BBKA Forum

You can only alternate the direction of the boxes in symetrical square hives like the National. It won't work with a WBC nor a Langstroth and I am sure there will be others.

Steve (The Drone) wrote: ↑

29 Apr 2019, 02:43

Time for a new myth. Local honey cures local hay fever. I for one certainly foster this story- lots of happy customers. But is it the placebo effect?

I do have customers who says that the (local) honey works. My assumption is that small amounts of pollen in the honey allow the body to get used to it. However my hayfever is from grass pollen, so my honey would be of no use.

One issue is that people think that taking a spoonful will give an instant relief like a drug, however the honey would need to be taken over a long time in order ti build up an immunity to the pollens in it.

Jim Norfolk wrote: ↑

25 May 2019, 18:32

You can only alternate the direction of the boxes in symetrical square hives like the National. It won't work with a WBC nor a Langstroth and I am sure there will be others.

Your right Jim but the question still stands for national, why not kris's cross?

For me Chris, with nationals, if you kris cross them then then you must change your stance as you lift off each of your great stack of supers. More twisting your back whilst lifting those heavy weights!
Steve.

Steve, I tend to find they're as easy to crack open and twist round regardless of orientation.

Suppose so. Will give it a try anyway and see what happens. We do tend to get hung up on our favourite ways!

I've been digging through this thread trying to find out if anyone posted about queen cell location on frame, regardless of total quantity of queen cells, determining whether it's swarm or supersedure.
Fact or myth?

It is beekeepers and only beekeepers who infer the potential consequences of their construction and put a figurative label on them. I think the hopeful inference of supercedure going on has probably cost most of us a few avoidable swarms at some point.

I think the location of cells gig is as often misleading as it is helpful. I suspect many beekeepers lose the old queen in a swarm with many workers and the many thousand newly emerged bees persuades them there has just been a Supercedure.

You can also induce a supercedure with a protected cell introduced anywhere. I go for myth.

Unless you clip your old queens, I suggest any cell is considered a potential swarm cell in the period April to July. If you clip queens and always reduce to a single cell, the outcome should be the same, just by a slightly different process.

The old comb debate again,I'm replacing old comb that my bees are refusing to even walk on.
However I think back to last week I was doing a cut out from a barn conversion-two big healthy colonies with 2 foot long combs that obviously been there for years
No one would have replaced those.

Alfred wrote: ↑

23 Jul 2019, 21:56

The old comb debate again,I'm replacing old comb that my bees are refusing to even walk on.
However I think back to last week I was doing a cut out from a barn conversion-two big healthy colonies with 2 foot long combs that obviously been there for years
No one would have replaced those.

There is a cycle even in nature for comb replacement. It's called wax moth. Bees are known to make new comb and then leave old comb alone, wax moth move in and eat the old comb, leaving room for the bees to start again with new wax.

There are several studies proving comb replacement being a healthy choice for bees however when exactly to replace is a good question