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Quebec, fifth year. I run five wooden hives and three polystyrene ones, bought partly out of curiosity, and after four winters I've got enough of a feel to be useful to s…
Drenthe, nine years. I fitted round-hole mouse guards three weeks ago and on two hives the entrance is now half-blocked with dead bees. The undertakers clearly can't drag…
Enugu, eight years, fourteen top-bar hives. While everyone north of me is wrapping boxes against the cold, my hard season is about to start too, and it's the opposite pro…
Devon, fourth year, seven hives on a field edge that turns to soup by December. My stands are timber frames on four legs and every winter they sink unevenly. By February …
Texas, fourth year, grown from two hives to fourteen and the pile of spare and retired woodenware in my garage has grown with it. Boxes with propolis an inch thick in the…
Jalisco, ten years, eighteen colonies at about 1,600 m. Half of what I read on this forum is about a winter I don't have, and I'd like to work out which parts still apply…
Małopolska, fifth year, nine colonies. My grandfather wintered bees in straw jackets and swore by them. My neighbour wraps in black roofing felt. Our winters have changed…
Hokkaido, fourth year, seven colonies. Every winter I put insulation over the crownboard, wrap the boxes, and every spring one hive is dead with mould up the inside walls…
Perthshire, seven years. My summer site is a lovely open field that turns into a wind tunnel from November, and 400 metres away there's a corner behind a beech hedge with…
Nine years, twelve colonies, all on Simplex double brood through the summer. Most of my neighbours here winter on a single box plus a super of stores, and after two damp …
Central Texas, fourth year, twelve colonies. My suit has reached the point where I put it on and the bees are angry before I've opened a box. It's absorbed a season of st…
Fifth season in Małopolskie, ten hives, and I want to stop guessing this winter. Hefting has worked well enough, but I got a fright last March when a colony I'd hefted as…
Met Office has an amber wind warning out for Devon from Saturday night — gusts up to 70 mph on the coast, and my seven hives sit on an exposed field edge above the estuar…
Oregon, fifth year. My all-medium colony — the one I set up two years ago when my back started complaining — has lost its queen. No eggs for three weeks, no cells, a few …
Ontario, second year, three hives, and my garage is now a pile of sticky stuff: three metal queen excluders caked with propolis and burr comb, six medium supers of drawn …
North Carolina, third year. I made a late split in August with a mated queen I'd bought, and it's now a decent five-frame nuc: three frames of brood, two of stores, good …
Fourth year in Hokkaido, five hives. Our winters are serious: minus 15 to minus 20°C, a metre of snow by January, hives buried to the roof most of February. I switched al…
Nine colonies on an exposed field edge in Perthshire, and last October's storm took two roofs clean off and tipped a nuc onto its face. Not doing that again, so I've got …
Minnesota first-year, two hives, and I have a truly small question that I've now seen argued three different ways online. My wooden entrance reducers have two notches, a …
Every autumn I get asked about this at the association, so here's what I do with nine colonies in Perthshire before the ground turns to iron and the boxes get too heavy t…
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