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Agreed, except most of those I have seen would be rectangular holes designed to accept a vertical cylinder type skep. These circles are puzzling. In my copy of Mr. Root's Encyclopaedia there is a...

http://www.panoramio.com/photo/59317086

The above link shows a photo which is entitled "colmenas" and is of a location in Northern Spain. I wonder if anyone recognizes this as a method of keeping...

My sympathies. I am just west of you in Ontario, went into winter with eight solid colonies. By Jan three were gone (complete silence inside box). In the next month another three died, I now have one...

I run my 8 colonies with top and bottom entrances. Bottom entrance is normal full width of box, top entrance is a 2" slot cut in the inner cover on the underside which is intended for ventilation. A...

I normally run all deeps full frame with plastic foundation. Good so far.
I decided to try an experiment, give my busy hives a single top bar only from a broken complete frame, no bottom rail or...

Just thought I would share the result of a little experiment with open source software.

I imagined myself inspecting the colonies in my apiary and taking notes, not with a pen and paper or a voice...

I make sure to check the water level each day. Normally the water is right to the top of the green liner and will, when completely full and exactly flat flood small areas with a thin layer of water...

Last year I was dismayed to see some bees drown in my water barrels early in spring. I guess they were Aquarius bees, a bit long in the tooth and assigned to fetch water to dilute some honey reserves...

With the arrival of some cooler mornings my bees have taken to drinking water at my water barrels.
Sometimes the drinkers wrestle with each other and some end up in the water. At first I was...

I heard an unusual bee hum from my garden, went to investigate and found thousands of my bees enthusiastically working the tiny flowers of lambs quarters for light yellow pollen. The weed has just...

I think there also might be an advantage when it comes to mouse damage. Mice tend to want to bust holes in foundation to make enough room for a tennis ball sized nest. On plain wax it is easy for...

Coincidentally I have been playing with this idea this morning.

http://www.it4gh.com/beecam1.jpg

Here's my setup:
Colony is located about 150' from my house. Location has power but no wired...

Good thinking, everybody.

Acebird: I see your idea, I don't have an appropriate box right now but will keep an eye out for such. Won't be in town for a bit yet.

DeeAnna: Indeed, a sow's ear...

It's quite common to see bees on compost/manure piles. I see them often during the season and when adding fresh material to the pile I have to disturb the bees first to get them out of the way before...

This stuff was broken directly out of old comb. Some of it was old dry foundation on which the bees never had time to build comb.

Since heat rises and the thermom. was on top of the lid, it is...

Today's experiment #3 was to stack 3 passenger car tires vertically, put a big pot of comb inside with an oven thermometer on the lid, and cover the lot with a heavy double glazed layer of glass. It...

Thanks to all for suggestions, both serious and playful!

Experiment #1: I read somewhere that a slow cooker would do the job, so I set up a slow cooker on the patio outside in full sun and loaded...

Maybe the ratio of drones to workers is a bit high and mamma has issued orders?

I'm in the process of renovating some old wooden frames full of old black comb to new plastic foundation. The wood is good and the history is disease free so I might as well use them. Progress is...

Good suggestions guys. I was working on an ash tree, branch fell back in October when leaves were off so it has not had time to dry out yet. But there are no bees sniffing round the bar and chain,...

It's a nice sunny day in Ontario and the warmth has finally brought out the bees in good numbers. Much earlier in the day (frosty temps) I was using my chainsaw to start on fuel wood. I set down the...

Dried sumac candles, collected after the bees are done with them. Also dried vine prunings cut small.

One of my colonies perished during the winter - I think due to small cluster size and starvation, unable to maintain heat and encompass enough of the stores, which were abundant. It went queenless...

About 3 weeks ago with winter in mind I rearranged several of my colonies to put a top ventilation hole in place to allow warm humid air to escape. Here's my current arrangement from bottom up: solid...

I'm confused. This thread started out as linseed oil related, then seemed to make a divergence into Minwax and never seemed to come back. Maybe it is a case of overlapping replies and unclear pronoun...