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The beekeeping library
66 plain-English guides for UK beekeepers, arranged by hive. Every one lists the documents behind it, mostly National Bee Unit guidance and UK law, and says which figure came from where.
What are you looking at?
Wasps at the entranceIs that robbing or wasps?Mites after the harvestIs it heavy enough for winter?How strong should the syrup be?Is this hornet the one to report?When can I sell this honey?What do I have to write down?I think I have foulbroodEFB has been found near meDo I have to register my hives?How do I get the bees out of a super?Where do I put the supers now?How much sugar to how much water?Which feeder, and where does it go?It is too hot to treatTreating a double brood boxWhat do I check before winter?What should I order now?Which hive should I buy?Will these frames fit my boxes?Where should I put the hives?My bees keep going next doorHow do I clean my hive tool?Is second-hand kit safe?Is my honey too wet to jar?My honey has fermentedCan I sell honey in the comb?My set honey came out grittyMy smoker keeps going outI have found queen cellsIs that a swarm cell or a play cup?Has my colony already swarmed?I cannot find the queenHow many queen cells do I leave?Do I have to end up with two hives?Can I take a swarm out of a chimney?Whose swarm is it, legally?Should I feed a swarm I just hived?When does the next super go on?Do new frames go in the middle of the brood nest?Can I talk them out of swarming?How old is this egg?Is that drone brood?My brood pattern looks patchyIs it warm enough to open the hive?When should I do my first inspection?How much food should they have in March?No eggs and no queenHow do I test for a queen?Several eggs in one cellShould I join this weak colony to another?Which queen do I keep when uniting?How long do I leave a unite alone?How many bees does a nuc actually need?Can a nuc get through the winter?Is this frame worth saving?Is it wax moth or something worse?How do I clean dirty beeswax?Can I melt down comb from a foulbrood hive?How do I make beeswax candles?What must a candle label say?Can I sell beeswax lip balm?How do I make beeswax food wraps?How do I inspect a beehive?What should I look for in an inspection?What should I write down after an inspection?How often should I inspect my bees?Should I open the hive in winter?Should I feed my bees in spring?Do I need to feed pollen?How do I make a pollen substitute?Can I add fruit to my honey and sell it?Can I sell mead I have made?What should I do in the apiary in September?How many frames of bees should go into winter?What should I do in the apiary in October?When should I stop feeding syrup?What should I do in the apiary in November?How often should I check my bees in winter?What should I do in the apiary in December?Do I need to treat for varroa in December?What should I do in the apiary in January?Should I clear snow from the hive entrance?What should I do in the apiary in February?When does the tray go back under an open mesh floor?When should I feed fondant to bees?Where does fondant go on the hive?Why are there dead bees outside my hive?Should I clear dead bees from the hive entrance?Why are my bees flying in winter?Is there brown staining on the front of my hive?What should I plan over the winter?What colour do I mark a queen in 2027?What can I plant for bees in late winter?When do I plant crocus bulbs for bees?How do I dry and store pollen?Can I sell bee pollen?How hot can I warm set honey?Will honey keep in a bucket?The new site is only half a mile awayCan I move a hive in hot weather?Do I have to tell anyone I moved my hives?They died with honey in the boxCan I feed syrup in winter?Where exactly does fondant go?Bees head first in the cellsWhy did my colony die over winter?The hive is empty but still full of honeyWas my dead hive robbed out?What do I do with a dead hive?How far are my bees flying?What does the waggle dance actually mean?Is a round dance a different dance?
Harvest & honey
Getting it off, getting it out, and what you may call it
- Selling honey in the UK: labels, rules and recordsWhat your jar label legally needs, allergens for flavoured honey, registering as a food business, the withdrawal period that can stop a sale, and the records worth keeping.
- Getting the bees out of the supersThe clearer board goes on one visit and the supers come off the next. Porter escapes against rhombus boards, the Flow hive difference, and the mistakes that turn harvest day into a robbing war.
- Cleaning, freezing and storing supers so wax moth cannot get inDrawn comb is worth more than the honey that came out of it. The order that protects it: bees clean, dry, freeze 48 hours sealed, then keep it sealed or store it cold and airy.
- Getting the honey out of the combThe legal limit is 20% water, and a refractometer read at the wrong temperature can move you across it. Uncapping, spinning, straining, and why fermented honey cannot be rescued.
- Cut comb and comb honeyNo wire, no plastic, and it has to be fully sealed. The 20% water limit applies exactly as it does to a jar, except that with comb you cannot do anything about it afterwards.
- Making soft set honeyFine grain means many crystal nuclei, and that is mostly a temperature question. The only thing you may legally add to honey is other honey, which is why seeding works.
- Honey with fruit, and honey fermentsNothing may be added to honey except honey, so honey with fruit or juice is not honey and must not be called it. Selling it makes you a food business. A ferment that makes alcohol needs HMRC approval before you make it to sell.
- Cleaning and storing the extractor, the tanks and the uncapping kitThe extractor gets rinsed in a hurry and comes out next July with a rusty tap and a mouse nest in the base. The order that works, what the rinsings are in law, and where the bees fit in.
- Rendering and cleaning beeswaxWax melts between 60 and 65 °C and darkens above 85 °C, so it is melted in water, never in a dry pan. Wax from a foulbrood colony is never rendered at all: the spores survive the heat.
- Storing honey in bulk, and warming it back to jarHoney in store wants to be well under 18% water, in a food contact bucket with the lid on. Warm it back at the low end of 35 to 50 °C: at 40 °C half its diastase goes in 31 days, at 60 °C in about a day.
- Moulding beeswax: blocks and candlesA warm mould, a braided cotton wick soaked in wax, and slow cooling out of draughts. A candle you sell is a consumer product: assess it, test three, and label it with the warning sign and three messages.
- Beeswax balms, polish and food wrapsBeeswax and linseed oil, one part each, makes a polish. Selling a balm makes it a cosmetic, with a safety assessment and a full label first. A wrap you sell must be safe for food and say who sells it.
- Collecting pollen, and selling itA trap catches pellets from fewer than half the foragers. Dry it to under 10% water, freeze it to keep it, and sell it as a food: registered, labelled, and with no health claims.
Pests & disease
Wasps, hornets, foulbrood and what the law asks of you
- Wasps at the hive: what actually worksEntrance blocks, tube entrances, underfloor entrances and robbing screens - the measures that work, why traps are not among them, and telling robbing from a wasp attack.
- Asian hornets: how to identify and report a sightingTelling the yellow-legged hornet from our native one, what to do at your apiary, and reporting in two minutes.
- Varroa and foulbrood: what UK law asks of youVarroa is reportable, foulbrood is notifiable - two very different duties, and what to do for each.
- Registering on BeeBase, and what happens when foulbrood turns up near youRegistering is free, and it is the only way you get the 3 km foulbrood alert. What that email means, what a Bee Inspector actually does, and the checks to step up while EFB is in your area.
- Wax moth damage, and which frames are worth savingWax moth does not kill a strong colony, so finding it in a live hive usually means something else went wrong first. Reading the damage, and deciding what is worth saving.
- A dead colony: working out what happenedRagged, torn cell rims mean robbing, not starvation. Stores still capped with almost no bodies means varroa. And the two signs that mean you seal the box and report it rather than clearing it up.
- Dead bees at the entranceA few dead bees, and drones in autumn, are normal. A pile blocking the entrance with crawling bees on top is starvation. Black shiny trembling bees point to chronic bee paralysis. Dead bees spread wide suggest poisoning.
- Cleansing flightsOn a nice winter day bees leave the cluster to defecate outside: a cleansing flight, and normal. They can fly for it at 7 to 9 °C. Staining on the frames or the front of the hive is different, and points to dysentery.
Varroa & treatments
When to treat, how to treat, and what to write down
- The August varroa treatment, and why it is the one that countsMite numbers keep climbing after the July brood peak, and varroa damages the fat body that lets winter bees live for months. The timing, and what to monitor.
- The beekeeper’s veterinary medicines record, explainedThe 5-year record every beekeeper who treats for varroa must keep - exactly what to write down at purchase, treatment and disposal.
- Oxalic acid: trickling, vaporising and the broodless windowIt only kills the mites it can touch, so the date matters more than the dose. The two authorised routes, what each is allowed once a year, and when the window opens.
- Putting the varroa treatment on: heat, single brood and double broodWhere the tray actually goes on a double brood box, why hot weather means less product rather than more, and the signs that say take it off again.
Feeding
How much, how strong, and what to put it in
- Autumn feeding: about 20 kg, and how to get thereWhat a colony needs, what a full frame weighs so you can count it, the exact syrup quantities, why feeding too early backfires, and when to switch to fondant.
- Spring feeding and pollenMarch and April eat the stores fast: a colony wants four to five combs, about 9 kg. Thin syrup in a contact feeder if it is short. Brood needs pollen too: a bought substitute, kept moist over the brood, until natural pollen comes in.
- Making sugar syrup for bees: the mixesTwo mixes, and the National Bee Unit publishes both by quantity rather than by ratio, which settles the by-weight-or-by-volume argument. Plus what sugar to use, and what goes wrong.
- Setting up to feed: the empty super, the crown board and the feederThe hardware, not the arithmetic. Why an empty super is the standard answer, which feeder suits which job, and the two mistakes that drown bees or invite robbing.
- Spotting starvation, and emergency feeding in the coldWhy hefting alone will not save a colony, what a starving one looks like when you open it, exactly where fondant goes, and the three ways to feed bees too weak to reach a feeder.
- Fondant: when and how to feed itFondant is the winter feed: bees cannot process syrup in the cold. A block over the crown board feed hole, or on the top bars under an eke in a hard frost. Bees need water to use it. Take the eke off in spring.
- Single brood, double brood, and the super you left onThe configuration is the last decision, not the first. What a frame of stores weighs, when two boxes become one, and the excluder mistake that costs a queen over winter.
Hives & equipment
Which hive, which tools, and keeping them clean
- What to have in before autumnA shopping list with the sizes and the reasons. Including the chicken wire figure most people get wrong, and why ordering in July is the whole point.
- Hive types used in the UKWhich frames fit which box, what a bee space is and why mixing two hives creates brace comb, and the reason a box badged National is not always 460 mm.
- Hive tools, and keeping them cleanCleaning and disinfecting are different jobs. The soda bucket, the inspectors’ bleach mix and the twenty minute soak, plus the very common habit that sterilises nothing at all.
- Making up a nucleus: what goes in, and how many beesThe flying bees are back in the parent hive by teatime, so the bee count matters more than the frame count. What goes in, in what order, and whether to give it a mated queen or cells.
- Mouse guards, woodpeckers and insulation over winterThe chicken wire only works if it stands 300 mm clear of the hive walls. What goes on in October, what comes off in March, and where the guidance stops and our own practice starts.
Inspections
Opening a colony, and the last look before winter
- The last proper look before winterThe one that has to be done above about 14 °C, while the colony can spare the heat. A short list, in the order it is worth doing.
- Planning next season from your recordsNovember: read the records back. December: write the kit list. Plan to replace queens over two years old, change brood comb at least every three years, and count varroa at least four times, starting in February.
- Lighting and managing a smokerSmoke dulls their sense of smell for ten to twenty minutes, and that is the whole window. Fuels, lighting, wet days, hot days, and why the smoker travels in a metal box.
- Queen cells: what you are looking atWhere the cells sit and how many there are tells you which of three things the colony is doing. Then the eggs tell you whether she has already gone.
- The artificial swarm, step by stepOne box gets the queen and the flying bees, the other gets the brood and the cells. The move, day seven, day fourteen, and what to do when the queen will not be found.
- Stopping them wanting to swarm in the first placeThe pre-emptive half, which happens on your timetable rather than theirs. Space before the flow, comb that does brood work, the Demaree, and where Wally Shaw and the National Bee Unit flatly disagree.
- Reading a frameEgg angles tell you when the queen was last on that comb, and larval size gives the age. What a healthy frame looks like, so that anything else stands out.
- The first inspection of the year, and what can waitThe temperature floor and the late February to March window, then the four things worth looking at: she is laying, they have food, the floor is clean and the mites are down. Plus what to leave alone.
- How to inspect a hiveHave a reason, light the smoker before the veil, and look outside first. Frames out one at a time and back the same way round. All stages of brood, healthy larvae, queen cells, space and stores.
- What to record at an inspectionOne record per colony: the queen, frames of brood, bees, honey and pollen, the varroa count, then temper, health, what you did and what to bring. The law asks for five years of medicines.
- How often to inspect a hiveAbout once a week from April until the swarming risk passes at the end of July. Brood disease at least twice a year. In winter, do not open it unless it is warm, but check the food at least once a month.
- No eggs, no queen seen: is the colony queenright?A broodless colony is not always a queenless one. The dates to count first, the test frame and how to read it, and what to do about a drone-laying queen or laying workers.
- Uniting two colonies over newspaperThe newspaper method start to finish, the queen you keep and the one you do not, and the National Bee Unit figure that tells you when a small colony is better joined to another than fed through the winter.
- Bearding: what a curtain of bees on the front meansA hanging mass of bees looks like a colony about to leave. It almost never is. Telling a beard from a swarm and from robbing, and what to do during a treatment.
The apiary
Where the hives go, how they sit, and water
- Planting for bees in autumnEarly pollen is essential to a colony’s development, and much of it is planted now. Crocus, snowdrop, winter aconite, heathers, mahonia and willow feed bees in late winter. Bulbs in autumn at two to three times their depth.
- September in the apiaryThe winter bees are reared now, so varroa first. About 20 kg of stores, made up with thick syrup before mid October. Five brood frames of bees. A young queen. No disease. Roof sound, hive strapped, mouse guard on.
- October in the apiarySyrup stops by mid October, fondant if still short at the end. Heft each hive and remember the weight. Do the October mite count. Mouse guards, straps, sound roofs, excluder out. From now on, quick food checks only.
- November in the apiaryHeft every other week and check the food at least monthly. Look inside every 2 to 3 weeks on a warmer day to make sure the cluster is next to its food. Light? Fondant, never syrup. Plan the winter oxalic acid from your October count.
- December in the apiaryHeft every other week and feed fondant, never syrup, if a hive is light. Winter oxalic acid only if October’s count called for it, on every colony at once. Walk the apiary after bad weather. Indoors: clean, list, plan.
- January in the apiaryLeave the cluster alone: check from outside every two weeks and after gales. Heft both sides every other week, fondant if light. The queen starts laying again soon. Clear dead bees from the entrance, leave the snow.
- February in the apiaryLeave the hive closed and watch the entrance: pollen going in is good news. Heft both sides every other week, fondant if light. Tray back in under an open mesh floor. Count the mites before the supers go on.
- Water for bees, and keeping them out of the neighbour’s poolThey will fly 2 km for water and carry it home 50 microlitres at a time. Put yours out before the hot weather, or they will pick the pond next door and you will not move them.
- Choosing and laying out an apiaryIn one study around 35% of drones entering a hive in a crowded row were not from that colony. Angles, colours and heights are disease control, not decoration.
- Collecting a swarm, and what to do with itMost swarms come off between 11am and 4pm from May to July. What to keep in the boot, when a wall or a chimney means saying no, and why it goes onto foundation rather than your own drawn comb.
- Moving a hive: three feet, three miles, and everything in betweenThe rule of thumb explained, then the question it dodges: what to do when the new site is half a mile away. Plus strapping, ventilation, time of day, and the one time the law stops a move dead.
- The waggle dance, and what it tells you about your forageBees trained to feeders 100 m out waggled for about 0.41 seconds. At 1.7 km it was 2.20 seconds. The angle, the timing, and why there is no single conversion.
- Straps, weights and a stand that does not moveA strapped hive on a loose stand still travels. Fastening the hive to the stand, weighting the roof, and which weather warning is the one worth acting on.
- Flood risk, and getting the apiary ready for waterA site does not have to be near a river to flood. Checking the risk, reading the warning levels, raising the stands, and the one warning you will never receive.
- Cutting back around the apiary: what you may cut, and whenThe England hedgerow closed period ends on 31 August, but the nest offence has no season at all and applies across the UK. Which rule is which, and what actually needs cutting.
The beekeeping yearEvery guide plotted across the months, and what each month actually owns.
Being written next
- Marking and clipping the queen, and when it helps
- Requeening a colony: introducing a new queen safely