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Second year, four hives in southern Ontario. Inspected hive 3 yesterday and found bullet-shaped domed cappings scattered all over the worker comb, not in a patch, just he…
Second year in Vermont, three hives, all in double deeps, and the goldenrod and aster are still coming in. Yesterday's inspection of hive 1 scared me a bit. The top deep …
Central Texas, twelve colonies. The yellowjackets have been hammering my two weakest hives for three weeks — robbing screens are on and holding — and yesterday I finally …
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…
Second year in İzmir, four hives. In August I bottled about sixty jars of my summer honey — mostly cotton and thyme from what's around us. They sat in the pantry and now …
Second year, three hives outside Galway. Hive 2 has lost its queen. Last saw eggs on the 28th of August; Sunday's inspection found no eggs, no larvae, only a handful of s…
Third year, NC piedmont, five colonies. I wanted to treat in August but our highs sat in the 90s all month, so I waited. This week the highs finally dropped to 82-84°F an…
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 …
First year in Yorkshire, one National colony from a June nuc. I started 2:1 (2 kg sugar to 1 litre water, warmed not boiled) in a rapid feeder on the 1st of September and…
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 …
Question for the nutrition-minded people. Twelve hives in Quebec, goldenrod and aster pollen coming in by the basketful right now — the frames around the brood look like …
Vermont, second year, three hives. Formic Pro came off late August and my verification wash this week says 4, 3 and 5 per 300, so lower but not the under-3 I wanted. A cl…
Pulled the propolis mats off all twelve hives in Istria this week, the end of a season that started in early June. Method, for anyone curious: plastic mesh trap mats unde…
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…
I've always used the alcohol wash, but two club members swear by sugar rolls and I wanted real numbers, not forum opinions. So last weekend, all eight Oregon colonies: ha…
After reading the uniting thread last week I finally did it: found and removed the queen from my five-frame colony in Kent, put newspaper over the strong colony's brood b…
Season is wrapping up in Małopolska: ten hives extracted, about 3 kg of cappings drained and dried, plus six old black brood frames pulled during the autumn comb rotation…
Second year in Galway with three National hives, and I'll be honest: when I "heft" the back of a hive I have absolutely no idea what I'm feeling. Last year I thought they…
Third year in the North Carolina piedmont, four hives, and the yellowjackets have hit their stride. During the day the guards handle it fine — I watch them tackle a wasp …
Third year in Uppsala, four colonies. Inspected yesterday in a rare sunny afternoon and one colony has almost no brood: two palm-sized patches of capped brood on one fram…
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