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.

Woodpecker damage

Just noticed this on my commercial hive that is in a field in the middle of nowhere.

What a nuisance!  Will have to invest in some chicken wire before it gets any worse.

Disaster! A dead colony

My best colony has starved to death. I am bereft and very cross with myself.


It was fine a couple of weeks ago, and the hive next to it is fine.  I guess it just didn't have the same amount of stores.

And the hive that survived had fewer bees going into the winter.

I will be much more careful in future and feed syrup even when it doesn't look as though they need it.

Cleaning off the brace comb

If your queen excluder is not touching the top bars and is not a complete bee-space away from the top bars, the bees will make brace comb between the QX and the top bars.

And I have scraped it off.

Had an interesting talk at the BeeSoc recently on beespace, and this was one of the messages. Pay attention to correct bee space and your hive will be much less clogged with propolis and brace comb.

Nasty looking insect

Dunno what this is - but it doesn't look good. It had pupated between the lifts of the WBC hive.