Category: Beekeeping

Plight of the bees 0

Plight of the bees

Not a great year for the bees this year. Our new apiary never got off the ground despite being in what should be the perfect location. We’ll try again with that next year. The weather has been terrible. Plenty of flowers about for the bees but there just haven’t been enough opportunities for them to...

Bee Crafting 0

Skep Making

We’ve had a busy beekeeping time lately. What with our honey extraction, a visit to the National Beekeeping Centre, the ABKA Photo competition and now we’ve had a chance to try our hand at some traditional beekeeping craftsmanship – We attended a Skep Making Workshop with the Aberystwyth Beekeepers Association. As with most of the...

Welsh Food Centre 0

Visit to the National Beekeeping Centre Wales

I seem to be doing lots of beekeeping related things at the moment – other than actually doing any husbandry of my own bees of course! Tuesday was the beekeeping photo competition, then we’ll be Skep making on Sunday and on Wednesday a few members of the Aberystwyth Beekeeping Association visited the National Beekeeping Centre Wales,...

Honey Crop 2012 6

Honey Extraction

Well, we did once again manage to get some honey from our bees. Not a lot but one or two (small) jars more than last year. Not much and not a very successful year all round with the bees, but what little we did get is delicious!

Elephant Hawkmoth 2

ABKA Photo Comp 2012

We had the Aberystwyth Beekeepers Association photo competition on Tuesday evening. Vicki who was orgainsing it this year had put a huge amount of effort into it so there were some really good prizes up for grabs. We however didn’t really put much effort into it this year as we didn’t have much time so...

The Urban Beekeeper – Book Review 0

The Urban Beekeeper – Book Review

I’ve just finished reading ‘The Urban Beekeeper’ a book all about Steve Benbow and his crusade to bring commercial beekeeping to London. It tracks his adventures, mishaps and business initiatives throughout the year and takes a look back at how he got into beekeeping in the first place. I didn’t realise until I started reading...

August Bee Update 0

August Bee Update

Last time I posted about the bees on July 31st things were looking up in our home apiary. All three hives were looking good with newly risen queens in a couple of them and brood and stores on the increase. We were beginning to think that we might end up with some honey and some...

Checking a frame 0

Morgan the Beekeeper

Morgan doesn’t always join in with our bee hive insepctions, but when he does he likes to get stuck in. Maybe next year we should give him a hive of his own and let him do everything with it to see how he gets on – with some help where he needs it of course....

Busy Bees 3

Will we get some Honey?

Time for a beekeeping update from out apiaries, and after a week of decent weather things in our home apiary are looking up. Unfortunately though last time we looked at the bees in our out apiary things weren’t quite so good. Out Apiary In the out Apiary, where we thought the bees would thrive, there...

Purple Pollen 4

Purple Pollen

Check out this bright purple pollen being brought back to a hive by one of our bees. Does anyone know what flower it might have come from?