St Ermin's

St Ermin's Hotel is offering beekeeping courses, The two-and-a-half-hour sessions cost £25 per person and include a complimentary cocktail at the hotel’s Caxton Bar. 

"The terrace is dotted with wildflowers and bee-friendly plants and is already home to four hives, which house a thriving resident colony of 300,000 Buckfast honey bees."

Available dates include September 13, 16 and 20. Visit www.sterminshotel.co.uk/special-offers/st-ermins-beekeeping-courses to book.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/article-2639446/Guests-swarm-bee-hotel-London-offering-day-trips-Buckingham-Palace-humans-stay-too.html 

Purple hives. Eh? 

EFB

EFB has been found in colonies around 2 miles away ...

Hee-Haw

I like this. I might get one. Donkey, that is.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2615484/No-need-long-face-Boneco-worlds-beekeeping-donkey-suit-protect-stings.html#i-aa1b0e6c

From The Daily Mail online, where else? 

Controlled, randomized

Mirabile dictu, the much-needed extra supers are now on both colonies.

One hive now has (from the bottom up) Brood/Super, QE, Super/Super/Super, and the other is the same except no Queen Excluder.

It's part of my plan to see whether a QE helps or hinders colony development, in a controlled randomized double-blind trial. See diagram (1). Or it could be that I forgot to bring it.

Diagram (1): Pretty much says it all, I feel. 

Despatched

The weather has brightened up and both hives are overflowing with bees and honey... do I have any spare supers to plonk on top?

Of course not. Let's hope Thornes do their stuff... sooner rather than later.

Shaken, not stirred

My first attempt at a shook swarm is going well, in a no-idea-if-it-is-working way.

Forget the textbook steps (assuming, that is, you know them to forget them). I now have two colonies, one queened and one queenless.

If I am successful, the credit is mine; if not, I blame the bees. (I should be in management, eh?)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Drucker#Key_ideas