So it is that time of year where I take a deep breath and lift the covers to see what i have managed to get through the winter.. This year we had 5 hives going into the winter. Purple died in the latter stages of the year so that doesn’t count. Coming out of the … Read more
Asian Hornets are a disaster for beekeeping in this country. They have arrived over from France and have begun to spread across the UK since 2016. Luckily their numbers are still fairly low but it is really important that they are found and removed by the authorities. Asian hornets are an invasive species and eat … Read more
So it is that time of year where the days are getting shorter and the nights are getting colder. Time to wrap up the hives for winter. We have a mild winter here in the UK so I don’t plan to do much. The poly hives are great for this as they retain heat much … Read more
As is always the case with my beekeeping I have one harvest a year. Like other years the harvest was end of August and beginning of September. It is a difficult job judging when to take the harvest. You want to have a period of good weather where the flow is in full stream. Too … Read more
Firstly this is not an endorsement for any product or company. This is a description of my journey and the ups, downs and reasoning behind my discissions. The Problem 2023 was an awful year for me with honey. I had 3 flow supers and one cut comb and a double brood for Queen rearing and … Read more
So the idea here was to make a really nice bee water feeder in order to keep the bees happy during the hot spell we are encountering. The designs for this are fairly simple, though I have to confess this is not my invention and I did see it somewhere online. The main concept is … Read more
This year I am going to revisit my Queen cup method of queen rearing. So the idea is to breed up some drones whilst preparing the cassette to accept new eggs. Progress Red hive is double brood from the beginning of the season. 3/6/23 step 2 got everything together. 3/6/23 Step 3 inserted the cassette … Read more
Some swarms are easy to collect and can be done simply with a white sheet, a bucket, and a nuc hive whilst others require a bit more effort. My main piece of kit is a multi-functional box swarm box. This box is set up to take the Langstroth frames that fit into the normal hive … Read more
So… My beekeeping adventure started due to a facebook advert for a new form of beehive that makes beekeeping super easy and follows the dream of being able to turn a key and run your honey straight out into the jars. I had for a long time been thinking about keeping bees and loved the … Read more
I started beekeeping back in 2015 when having been thinking about bees for a while I got an advert on facebook for a new type of hive called a Flow Hive. Long story short and I ended up being one of the first investors in the project, but more importantly I ended up with my … Read more
