Newly painted Kieler mating nucs
10 Aug 22 Walrus

Murphy’s Law Applies To Bees

Kieler mating nucs Some Of My Beekeeping Mistakes Murphy's Law - "If anything can go wrong, it will" - comes from a chap in the US Air Force in the 1940s. He was involved in testing new engineering designs. Perhaps…
Beekeeping
Chickens in a tree
18 Jul 22 Walrus

Latest Events Of Note

Chickens in a tree Latest Walrus News I don't know why, but this tickled me. A couple of enterprising chickens managed to hop onto the tree. They were furiously pecking at the green leaves, the only green things available at…
Beekeeping
Frame showing no brood
10 Jul 22 Walrus

Have I Lost My Queen?

Where's the brood gone? They Are Not Necessarily Queenless When I was a beginner beekeeper, I thought I knew most things about the noble art of 'bee bothering', but I was wrong. In my case, the beginner years were the…
Beekeeping
dead bees and varroa mites
3 Jul 22 Walrus

Treatment Free Beekeeping

Photo by Maja Dumat - CC BY 2.0 Risky To Go Against NBU Advice The July 2022 issue of the BBKA News features not one, not two, but THREE articles on treatment-free beekeeping. That's three out of eight (37.5%). Given…
Honey Bee Health
New queens in cages with attendant workers
16 Jun 22 Walrus

Summer in the apiary

New queens in cages with attendant workers Swarming Is Finished, Now What? Phew, it looks like the swarming season may have ended. I'm tempting fate, but that's what it looks like to me. Also, after about three weeks of nothing…
Summer
Kieler mating nucs
7 Jun 22 Walrus

Successful Queen Mating

Kieler Mating Nucs Best Time For Queen Mating Flights The problem with beekeepers is that we are all cooped up for ages over the winter with no bees to see. It isn't enjoyable. Then, suddenly, the weather improves, spring arrives,…
Queen Rearing
Honey bee queen with yellow dot on thorax
14 May 22 Walrus

How I Make Queens

One of my lovely queens with quite light coloured bees Grafting, Cell Builders And Mating I'm good at learning from the successes, mistakes and wisdom of others. Once, we had a fishing tournament at school that I'd entered. Never having…
Queen Rearing
Sealed queen cells on a grafting frame
9 May 22 Walrus

Are Small Queen Cells OK?

Queen Cells It's only the 7th of May, and I've already done my second batch of grafts. The queen cells from the first batch have mostly gone into mini-plus hives, with a few left over in the incubator. I'm really…
Queen Rearing
Queen bee with workers on pollen frame
1 May 22 Walrus

Temperature And Queen Colour

A 2021 Queen It's a non-beekeeping day today, and we have had some much-needed rain overnight. This should not be unusual here in Manchester, but it's actually been untypically dry. My bees have generally got off to a quick start…
Queen Rearing