Over the years, I have figured out a few things about beekeeping in my area. Every area will be different, but the one that I care about is the one in which my beehives sit. Although seasons vary, they tend to follow a pattern which repeats each year. […]
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date (William Shakespeare, from Sonnet 18) The End is Nigh Strange as it may seem, we […]
People and Personalities I like to think of myself as a friendly easy-going chap, although family members might point out a slight tendency towards occasional rants and intolerance. Over the years, I have evolved. I used to hold the view that people are always out to get you. […]
I’m writing this in the evening, and the temperature is still around 30 Celsius (86 F). Luckily I’m in Manchester; my wife is in London where it’s 36 Celsius (97 F) and very humid. I don’t mind it. I can’t go away on holiday during the bee season, […]
In beekeeping, as in life, everybody makes mistakes. Even bees occasionally make them. The hard part is owning up to them. Douglas Adams said, “a common mistake that people make when trying to design something foolproof is to underestimate the ingenuity of complete fools.” I hate the fact […]
I love science. I’ve even got a chemistry degree, but don’t ask me about it because that was over thirty years ago. As soon as I left university, I went to the City to do accountancy. It’s hard to deny the importance of science in our lives. The […]
As I was planting out some tomatoes at my Mum’s place today, I became aware of a voice emanating from my back pocket. I grabbed my phone and was horrified to discover that I had “butt called” Murray McGregor of Denrosa Apiaries. I’m crazy busy right now, what […]
There is not much point in looking good if you don’t feel it. Most of us want to be attractive, I think, but few people ever believe that they are. From my experience, this torment is most pronounced in the adolescent years and early adulthood. However, as a […]
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 […]
So Long, Spring Spring is over. I’m not going by the calendar but by what I see at my beehives, although as it happens, the two are in synch. We are now in what they call the “June Gap”. The trees have finished flowering apart from lime trees […]
