Raising your own queen bees so that you don’t have to buy them from elsewhere will help make your beekeeping sustainable. Your queens will head your own colonies and any surplus can be sold.
The bees don’t care about COVID-19; in fact, they seem to be having a great time. I don’t know if it’s the reduced air pollution, the beautiful weather or something else, but my bees are booming. I’m a little concerned about the lack of rain which is a […]
There is that saying, “if it were easy, everyone would do it,” and I think it applies to some aspects of beekeeping. Frankly, in the early years of one’s beekeeping life, just keeping them alive and well is a significant achievement. Come to think about it, that still […]
In my area, we are entering the busiest time of the beekeeping season. Colonies are expanding rapidly, and some have swarmed or are about to. Spring/early summer is often like that; a massive amount of nectar and pollen coming in, queens laying like there’s no tomorrow, and beekeepers […]
Drones are awesome. Everyone should love them, but they have had a bad rap. Many believe that they are “lazy” and all they do is hang around eating stores and contributing nothing much to the hive. Then they leave for a leisurely flight at noon to try to […]
You don’t even need to be able to graft larvae to make good queens. Apparently, grafting puts a lot of people off, because they find it too hard or they heard that it was difficult and didn’t try. I think it’s like most skills; at first, you are […]
OK, so we’ve been in lockdown for a while now. I only venture outside to go shopping occasionally and to walk the dog. Oh, and beekeeping, of course. It’s never been busier in the parks and the places where I like to wander; somehow, a lockdown has made […]
The Chosen Ones I have some great queens in my hives. My best one is a “yellow dot” in her third season. Her hive is always one of my tallest, giving me loads of honey every year. I’ve never seen any signs of swarming in her colony, and […]
The term “newb” is typically used by gamers to describe somebody new to the game, or gaming, and is somewhat derogatory. However, we all have to start somewhere. Even the most gloriously proficient expert at something was once a humble newb. With bees, we usually start off knowing […]
Anybody who has been reading my blog for a while will no doubt form the view that I am obsessed with queens. I’m talking about queen honey bees, not what you were thinking, you smutty vermin. The queen bee is not the ruler of her hive, as some […]
About 2 years ago I had an amazing life changing experience. Ever since I was 7 years old I had worn eye glasses and I quickly became the shy boy with massive thick goldfish bowls on his face; eyes disappearing into tiny dots, and huge craters on my […]
