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good stuff, thanks M4tt thats saved me a failed experiment:-) and to finish up heres a pic that sums up the weather at the moment

hi, I've got a bunch of hives that I've just moved into flowering manuka, they're already around 4 stack (yes, fun to move). the top boxes on all of them are around half filled with bush/clover, none capped. the box below also partially filled with top third capped. Id like a clean seperation so i dont dilute the manuka, and of course Id like the bees to get cracking on the manuka:-) Ive heard if you put an empty super (no frames) below a box and it causes the bees to switch to robbing mode and pull the honey down. Im thinking this is a possible way to get t

Eureka I’m very pleased to announce royalty is indeed in residence. Eggs and young larvae sighted this avo... I didn’t search too hard to spot the new queen. As soon as I flipped the lid, I was fairly certain the hive was again Queen right and back on track. They’ll be left alone for another week.

Make that another 2. well waddayouknow @tudor, went to smoke the bees down in to a single box so that I could close it up tonight and merge in the morning, and there’s eggs in at least 3 combs. Just 1 egg in each cell. Put the hive back together very carefully and quickly and i’ll Look again in 10 days or so. So there you go, inaction was the best course of action after all. I thought they were acting queen right the other day and turns out I was right ?

Here is a photo, struggled a little with the sizing for upload

It works to a point, but not when there is a flow on. Many beeks 'undersuper' and when the flow stops, the bees ignore the empty bottom super. They certainly won’t move honey from the top box down to it. Encouraging bees to rob the top box and move it down will work when they are hunkering down and when they are interested in storing honey close to the brood, or reducing brood area. It will work better if they have to go through a hole in a hive mat to access it

Great picture

The question I have learnt to ask is why? I do and don’t strap my hives... I was greatful for strapping one of the hives. After a storm I discovered it was knocked over by a fallen bough. It was quickly rectified, without too many ansy bees

Every one in this accident were good just a shaken up

Ive walked back one of my earlier statements. I had suggested that Beeks use the Double row Staples as a general staple and the EP's as a backup for hygienic Hives only This was largely because of the degree of difficulty in making EP's The EP is still difficult to make but the machine will now run at 7.5hrs a day actual up time (25% down time) at 25 Staples a minute actual production. This means that the EP will now be considered the base product. Double row will continue to be available at a lower price than the EP but the gap will continue to close. It would be nice to see m

@kaihoka.....they aren't here to gain anything except the disruption and waste of other peoples time. Hence Trolls. Its not as if they can be identified easily. In the dim dark ages, it used to be the anonymous phone call...different generation, different mindless amusement.

Excellent ??

galaxy s9. it takes great photos!

Too late. They are gone burgers.

He would likely condemn the bees since they are Italian, being inferior to American worker bees. While at the same time employing their services since they are cheap labour.

Yes Frazzel that is exactly what I think. A very recent email from a world renowned expert agrees that there is probably no direct link between chewing and efficacy. When making claims like this Im reluctant to bring names into a public discussion.

Great idea. Excellent result. See how the freestyle cells are mostly drone size cells. Great for storing honey in, not so ideal in the brood nest. Looks delicious?

A season of low honey production countrywide could actually be a good thing it might get rid of some of the packers stock piles

Incredible pic !!!! Love the native bee on the left . Unaffected by the rain ?

2nd one done. Spam advertising

It sure is the watch and wait game... obviously an egg hunting day...and new queens My ‘hive to go’ has fresh eggs and young larvae today

Looks like you just smack that rim with a hammer and you good to go. ?. The car, not so much.

In Auckland you would rapidly land up with empty frames as every ant either side of the black stump will be flat out dining on the honey.

Thanks for that. I put in a frame of brood from my nice carni hive at school, that hasn't swarmed, or even looked like it, and has put down a lot of honey so far. I am off on school camp tomorrow (taking kids horse trekking and fishing at wanaka) so will see what is there when I come back. There was a heap of eggs and young larvae so I notched a heap of cells. If there are queen cells can I assume no virgin?

From that Philbee I read that you believe it’s the contact with the staple rather than the chewing of it that spreads the ingredient around. we will be ordering the narrow staples in the new year

Completely different. Hotter and drier last year. This year the bees spend most of their time indoors . It's wet and windy They bees are clever . I don’t need any surplus this season ?

Looking back a year at last years photos. I had three supers on hives 12 months ago. Most hives have one empty super on them this year. Quite a contrast. To be fair though, last year was the first I had got buttercup honey and our flow usually starts close to Christmas. Last year it was all over by then

thanks:-) hah yeh, clouds of native bees happily working away while my bees stay at home eating honey and watching netflix

Merge with a queen excluder and newspaper. That way if you do have a virgin In there she will be protected and start laying and you can re split.

more common is spammers just getting a few posts under their belt before spamming. the other is bumping post count up to get other forum features enabled, like PM's. sometimes its just people doing replies on threads they like so they get notifications when new info is posted. but its also a method taught to Internet beginners, especially old people, to do random non-offensive replies to get used to forums etc. in this case is feels like the later.

I think I spend to much of my time in the non human natural world to really understand that mind set . Nature is normally not that inefficient.

I have nailed one. I will get to the other shortly. Looks like trolls. If you see these, then please report the post (top right hand of the post) and the moderators will sort it later.

Someone who takes part in internet conversations for some nefarious purpose. David, and his namesake Broderick, are fake ID's, here for no good. Some more fake ID's saying stupid stuff may pop up over the next day or so.

What on earth do you do with your toothbrush. No. Please don't answer.

"Crate Day" down south ...... whitebait patties, paua, venison steaks on the BBQ washed down with copious quantities of Speights followed by loud music and drunken debauchary.

I started out in full kit , gloves veil etc . Now I always wear the suit but seldom put the hood up and only use the gloves for activities like lifting a full box of honey overflowing with bees .

Gee. Bleach and washing powder straight on bare skin, that’s a recipe for contact dermatitis and permanent chemical sensitisation of its own kind.

Err, not so much the 'queen has dodgy genetics' . . . the genetics are not going to change that quickly (same goes for swarming . . .just because a hive swarms does not mean the future queens are genetically predisposed to swarming). More, its likely the queen is infected with the particular virus . . and thus all the offspring have the virus passed on. Chalkbrood may have the fungus within the combs (as opposed to being passed on)

Requeening a sacbrood/ chalkbrood hive is done because there’s something genetically dodgy the queen. Because your bees raised a new queen from an egg of the dodgy one the problem hasn’t gone away. You need to requeen with a healthy queen.

Sometimes the bees will make big cells, sometimes they won’t. We can trick them to a point but they’re not stupid, you will always get the best cells when it is a time that is natural to the bees to make them and when they think they have the surplus resources to put in to them. The best way to get good cells is to use and incredibly strong hive to make them. The best way to incorporate natural selection is by carefully picking your breeder by traits you want in your queens. I select breeders from hundreds of hives and it takes a long time to pick them, I will choose

I usually get “do you get stung?” ?

As a new beek, it’s the most common question I get asked ”Do you get much honey off your hives?” I get great pleasure in telling them that there is so much more to beeking than honey ? Firstly the honey is the bees food....

Hopefully not. Mine's about as good as I can stand it now !

Did we keep you up .....?

I think you must live near me?

Ok, so its out now. Trump is my uncle and he runs a large beekeeping operation in Cuba. The Caravan was a bunch of disgruntled employees wanting to Know when they were getting their Shipment of Staples

Does that make you a Billy goat @Trevor Gillbanks?

You live & learn I didn't know trump was a beek !

@jamesc I travel a little further than that