Steve Donohoe 
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 about it pretty quickly. Once queen cells are found in the hive then the bees are no longer bluffing; they … Read more
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 is the survival and prosperity of the colony that matters, not that of any individual bee, except the queen (she’s … Read more
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 picked up some bees from somebody up in the hills of Derbyshire because I wanted to try out bees which get … Read more
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 muse, and ponder, and pontificate; the occasional stretch is delicious, but all this frantic activity has unbalanced me. It has … Read more
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 or some such thing. We have had terrible weather here; very windy with torrential rain, but today seems much better. … Read more
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 deal of driving to and from hospitals, because both parents have been in the wars lately. On Thursday I was … Read more
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 internet. I am obsessed with bees and beekeeping. I have found that I am prone to the odd obsession, and … Read more
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 sun tan. All three interviewees were generous with their time and gave me plenty of interesting material for my book. … Read more