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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 …
Ontario, second year. I extracted in early September, dumped the cappings into two food-grade buckets with lids, and told myself I'd render the wax on a weekend. That wee…
Yorkshire, first year. A chap at our association lost a colony in January to a green woodpecker that drilled a hole the size of a two-pound coin through the side of a bro…
Kent, third year, five colonies after the unite. My winter treatment has always been a dribble because that's what my mentor lent me, and a few people at the association …
Andalusia, ten years, 22 colonies. The northern threads about timing a treatment for the broodless period are lovely to read and completely inapplicable here. My colonies…
Uppsala, third year, four colonies. We've got wet snow forecast for the middle of next week, which is early even for here, and I'm not ready. Mouse guards are still in th…
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…
Ontario, second year, three colonies. Everyone tells me the most important factor in winter survival is going in strong, and nobody will tell me what strong means in a wa…
Twenty-two years in middle Georgia, 40-odd colonies. October here isn't a wind-down, it's a knife fight. Days still hitting 24°C, nothing much coming in, and every colony…
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…
Flanders, six years, fourteen colonies, and for four of them I've deliberately run a mix: six with bought Buckfast queens and the rest headed by queens raised from whatev…
Istria, seven years. Our regional show is the third weekend of November and I've entered twice: once mid-table, once last in my class, and both times I got a score sheet …
Minnesota, first year. Following the advice on here I cracked the lid on a mild afternoon to check my fondant plan and got a proper look down between the frames. Both col…
Spring report from the other hemisphere. Six years, 30 hives across four sites around Wellington, and October is the month that decides my season. Everything is booming —…
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…
Yorkshire, first year, two hives side by side. Same apiary, same forage, same treatment, but hive one is so heavy I can barely tilt it and hive two comes up easily with o…
Muğla, fifteen years, 60 colonies on pine. For anyone who doesn't know our system: the pine honeydew flow here runs from late summer into autumn, and in a good year we're…
Devon, fourth year, seven hives. Two of them are simply too small. Both have laying queens and no obvious disease; both cover about three and a half frames of bees and bo…
Alentejo, sixth year. The strawberry trees are flowering in the hills behind me and I moved six hives up there three weeks ago, mostly out of curiosity — medronho honey s…
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…
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