Beekeeping is an annual cycle, and the decisions you make — or fail to make — at each stage have consequences that ripple forward for months. This category covers the seasonal rhythm of colony management in the UK: spring build-up and swarm prevention, summer honey production, post-harvest treatment and feeding, winter preparation, and the critical late-season period when the quality of your winter bees is being determined. It also includes the less predictable aspects of British seasons: dearths that arrive at the wrong time, weather that collapses a nectar flow, and autumns that do not behave like autumns.
The emphasis throughout is on proactive management — understanding what the colony needs before it becomes urgent, and planning around probabilities rather than reacting to surprises. Experienced beekeepers will recognise the patterns; newer beekeepers will find these posts useful for building a mental model of how a season actually unfolds in practice.
Despite the glorious recent sunshine, there was little nectar coming into the hives according to the ’shake test’. It is time to start clearing supers and taking away the honey. It looks like we are on for about 2,000 lbs (907 kg) of summer honey based on the full supers sat on the hives. Unfortunately, … Read more
I have been able to do some actual beekeeping recently, which is a wonderful thing. Suddenly, the Mole (my son, Alex) and the Walrus are back in the game; we have been reversing boxes, cleaning/changing floors, and marking/clipping queens. The land is boggy and wet, but the bees are mostly strong and raring to go. … Read more
One of the best things about being the editor of a beekeeping magazine is that I travel the land meeting commercial beekeepers, recording our chats on my phone, and turn them into articles. I am just a fledgling, barely formed editor, and the number of such interviews is small, but I have already learned a … Read more
Firstly, it’s important for me to make two things clear; I live in a relatively mild climate and when it gets hot I suffer, regardless of what I do. Our recent ‘heat-wave’ has temperatures up to 29 Celsius (84 deg F) in my area, which is probably nothing to many beekeepers around the world. Nevertheless, … Read more
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 varied. However, I did find my first charged queen cell today, so the season is well and truly underway for me. Swarming … Read more
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 boosting the smaller ones a.k.a ‘equalisation’ is something that many beekeepers do to ensure that every hive in the apiary is … Read more
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 in summer, although that might be changing. I have snowdrops and crocuses in flower in my garden, and it won’t be long … Read more
Drones are not the only bees that drift Something has been vexing me about honey bees. Two observations, both true, seem to be in direct conflict with each other: Do bees drift more than you think? One of the first things we learn as beekeepers is that bees are great at finding their way home. … Read more