Category: Beekeeping

We’re Beekeepers too – Keep up to date with the comings and goings of our bee colonies and life in the hive. The bees are almost always up to something.

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Honey Harvest 2023

Having had a bumper year last year we weren’t expecting much from the bees this year. Our expectations weren’t helped by the fact that we lost our largest colony over the winter. I suspect they swarmed late in the year after we had harvested from them and got them ready for winter. With no queen...

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Larvae Everywhere!

It seems as though my somewhat experimental preemptive artificial swarm technique has, at least to a certain extent, worked. With only one colony surviving the winter we wanted to ‘make increase’ this year. The fact that this colony had taken up residence in a hive next to the bedroom window also meant that there weren’t...

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Beehive Configuration

Despite my sore finger and the strong winds, I did manage to do some beekeeping at the weekend. We’d bought a new poly hive so I constructed that. It wasn’t much of a project really and only took about 5 minutes so instead I set to cleaning out a whole load of old brood frames...

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Bee-ing Prepared

It was something of a mixed bag over the winter for our bees. One colony that was huge in the autumn died off whilst the colony that had taken up residence in the hive near the bedroom window did quite well. This colony had continued to expand throughout the Spring and was now looking quite...

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Garden Tales

It’s been a bit dreary these last few days, but things are growing well in the garden. Here are a few photos from around the garden at the weekend. The blackcurrants are flowering well and should have lots of fruit later in the year. The comfrey looks good. The bluebells are putting on their usual...

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Conifer Bonsai

Project Pond wasn’t my only garden project at the weekend. I also had a somewhat more relaxing project in the form of a bonsai tree. Whilst at Charlies Garden Centre in Aberystwyth I rescued a poorly looking fern and a frost-damaged conifer. They were reduced in price and needed some TLC. The Fern was planted...

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Autumn in the Garden

After the winds of Saturday, Sunday dawned clear and fairly still. Perfect weather for pottering in the garden. Morning Run There was a bit of exercise to do first so I headed off for a run along the River Leri and then back along the beach. Nothing too exciting and not too far or too...

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Double Dipping in the Hedgerows

I picked a whole load of succulent blackberries from the hedgrows at the weekend. Free, health food, what is there not to like about that! Better still, I’m pretty sure that the majority of our bumper honey harvest this year came from nectar from the flowers on these blackberry bushes. I can’t be sure of...

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Record Breaking Honey Harvest

Beekeeping has always been an interesting hobby for us. We never had any intentions of making loads of honey and selling it for a profit. A good job really as Ynyslas isn’t the best place to keep bees and our honey harvest rarely produces much honey. If it were a money-making scheme we would have...