I’m sat in the luxurious lounge of Anchorage House, Tighnabruaich, gazing across a narrow stretch of blue/grey sea to the rolling hills of Bute, with my laptop perched upon a cushion on my knee. It …
-
-
Are Your Queens Majestic?
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 …
-
Busy as a Beekeeper
Here in my part of England, the weather is currently absolutely perfect, and we have shaken off the oppressive depressed state induced by a long cold Winter followed by a miserable Spring. It is incredible …
-
Velutina has a touch of Latina
Main image Penelope Cruz, (c) Getty from here On my recent trip to Brittany, I saw my first Asian Hornets (Vespa Velutina). They were queens trying to establish nests early in the season, and even …
-
Vive Le Morse!
Oh, the power of Google (other search engines are available, and some of them don’t track your every move and send adverts to you). I just used it to find out what the French word …
-
Swarm Control by the Experts
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 …
-
The Cliché Photo that keeps on giving
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 …
-
When the going gets tough…
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 …
-
At Least I’m not Starved of Metaphors
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 …
-
Hivemaker and the Walrus
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 …