Top bar hive seduction!

[madasafish]

Carnies? Well 2nd generation queens are v well behaved - so far. Next year might be fun..

The Warres were home built - as were the TBHs- and my building leaves lot to be desired.. Gaffer tape to the rescue!

No swarm control - so already one cast... I'll give them a year..and replace with TBHs.. if not a success.. I opened one up in hot weather and two combs collapsed... think I will go to semi frames to try to avoid that...

I've gone from 1 hive in April 2010 to 6 now so the learning experience has been interesting... Our fruit this year has bumper crops- whether the weather or far better pollination I know not.

Trying to find ley lines in garden... I obviously can't dowse or there are none :-)

Like stromness above, the lack of lifting with TBHs is great.. Warres not so.. On the other hand, I used to weightlift when younger.. but that was decades ago.. Inuslated roofs. make a difference.. Knauf Insulation Board in roof- B&Q...

[Neils]

I had Roger "do" our apiary, I keep an open mind but I will say it was an interesting experiment when it comes to ley lines.

The nadiring aspect of warrés on top of the apparent difficulty undertaking swarm management (in an urban environment) are the two aspects that really put me off them, but always interested to hear how others get on with them.

[Trog]

What on earth do mythical ley lines have to do with keeping bees? Or are those antennae on their heads really dowsing rods?

[gavin]

They're all the rage in the senior echelons of the the BBKA apparently.

[Trog]

Oh, well, that explains everything, Gavin ;D

[Rosie]

Roger Patterson is behind quite a bit of the ley-line interest in the BBKA having been convinced of their existence by John Harding.

Roger visited me last summer and tested my apiary and later some interesting stones I found buried under peat. He found what he thought were ley lines criss-crossing my ground and correctly told me where he thought swarms might settle. He later checked out my stones and declared that they were an ancient grave of a man between 20 and 25 years old who died between AD 900 and 950. I was later visited by an expert from our county archaeologists department based at Bangor who poked about with a trowel for a while and told me there were 3 bodies under the stones which were typical of Christian burials of about AD900.

I have a scientific bent and still hence find ley line existence hard to accept but Roger has done enough to prevent me from dismissing it out of hand.

Rosie

[Jon]

Aye, but if Roger were a true oracle he would get that dysfunctional forum software on the bbka site fixed properly instead of faffing around with dowsing rods!!