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Up to this year I have been using a tangential extractor which I found tended to damage the comb if I span it fast enough to extract all the honey. I suspect that meant I was leaving a fair amount of honey in the frames. I store the supers wet in the garden and even though they were sealed they...

Something I came across recently has me pondering. I was talking to a chap who loves making things out of scrap material. Some of his creations are brilliant and he is very clever with his hands. His wife wanted to try keeping bees and asked him to make her a hive. He looked at what he had in...

I have a colony I was advised to feed with fondant because they got going very late in the season and hadn't got much by way of stored. I made up a fondant board using 4kg of sugar and put it on just over a week ago - I've just checked today and they've taken the lot. Looks like I'll need to...

B&Q are selling these clamps less than half price at the moment (usually over a tenner - currently £4.19). They are brilliant for making up hive parts, not only holds everything together but even I can get them square.

Bit of a weird thing... In late April I bought a new colony from an experienced member of our association which has done a few odd things. The colony seemed slow to build up and sure enough in June I found a supercedure cell on a frame. The original queen was still there and laying so I put...

Spotted this today whilst strimming near the hives. It was about 3 inches long. Personally I think it's a man eating caterpillar but it may have another name.

I took off three supers and extracted them yesterday. As last year I put the wet supers on a closed floor on a stand with a good fitting roof. The idea being to ventilate them so as to prevent mould. Last year this worked fine. This morning I wake up to find the supers surrounded by bees who...

Just been home and thought I'd wander out to the hives. I did an AS on Monday and was bit alarmed to see loads of bees around the nuc. A closer look revealed that in the heat the entrance disc had come loose and slid round due to the weight of the solid bit being uppermost Consequently the...

I bought a nuc of 'Buckfast ' bees this spring. They are very calm but haven't built up very quickly. When I transferred the frames from the nuc into the hive I noticed one frame was warped which meant they build brace comb into the space created. Due to the limited size of the colony I didn't...

A friend asked me to look at a tree in her garden which has bees in the trunk. She has MS so has gardeners in to take care of things for her. The gardeners won't go into that part of the garden due to the bees so she is a bit stuck. It is a big old lime tree in a conservation area so no chance...

Today I re-fought the battle of the Alamo with my grumpy hive. I thought I'd catalogue events in the hope it may be of some use to other newbies taking on a grumpy colony. This was a swarm I took in for a neighbouring beek. They've been fine until the last week when they got aggressive during...

A neighbour who keeps bees had a swarm out of his hive and nowhere to put them so we marched them into a spare hive in our garden. They are fine generally but over the past fortnight they've been getting overly defensive during inspections. Now they are starting to follow us around the garden...

I have a double brood hive and meant to replace the lower box whilst it was empty early in the spring. For a variety of reasons this didn't happen. Would it be OK to add a box of new foundation on top of the current top box, let them draw it and move up into it and then remove the bottom box in...

I hived a swarm from a neighbour's hive last Thursday (he called on me for help as he had nowhere to put them and was worried his neighbours would get upset) - I checked them today (Wednesday) ie the 7th day after hiving them and found eggs. He told me the hive had swarmed the previous day so I...

I am collecting a nuc on Wednesday. The chap I am getting it from has advised me to transfer it into a hive pretty quickly as the frames are getting full. The forecast for the rest of this week is not very warm - between 8-10 degrees round here. Will transferring the frames from the nuc to a...

I had a nuc that lost their queen over the winter. I checked them again today and no sign of brood - the bees were distinctively sounding unhappy. I have shaken them out and dismantled the hive and they are finding their way into the other hive.(All went well apart from one little darling...

I have tried making some candles - it did not go well :blush5: I thought I'd keep it simple so I used some tea-light cases with pre-waxed wicks. It seems that the beeswax melts quicker than paraffin wax and the wick floods. Anyway, whatever the cause once lit they soon just go to a tiny flame...

Now the wasps are all gone what do I do with the entrance restrictions I put in place to keep them out. Both hives have a solid block with a one beespace entrance, covered with a plastic tube. OMF with the inspection boards removed. Should I remove the entrance blocks and install mouse guards...

The setting - new to this, started this year. Wooden nationals in our garden. My two colonies are a double brood and single (taken as a split back in the summer) which I have not gone through since early Sept on the grounds of not wanting to interfere with them as they prepare for winter. Last...

I have been trying various baits and have found that in our garden wasps are mostly drawn to a mix of vinegar, sugar and salt. But it seems that the colour of the trap makes a huge difference. Having found the bait that most of them went for I then set out a variety of traps - the one which...