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Morning All, Within the last week I have inspected one of my hives to find it to be Q- or she is not laying fertile eggs and the bias to be all drone although there are a very useful amount of workers. Also this week I have managed to lure a large swarm into a bait hive. My thoughts are to...

Morning All, In your expert opinions which should we be feeding our bees 1:1 or 2:1 syrup. Reason for asking is I have a couple of swarms and a nuc (not a swarm) which are a bit light on stores, There are no supers on the hives with the swarms in (Nationals) The nuc I will try to overwinter ...

Morning All. Approx 6 weeks ago I made up a nuc from my strongest hive which included the Queen , This was done to increase my stock and deter the hive from swarming. The hive in question did not produce another queen or if they did she is not there now. This colony before I intervened was such...

Hi All I have two colonies approx 1.5 meters apart in nationals one of them being a small swarm (Possibly Q-) from a few weeks ago and the other is a large swarm with a good laying queen. Question is ,, Can I unite the two through newspaper and a Q excluder ? The Q- colony would go on top so...

Hello All. Just wondering what your thoughts are on moving colonies within the apiary are. My situation is I have four nucs that were started earlier in the season and now require to be hived up. Ideally each nuc would need to be moved approx four meters . my thought are to move the nucs away...

Hi All. Can anyone shed some light on the attached pic , Its the second time I have discovered this. I hope the file upload has been successful but if not I have stored it in my Album for you to see. The pic of interest is the colony which has invaded the side of the frame.

Hi Everyone, I have a 3-4 National supers stored in the shed from last year and have noticed a smell that may suggest to me that the honey remnants in them has fermented but I cant be sure.. My question is , Would it be safe to put these supers on a hive or would it harm the bees if the honey...

Hello All I have a query and here goes....... Upon inspection it was found that 1 of my small colonies has an infertile Q/DLW, (Only drone brood observed)my intention is possibly to unite this with another small colony which is Q+. These two colonies are at different locations approx ten miles...

May seen a daft question, But. When inspecting an AS in a nuc that has a syrup feeder on, I noticed the syrup had little green flecks in it (possibly some kind of algea) With the weather being warmer I would expect if it is algea it would soon appear , Unlike early season syrup feeding when the...

Morning All Having being a Forum member for a few years now I would like to ask you guys can you recommend any seriously good reading books on beekeeping ? I own 2 or 3 already but I am finding that some of the info you guys provide to questions posted are not in my books which makes me wonder...

Hi All Earlier in the year I carried out an AS and a walk away split ( think that,s what its called , Made up a nuc from a couple of frames of Bias and a sealed QC and bees ) from a very overcrowded hive which contained a 2014 prolific Queen and QC,s. The overcrowded hive was stripped of QC,s...

Took my dog for an evening walk around a disused limestone quarry works . This is a wildly overgrown site of special scientific interest (SSI) grazed by a few sheep, which I have visited several times over many years (not the sheep you understand) . There is a great, once worked quarry face...

Hi All, Today I witnessed a small swarm from one of my hives , at first I thought one of the virgin Queens were coming out to mate. I have around 6 of these in apidea and nucs. Bees were flying around everywhere but seemed particularly interested in a certain area near a hedge. I cant say where...

Hi guys Does anyone know if that ants entering an Apidea will steal the eggs/young larvea ? I saw a few ants in mine but have since put grease bands on the Apidea stand just to be on safe side. Thanks for any reply.

Hi All I am looking for some good reading information regarding starting Apidea,s. So far I have 5, all containing a hatched Queen , oh and yes 300g of bees too. Well, thats how I set them up with the Queen introduced via cage/candy. Hopefully the Queens will mate within a week (weather...

Morning All Some of my hives are located under a few Oak trees. Earlier today I have observed Swallows/Swifts patrolling around these trees and they are almost certainly hunting flies etc, Would they eat bees I wonder ? I hope not especially since there are about 5 virgin queens in Apideas...

Hi Folks, Can someone answer this please? Twice in the last two weeks I have put a mug full of bees into a Swibine mating nuc and both times it failed. Within a week all the bees died, there was fondant in the feed compartment and a small amount of 1:1 syrup. The bees were discovered dead all...

Hello All Having read the Apiguard FAQ my query was not answered. Maybe some of you can answer my question. It states on the pack to place the product in its tray on-top of the brood frames, My question is can the Apiguard be placed above the crownboard near the feeder hole. Would the bees...

Hi All Last season I used an uncapping knife for the purposes of uncapping but this season I used an uncapping fork. I wonder what the general feeling is regarding these tool ie pros ,cons ? I found the fork less messy and quicker to use but the most interesting thing is what happens to the...

Well, I have been busy extracting the honey and some frames that came out of the extractor weigh the same as they went in at.:hairpull: Yep, OSR !! Question is if I put it back in the hive will they clean it out or just add more to it ? I am wondering whether to save it for winter and let them...