In my area, we are entering the busiest time of the beekeeping season. Colonies are expanding rapidly, and some have swarmed or are about to. Spring/early summer is often like that; a massive amount of nectar and pollen coming in, queens laying like there’s no tomorrow, and beekeepers […]
A nucleus hive, customarily called a “nuc” is just a little hive. I have heard it pronounced “nuke” and “nook” and I imagine non-beekeepers wonder what weapons of mass destruction have to do with bees. Many nucs are about half the size of a standard brood box, but […]
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 while, it can get a bit stale. Bees are fascinating insects, and most beekeepers tend […]
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 later, maximising their honey crop, but I’m happy with what I do. At that […]
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 of hive ventilation: Murray McGregor (Perthshire, Scotland) Steve: Another thing […]
It’s that time of the year when it’s time for me to start to get my hives ready for the winter. I’m currently treating all of them with Apivar, which means that the evil varroa destructor mites are taking a beating. If I had any weak colonies, I […]
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 […]
Sorry about the audio quality on this clip; somebody once asked if I used a potato as a recording device! I don’t, but I actually think my iphone does it better than my portable digital recorder, which is what I used for this. Anyway, I still think it’s […]
Last week I hopped over the Irish Sea for a short stay in the ancestral homeland. I had volunteered to be Mike and Lesley Palmer’s driver for a few days. Mike had finished his bee talks in Cork and was spending some time in County Clare before moving […]
Extracts from my interviews with bee farmers about the main threats to their livelihood
