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Hi all I wondered if anyone had recommendations for suppliers who might still have an overwintered nuc for sale? Need to be langstroth as I don't want to muck about attaching national frames to langstroth top bars (already done that, got the badge, not a fan!) Ideally Buckfast and hopefully...

Hi all My local association has relied upon the use of a member's field for it's main apiary, and it's assets have been stored with various members. It's been a good arrangement but with an eye to the future I've been talking with people about the need for the association to have something on...

Hi all I know that plenty of people have removed the feeder from their Payne's poly nucs but has anyone converted it into a double nuc? My thinking is that with the feeder removed you could drill an offset entrance at the other end and put a seperator lengthways in between the two entrances to...

Hi all I ordered a mated queen, spoke to the supplier yesterday asking if he could get it out this week and was pleased when he said he could. A wee bit surprised when I got a message from my wife expressing her shock that a buzzing parcel had just arrived in the post. Anyway this has rather...

Hi all I've acquired a rather old WBC hive that I'd like to restore and use in my garden. I realise that I need to sterilise it, but I wondered if I could kill two birds with one stone by having it dip stripped? Will an hour in a caustic solution kill off any lurking spores etc or do I need...

Hi all I've got a raised bed full of strawberries, half the bed is covered in weed suppressant fabric, the other half isn't, and the whole lot is covered in straw. The bed is full of strawberry plants with lots of fruit on them. However every time I go to pick a juicy looking fruit I find...

Hi all I carried out an artificial swarm at the weekend and I was wondering about treating with OA once all of the brood in the 'old' box (ie the one containing the queen cell) has emerged. I know a few people here carry out OA sublimation treatments outside of the 'traditional' winter window...

Hi all To my wife's delight I'm probably going to be moving my hives from my garden to an outpiary, however I'm a bit sad to be losing them. As a compromise she's agreed that I can keep one hive in the garden, as long as it's a WBC. Oh, and I've got to buy it cheap! So does anyone have a WBC...

Hi all My neighbour's house has had a colony of bees living in it for the last couple of years, peacefully co-existing with them. However they're about to get their window frames redone and the entrance to the hive is right by one of them. They're going to have to inform the managing agent...

Hi all Having finally reclaimed a chunk of my garden I'm intending to seed it, but my worry is keeping the birds off. The field over the road has just been sown and it's currently covered in pigeons and my neighbour's chickens, and I don't want the same thing happening to my grass seed. I've...

Hi all Looking at one of my hives this morning I noticed that the entrance was covered in some sort of gunk. I didn't look yesterday, but I'm sure there wasn't any there the day before, and I took a photo the day before that which clearly shows it wasn't present. It's a very weak colony, I've...

For anyone that's interested LASI have published their annual report. Available here (PDF)

Hi all I have a 11x8 greenhouse which is sitting on top of concrete hard standing. Since moving in it's mostly been used for growing tomatoes and chillis, which I've done in a mix of growbags and gravel boxes. I've also used some of those greenhouse planter bags that some of the plant...

Hi all I've read a few threads about treating swarms for varroa, but I wondered if people had used OA sublimation to do so? As it seems to have so little impact on colonies during winter I thought it'd be fine to treat a newly housed swarm with it. Has anyone done so? I've seen a reference...

Well and truly off topic this one! I've got a De Detrich stand alone cooker with an induction hob. The hob has stopped working, De Detrich don't make it any more so they're writing it off and giving me a refund. The problem is I can't find a decent replacement and I wondered if anyone on here...

Hiya For some reason I just can't get my head round the topic of F2 aggression (and there's a reason I've posted in the beginners section). As I understand it if I buy an II mated queen her offspring will be F1. So if I raise queens from her they'll be F1 queens and if they're open mated their...

Hi all I'm not very green fingered so I was hoping someone could give me some advice about pruning. In early 2013 I planted two apple trees on M26 (from Ken Muir and Chris Bowers). Both were bareroot and I assume 1 or 2 years old. Early in 2014 I planted a number of bareroot hedging...

Appears to have started a day early.

Hi all Just getting ready to try my first attempt at OA sublimation, and just had a quick thought about the best conditions to do it in. I know ideally it'll be cold to encourage clustering, but is it alright to do it whilst it's raining (which seems to be pretty much every time I'm at home)...

Hiya I carried out a hive inspection today and I came across some brace comb that had what looked like some sort of mold in it. I couldn't tell anything from smell, and it didn't look like it was the remains of a larvae...it looked more like layers of mold. Could anyone shed some light on...