Tagged: Beekeeping

Dead Queen Bee 5

Death of a Monarch

There’s always something with those pesky bees! Today’s inspection turned into what we though was going to be the performance of an artificial swarm. The first hive we inspected had some queen cells in. All were uncapped but had some well developed larvae in them so there was only one thing to do. The plan was to find the queen, perform...

Busy Bees in Clettwr 1

From Nucleus to Hive

Just a quick update on our bees. Since installing our new honey bee colonies in the garden a few weeks ago, the weather hasn’t been great. There have been a few sunny days but the temperature hasn’t really risen much and activity has been slow. There have been bees coming and going and all seems fine...

Bees at the Bottom of the Garden 4

Beekeeping Records and a Garden Update

The garden has been growing like mad. I was only away in Turkey for a week but it seems as though everything has become overgrown whilst I was away and I haven’t had much chance to get out there and get it under control. It’s not as bad as it sounds though, just that all...

ABKA Newsletter 1

ABKA Newsletter Publishing

I’ve just finished the Spring edition of the Aberystwyth Beekeepers Association Newsletter. It’s a lot of work writing the content, editing it, sourcing content and images and then desktop publishing it all ready for the members but I quite enjoy it and I’m always pleased with the result. Best of all, the association members seem...

Plants for bees 3

Plants for bees

Anna and I, along with half of the Aberystwyth Beekeeping Association attending a lecture in the National Library on Wednesday. It was a lunchtime lecture so we all met up for dinner in the cafe first and then headed into the very nice lecture theatre. The lecture was titled ‘Plants for Bees‘ and was given...

Anna in a party hat 0

Christmas Meals

The Christmas festivities continue here. We’ve already had a birthday meal for my Mum’s 60th last week and a Christmas Carvery with my family. Last night we had a another celebratory meal, this time with the Aberystwyth Beekeepers Association. It was also my birthday yesterday so it doubled as a birthday meal as well. We...

Sunrise at Mercury Bay 1

Hot Water Beach and a Leamington – New Zealand Day 11

Friday October 26th and at last I think we’re over the Jetlag as I woke up at a normal time of around 6am. I left Anna and Morgan sleeping and headed off for a stroll along the beach of Mercury Bay whilst watching the sun rise. It was a gorgeous still day with no one...

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,...