Honey Bee Queens – The Walrus and the Honey Bee

Queen bee diagram showing area of wing to clip off

Clipping Queens Is A Good Idea

Queen bee by ISLA Bousfield-Donohoe The temperatures here have been about normal, I reckon, but the rainfall seems worse than usual. Nevertheless, there will be strong colonies somewhere in my apiaries which will be getting into ‘swarming mode’ in the…

27 Jan 24 Walrus

Imported Queens

Lots of queen cages A review of Healthy Bees, Heavy Hives that recently appeared in BeeCraft magazine got me thinking. It was generally a positive review, but towards the end there was some criticism for missing something out. In fact,…

Steve pointing to some mating nucs with his hive tool

18 Jun 23 Walrus

Life Cycles and Spectacular Growth

From tiny acorns do giant oak trees grow The ability of honey bees to grow their colonies from little nucs to enormous hives with bursting supers is extraordinary. Some colonies that came out of winter looking small are now booming.…

10 Apr 23 Walrus

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…

30 Oct 22 Walrus

Losing Queens On Mating Flights

Virgin Queens Are Not Making It Back Hives lined up beside a field I’m deep into writing a book, with the deadline approaching faster than my output of words, but it seems wrong to neglect my blog for too much…

28 Aug 22 Walrus

Practical Tips About Queens

New virgin queen Finding, Marking and Introducing Queens As any regular reader of my blog will know, I'm obsessed with two things; queens and Varroa mites. Queens are essential to honey bees, as mothers are to all families. Mites are horrible things…

17 Dec 21 Walrus

Origins Of Honey Bees

Photo by Braňo on Unsplash Genetic science has come on in leaps and bounds in the last few decades. It turns out that appearances can be deceptive as far as genes go. Even with their large population and worldwide distribution,…

25 Jun 20 Walrus

Introductions

Rolling Stones 1969 Creator: L. Trievnor | Credit: Getty Images "Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name," teases Mick Jagger in the epic Stones track "Sympathy for the Devil". He sings, "Let me please introduce myself; I'm a…

14 May 20 Walrus

Mason Bees

I came across this and found it really interesting. https://player.vimeo.com/video/401368864

9 Oct 18 Walrus

Black Bees and Brexit

Apis_mellifera_mellifera There are some topics guaranteed to cause blazing arguments even between friends and family, such as Brexit, or in the case of British beekeepers; the Black Bee (Apis mellifera mellifera). I love all bees and think it would be…