Roger Patterson Beekeeping Challenge what you are told

In beekeeping, there are a lot of people who are keen to give advice, whether verbally
or the written word. There are a lot of myths and misinformation, often “cut and pasted”
from other sources, which may simply be copying someone else’s mistake, who copied
someone else’s mistake and so on. The same thing is then seen in different places and
because it’s in print it’s believed to be correct, but is it? Inexperienced beekeepers may
have difficulty separating the wheat from the chaff, but the more experienced a beekeeper
becomes, the more they realise that some of what they have been told, sometimes quite
forcibly, may be unreliable or inappropriate for them. This presentation highlights a few
topics that may not always be as we are told. It doesn’t rubbish the “standard
information”, but gives experiences that have been acquired during over half a century of
practical beekeeping.
Roger Patterson
Roger is a practical beekeeper who started keeping bees in his native West Sussex in 1963. He has learnt a lot by observing bees and beekeepers in a wide variety of locations, which has helped him to develop his simple management system and to question what he is told.
Roger has learnt a lot from bees, that he passes on to others as a prolific speaker, demonstrator and writer with five books published. “Live @ the Hive” features him being live streamed inspecting
colonies and giving tips from his home apiary. He has been a demonstrator at the Wisborough Green BKA teaching apiary since the early 1970s and is currently the Apiary Manager, where there are normally over 30 colonies for tuition. For about 15 years he had 130 colonies of his own, but is now down to around 25. He owns and runs the Dave Cushman website www.dave-cushma...

[@honeybeesforsale]

Leaving two queens cells? For what it is worth my take on that one is - first define how many bees are being left to look after the queen cells. A few frames of brood in a nuc box is not the same as a large colony where the queen has just been removed or swarmed from.
In a nuc box that has a couple of frames of brood (and not a full colony of bees) then a queen cell one on each of the two frames where one is capped and one is open seems to be OK. I won't say that a box left with one capped and one uncapped (but charged) queen cell won't ever swarm. But I find that the chances are that if there are not too many bees in the box then they won't swarm..
But in a full box - that is a different matter.Then leave just the one queen cell - and if they are there take two frames with queen cells on out to make up a nuc box as a backup. Shake just a few bees into the nuc box look after them - two queen cells in a nuc box - one capped and one charged - but with not too many bees!

[@AlexandersAmazingApiaries]

Traditional knowledge stifles innovation. I've learned more doing things wrong than I've ever learned doing it right.

[@nicolaebulgaru]

I cannot agree more .... Greetings from Romania. 10 years of beekeeping and counting ...

[@MinnesotaBeekeeper]

Fantastic thoughts! Mr Patterson gives a great talk on filtering through the fog of "advice"!

[@neilbush9873]

A Swarming time supercedure caught me out yesterday😂i killed the Queen cos she wasnt laying but ide removed all the brood and worse had damaged the supercedure cell.
It was redeemable cos i added the bees to two strong cell builders hopefully making queens right now.

[@texasfriendlybeekeepers8210]

Love it!!

[@davecavana1031]

Well well well this is the only book of rogers I haven't bought.... I was only thinking of it today.