Category: Beekeeping

Beekeeping – Testing  for Nosema 1

Beekeeping – Testing for Nosema

It seems a shame to be thinking about winter already, but it isn’t far off and in order to make sure our bees are happy and healthy going into winter we need to start taking action now. At this time of year the beekeeper should be removing any honey that he/she can, checking the bees...

Ready for the move 0

Moving Beehives

Despite our best efforts to prevent it, a couple of our hives looked as though they were being robbed of their stores. In fact, ever since I caught a swarm from Clettwr and re-housed it nearby there seem to have been bees happily drifting between the two hives. Recent inspections have shown both hives to...

Wild flowers in the dunes 0

Forage in the Dunes

Morgan and I had a nice little walk through the dunes earlier. We were actually wandering across to the beach to check out what was happening with the RSPB Shear Madness. Unfortunately there wasn’t anyone there so we couldn’t find out more about the Manx Shearwaters or let them know that I often see them when...

The Trouble with Bees 0

The Trouble with Bees

The trouble with bees is that you just never know quite what to expect! Our last inspection was pretty good, all four colonies in all four hives were looking up with queens, eggs and larvae in all of them, no signs of swarming and they were beginning to draw out empty frames and start building...

Our Apiary 0

Our Growing Apiary

As mentioned in our latest beekeeping update, our apiary that started out with two hives currently has an additional third hive and a nuc box in it. We’re not plnning on keeping them all with full colonies in them and will probably merge them into two colonies before the end of the summer but at the moment...

A Frame of Bees 1

Bees on the Mend

Saturday proved to be a perfect day for beekeeping. Light winds, sunshine and temperatures around 18ºC. We were due to make hive inspections of all of the hives in our apiary and had a bit of re-homing to do on one colony. Pendam – Nuc Box This Nuc box contains an artificial swarm from the...

Huddles of bees on Clettwr 0

Hive Inspections – Progress?

We made our weekly hive inspections on Wednesday afternoon and there was some progress. The bees are still acting a little strangely though. Both the colony in the Clettwr hive and the colony in the triple nuc box (a caught swarm from Clettwr) are very active. They are up and busy from first light until...

Feverfew 0

Feverfew

We weren’t sure whether or not to get rid of all the feverfew in our garden. It certainly grows like a weed here and self-seeds all over the place. On top of that it is supposed to be disliked by bees so not ideal in bee-friendly garden. It does look nice at times though and...

Bees in the Hive 4

A New Queen has Risen

Some good news on the bee front at last. The first of our colonies to swarm was the one from the hive we have called Leri. We lost the swarm so the queen from this hive disappeared over the horizon along with half the colony, leaving us with depleted numbers in the hive, no queen...

Early Morning Bees 0

So, what are our bees doing now?

We had hoped that after catching and re-housing a swarm from one of our hives that things in the apiary would settle down. The colony in the strongest hive had now been split into three: A colony in the original hive with a queen cell An ‘artificially swarmed’ colony with queen cells in a nuc...