Bee inspector came today

[Andy Duff]

Our regional bee inspector came today (Ian) and brought glorious sunshine with him. If you have not had a visit from your bee inspector I reccomend you do, he was really helpful and I got some great advice on a couple or three improvements that I could make. Hive 1 was cofirmed as Q-, our former Carniolans although not fully converted to the dark side are a tad too grumpy for an allotment, although they have retained their "slight" tendancy to swarm.
The dodgey brood pattern is down to the weather, no signs of disease.
Nuc 2 (6 frames) is struggling and eating all the feed as fast as I put it in.

This evening after a massive cloud burst number 1 assistant and I waded through the water and united nuc 2 with Q- hive.

Watching him I realised I had been making a very basic error when inspecting the hives, I was forgetting to put a few puffs of smoke into the hive entrance before opening them up (that's a 30 year hiatus in bee-keeping for you)

Get your bee inspector to pay you a visit, you and your bees will benefit and best of all it's free

 

[Queens59]

Glad it went well - they are there for a reason

 

[Dilligaf]

I had a notification that ours (Doug) is visiting next Tuesday, Weather permitting.
Unfortunately I'm at work.
I met him last year at our association when he gave a talk and he is a very nice bloke.
I have just e-mailed the details I think he needs, access instructions & a brief history of each hive and asked him to help himself.
If there are any issues, he will ring me.
I'm just miffed that I can't be there to observe when he has a look.

 

[Andy Duff]

I had a notification that ours (Doug) is visiting next Tuesday, Weather permitting.
Unfortunately I'm at work.
I met him last year at our association when he gave a talk and he is a very nice bloke.
I have just e-mailed the details I think he needs, access instructions & a brief history of each hive and asked him to help himself.
If there are any issues, he will ring me.
I'm just miffed that I can't be there to observe when he has a look.

To quote Homer (the yellow one, not the Greek one) DOH!

 

[BBG]

Watching him I realised I had been making a very basic error when inspecting the hives, I was forgetting to put a few puffs of smoke into the hive entrance before opening them up (that's a 30 year hiatus in bee-keeping for you)

Get your bee inspector to pay you a visit, you and your bees will benefit and best of all it's free

We find a tiny puff is enough and tiny puffs when/if they crowd the handgrips at frame edges.

Shirely yours haven't been attacking you for not puffing?

How old was he. Did you find the bees had attitude at having a stranger there - we thought so, but maybe a fancy.

Glad you were free of problems.

 

[Andy Duff]

Shirley is an *****, most of the good people on here will confirm that.
I don't know how true it is, but I have been told that Shirley's mum keeps wasp in a wasp hive.

 

[BBG]

And in case you're not sure of the difference
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