Soul Walrus
Walrus on a bee We recently took delivery of a piano. My wife saw it in Forsyth’s in Manchester and, having declared it to be a lifelong dream to learn to play, persuaded me that such purchase made perfect sense.…
Bee Work in Winter
With David Kemp in Nottinghamshire I had a lovely chat with David Kemp this week on the telephone. He is a talker! It's always a privilege and a pleasure to hear his stories, and he's still going strong at 82…
If Peter Drucker kept Bees
Management Guru Peter F Drucker Peter Drucker The legendary management consultant, Peter Drucker, may well have kept bees; I don't know. He certainly made a vast contribution to twentieth-century management theory, and I'm sure his influence will stretch far into…
Swarm Predictor
2013 Swarm As I was thinking ahead to next spring and summer, and reflecting on seasons past, I decided to check my records to look at swarming. In the season just gone swarming kicked off much earlier than I'd seen…
Mites Again, and Hive Types
Poly Hives by Swienty Mites, Weather & Queens I'm a beekeeper, so the majority of my posts are probably about varroa mites, the weather and queens. So many of the problems I'm likely to face are covered by these things.…
Dreaming of 2020
Mike Palmer moving a barrel of honey I often like to have some theme for my blog posts, but today I'm just writing whatever pops into my head. There are lots of things to say about bees, but after a…
Winter Survival
Murray McGregor shows a winter cluster How this Walrus does it I harvested my last honey in August and treated for mites as soon as the honey supers were off. This works for me. Many beekeepers leave the harvest until…
Navigation Issues
Honey Show Entries At the risk of revealing my grumpy old man tendencies, I shall describe a series of unfortunate events which unfolded earlier today. Perhaps somebody will identify with circumstances like these when multiple small problems cluster together to…
Keeping us on our Toes
At the Artisan Fair on Red House Farm I'm back from my holiday in Lanzarote. I have seamlessly adjusted from blue skies and 26 deg Celsius to whatever ridiculous weather we have here in Manchester. My bees are not flying;…
Beautiful World
I am excited that my book is currently with the talented Lucy at Carnegie Publishing. She is working on the design and layout, deciding on page sizes, fonts, illustrations, and so forth. She's nearly done, and from the sample that…
Hive Ventilation
Air Conditioning There are many things in beekeeping which cause furious debate. One part of this, which this demonstrated below, is that different beekeepers deal with different environmental conditions. Here are some extracts from Interviews with Beekeepers on the subject…
Modelling Success
Walrus and Mrs Walrus Obsessions If you asked somebody that knows me well to describe me, they would probably mention my obsessions. I've had a few over the years. The biggest one, the one that would have killed me if…