Category: Beekeeping

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Honey Harvest

The Honey Harvest has begun. To be honest, we haven’t got much again this year, especially compared to some other local beekeepers – a friend of ours managed to extract 300lb of honey from her hives in just one valley and left every hive with 2 full supers as she got fed up of extracting...

Stupid Bees! 2

Stupid Bees!

No doubt I’ve called a blog post exactly that before! Why would they decide to start swarming again at this time of year? The saying goes something like this: A swarm in May is worth a load of hay; a swarm in June is worth a silver spoon; but a swarm in July is not...

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Homemade Chilli Jam

Mmmm, Home made chilli jam from homegrown chillies! I think Anna wants to make some green chilli jam next. I think we should do red, orange and green and make traffic light chilli jam. That would make nice Christmas presents. So those of you who get Christmas presents from us, you have been warned! Don’t...

A Holiday Swarm 2

A Holiday Swarm

After a couple of weeks away and therefore no beekeeping we were wondering how our bees had been faring as we drove home after our holiday. We didn’t quite get home though before the beekeeping began! As we drove out of Builth Wells about an hour from home, I had a phonecall from someone down the road...

Inspection Preparation 2

Taking the Basic Beekeeping Assessment

Our beekeeping adventures continue and we have now taken the WBKA Basic Beekeeping Assessment. There is no obligation for beekeepers to do such things but as beekeeping has always been a hobby for us rather than a money-making or even honey-making scheme, this just seemed like another aspect to the hobby. Study Groups For us,...

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Honey Bee Photo

For some reason, depsite the flowers on offer, our honey bees are rarley seen foraging in our garden. It’s nice when we do see them though and a good opportunity to snap them in action. I quite like this shot of one of them feeding on some Verbena.

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Housing Swarms

It’s been a busy Spring of beekeeping for us. Not only have we been busy making increase and setting up new out apiaries but we’ve been getting lots of call outs to swarms as well. The Perfect Swarm The first was a lovely swarm in Penparcau. We packed the car with the tools we thought...

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Red Mason Bees

I’m pleased to announce that our bee hotel has some new residents. Since installing it earlier in the year a few spiders have taken up residence in and around it, it’s roof has been used for sunbathing by fledgling sparrows, and the magpies stole a load of the bamboo canes and smaller sticks to add...

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Queen Bee Selection – Do the Bees Know Best?

I’ve been thinking recently about queen selection within the honey bee colony. Ideally, if we are selecting a queen to rule a strong, healthy, productive colony we want one with characteristics such as high fecundity, disease resistance, longevity and one that raises bees with a good temperament. The perceived wisdom when re-queening following an artificial...

Hives in the garden 2

Bank Holiday Beekeeping – Culling a Queen.

Bank Holiday Monday proved to be perfect weather for beekeeping. Fortunate really as we needed to check on the status of our bees following the recent manipulations. It was sunny, warm(ish) at around 16°C and not too windy. First on the list were the two hives in the apiary at the bottom of the garden....