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There was a change of plans re. the grafting as our local BIBBA rep. advised against using a cell starter box and suggested something like the Ben Harden method of queen rearing instead.

This is less disruptive to the bees as it is a queenright method of rearing queens and doesn't involve setting up a roaring queenless starter box.

TT called for me on Thursday around 5 o clock and we headed up to the allotments where I keep my bees.
I have one huge colony on ...

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Well I wasn't planning on seeing Tim until tomorrow but he called me on the mobile today about 6.00 when I was up at my allotment. A friend of his who is a pest controller had been called out to a swarm in Derryvolgie Avenue which is just about the poshest address in Belfast. He didn't want to touch it so called Tim who then called me.
I gathered together the swarm gear, skep, sheets, etc and we headed off to BT9 which is the post code one aspires to in Belfast
The swarm was 25 feet ...

On St Pat's Day I put the remnants of a colony into an Apidea as there was only a couple of hundred bees left with the queen.
They have been living in the garden shed ever since.
I took the apidea up to my apiary at the allotment and took two frames of sealed brood plus adhering bees from my strongest colony. I shook in some more bees as well and added a frame of honey and another of drawn comb.
I put the queen in a roller cage and hung it between the two frames. The nuc is ...

This morning I arranged to meet one of the our new BKA members. I've got to know him a bit over the last few months. He is a first year beekeeper with a single colony.
He is known to one and all as Tiny Tim given that he is 6' 11".
last week I discovered that he is is a native bee enthusiast and a BIBBA member.
He also has 15 mating nucs and is very keen to get going with queen rearing.
To some extent, as a beginner, he may be putting the cart before the horse with ...

Well the Basic Assessment started and then we had to stop for reasons outside our control.

Just being on another apiary was useful, that's pretty much doubled the number of hives I've seen now and seeing how other people deal with their hives is always interesting. I do think I was perhaps a little hasty removing queen cells when I did the AS, going to two teaching apiaries and watching queens going back and forth and being swapped around has made me think that mayde I should have ...