Beekeeping Archives - A Simple Life of Luxury

Bees, Bikes, Burgers, Beers and Buttocks

Alan Cole — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:31 +0000

The amazing summer weather continues. We haven’t seen a drop of rain for almost three weeks now, and every day has been either hot or very hot. The sea is lovely, the grass is yellow and the trails are dusty. We’re recycling bath water each day to give the struggling garden plants a drink and,...

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Boundary Wires, Bees, and BST

Alan Cole — Mon, 31 Mar 2025 17:29:00 +0000

After a busy couple of weeks with a trip to Fuerteventura and then a week at a conference with work, the spring garden was looking a little overwhelming. Things—namely the goosegrass, dandelions, and stinging nettles—were getting out of hand, and I’d yet to get Hector, our robot lawnmower, up and running. Robot Mowers Harriet, the...

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Making Increase

Alan Cole — Fri, 31 May 2024 13:58:10 +0000

I thought I was doing quite well with the bees this year. There was an early swarm or possibly a supersedure in the hive by the bedroom at the beginning of April. This was actually a fairly good thing as the hive re-queened and the queen was laying last time I looked. All good there...

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Honey Harvest 2023

Alan Cole — Wed, 13 Sep 2023 06:58:00 +0000

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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A Quick Trip inside a Hive

Alan Cole — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 09:03:36 +0000

Just a quick trip inside one of our beehives.

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Larvae Everywhere!

Alan Cole — Wed, 21 Jun 2023 11:27:14 +0000

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

Alan Cole — Wed, 07 Jun 2023 08:55:50 +0000

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

Alan Cole — Wed, 17 May 2023 15:21:36 +0000

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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Autumn in the Garden

Alan Cole — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 07:35:00 +0000

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

Alan Cole — Thu, 01 Sep 2022 07:00:00 +0000

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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