How To Handle Swarm Season
Three swarms last year You could write a book on the subject of ‘how to handle swarm season’, and several people have. In the one thousand or so words allotted to this blog post, I shall therefore have to miss…
Author: Walrus
Author of "Interviews with Beekeepers" and "Healthy Bees, Heavy Hives"
Creating A Lovely New Apiary
The Mole at our new apiary site I have my bees at ‘out-apiaries’ and have never risked keeping them at home. That’s a personal choice which works for me (and my neighbours) but I have far more hives than could…
Reviewing Beekeeping Notes is Addictive in a Good Way
Field of Oilseed Rape This morning, Mrs Walrus MBE made a quip about where I might be “on the spectrum,” indicating that it is probably some way along. Although this was partially in jest, it was possibly a tactic to…
Swarming Time and Solving the Space Problem
The mini-plus tower was split into two This is a time when some large discrepancies show up between colonies. One of my apiaries was absolutely booming and nearly every hive bursting with bees. In other places, the picture is more…
Breeding the Best Honey Bees: Selecting a Quality Queen Bee
Queen bee with workers on pollen frame Now that we are in that time of crazy colony growth, it won’t be long until some people start to raise their first queens of the season. My experience and research into weather…
Unleashing my bees on new sites
Apiary in an orchard Spring has arrived here in Walrus-land, so it’s time to do some actual bee work at last. This coming season will be a year of expansion. The winter has certainly seen some undesired growth in my…
Queen excluders: are they needed for successful beekeeping?
Framed wire queen excluder Answer: it depends. That is always the answer for every beekeeping question, or so it seems. Actually, there is one which is always ‘yes’ – see end of this article. When I had kept bees for…
Equalisation is great, but be careful
A Buckfast out-apiary in the 1960s Just as I was about to launch into a list of beekeeping tasks to carry out in spring, I felt a metaphorical tap on my shoulder. Taking the excess out of booming hives and…
The ever popular Demaree method revisited
George Demaree One of my most-read articles concerns a form of swarm prevention that first saw light 131 years ago in the American Bee Journal. I’m not convinced that mine is even a good article, but anything to do with…
Two Colonies In One: A Proven Way To Increase Honey Production
Big Colonies There are many ways to skin a cat, apparently, and the same is true of beekeeping (many ways to do it). I don't understand why anyone would want to skin a cat. It seems harsh, even if cats…
The Greatest Show of 2023
Kasia, Jolanta and Alex at the beekeeping show It’s not that difficult to be the greatest show of 2023 when we are still in February. I’m talking about ‘The Beekeeping Show’ last Saturday in Telford, a trade show for beekeepers,…
Spring Fever: Beekeeping Activities for the New Season
Fondant applied to the tops of frames I’m writing this on 19th February and my bees are based in Cheshire, UK, just south of Manchester. We have a mild climate, without extremes of cold in winter nor extremes of heat…