Nuc Box made out of correx, duct tape and timber

Note the handsome and functional feet to keep it dry and the three entrance/exit holes at the front.

The Correx is magical, lightweight stuff. Can be cut with a Stanley knife and bent at 90 degrees without breaking. It glues to wood using a contact adhesive.


Note the lid hinged with duct tape and the retractable ventilation panel - which can be retracted to put a packet of fondant on top.

The lid, shown here open, is a sandwich of correx and polycarbonate sheet from Wickes. One frame shown (holds four).

Note staples in side - not its best feature, but correx seems of with it. I though it might split.

Cost all up - about £10 (€11 and rising!). Tools required: craft knife, saw, drill, steel measure.

Benefits: light, cheap, dark inside, dry.

New residents at Pickwick Towers

The urge to make some chicken, egg, yolk, etc, puns is almost overwhelming. Must resist. Must resist. Oh, all right. I give in. We live a many-layered eggsistence. There. Two puns in one. One subtle, one not. Happy now?

First swarm of the season

Took a swarm yesterday out of a beech hedge - 12 ft (4m) up.  Luckily, I had a stepladder and I was able to poke the lid of the nucleus box (in video) into the hedge and shake the swarm down into it.

It was in my friend Julie's garden, and she had gone out for the day, after phoning me.

I forgot to bring my old sheet with me, but as luck would have it, Julie had left a duvet cover on the line. See also in photo.

Mrs S was horrified - as was Julie, I think, but she was far too polite to say so. Well, I have washed it. What's more important, bagging a swarm of respecting a duvet cover?  One has to get one's priorities correct. :-)



Julie is a beekeeper too, by the way, but she didn't want this swarm. I'll look after it in the nuc box for a month, in case she changes her mind.