the likely quality that I'm going to get, since I won't be able to return them cheaply. Have any of you ever bought these flat-pack hives from Mann Lake, and can...

G'day everyone An experienced beekeeper told me that it's better for wintering preparation if the Ashford-type syrup feeder is placed with its entrance over the hive entrance (i.e. towards the front), instead of towards the rear. (The red "x" shows the entrance position.) I'm curious as to...

Hello everyone In my locality, requeening is often done by allowing more than one queen to hatch (or placing more than one queen cell into the hive, or putting more than one unmated queen into the hive), and letting the queens fight it out (i.e. kill each other, until one remains). The theory...

Hello everyone The Dutch (and Belgians) have a beekeeping method they call the Aalst method ("Aalster methode"), but I have found that different beekeepers understand the term "Aalst method" to refer to a range of different things, some of which are only marginally related to the original...

Hello everyone In an article in a Dutch beekeeping journal from the 1950s, I read about a hive called a "little English hive". From the pictures and drawings it would appear to be a standard 6-frame nuc box. The author mentions in passing that these hives were used for exporting bees from the...

Hello everyone I've just had word that George Imirie's Pink Pages have been updated with all the previously missing articles. http://pinkpages.chrisbacherconsulting.com/index.html Samuel

Hello everyone This year my sugar syrup seems keen on fermenting. I have not had this problem last year. I have had to swap out fermenting sugar syrup several times already. It's getting a bit expensive :-| Last year, my syrup was 2:1, but this year, my syrup is 1:1. Would that affect the...

Hello everyone I'm curious to find out what are the average measurements for top-bar hives in the field, whether home-made or store bought. If you have a top-bar hive, please tell me where you got it and also what its outside measurements are, according to this schematic: I only need A, B...