At some point, some colonies will make swarm preparations, and if the beekeeper wishes to keep his or her bees, and hopefully the lovely honey they will make, he or she needs to do something …
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The Cliché Photo that keeps on giving
The easiest way to understand how honeybees work is to think of the colony as the body of an individual, and therefore the bees themselves are more like cells which make up that body. It …
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When the going gets tough…
Image above copyright Mariusz Nikiciuk Here in the UK, and particularly in my corner of our emerald isle, we are accustomed to some unpleasant weather, mostly of the wet kind. A couple of years ago I …
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At Least I’m not Starved of Metaphors
Gosh, I’ve been running around like a blue-arsed fly, a headless chicken, a striped ass ape…[insert favourite metaphor here]…which is not how your average walrus likes to be. We are sedentary creatures. We like to …
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Hivemaker and the Walrus
I can be an anti-social walrus at times. I am currently sat alone in a beautiful apartment in Funchal Old Town, Madeira, while my wife and daughter are off exploring the island doing Levada walks …
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Life is a Gift – enjoy it!
I seem to be doing a lot of travelling at the moment. It wasn’t long ago that I was in New Zealand, which is certainly “travel”, but more recently I have been doing a great …
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You are what you eat!
It’s been a while since my last blog post, so sorry to anybody who has been struggling to get through their days without hearing about life, the universe, and bees from this corner of the …
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More than Manuka
My time here in New Zealand is drawing to a close. I have managed to interview three different beekeepers and have had a great time too, plus I have picked up a bit of a …
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A long long way from home
It is six days since my son and I began our long journey to Christchurch, New Zealand, on the other side of the planet to our home. It was a LONG journey and even though …
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The Eternal Question
How to prevent swarming? I previously wrote about some potential factors involved in the swarming of honey bees and why swarm prevention and control are so important for the beekeeper. The idea that we can …