The Beekeeping thread

[Taff]

I used to buy Gabriel's Set Honey from my local farm shoppe. Bloody lovely it is too, reminds me I've not bought some in a while so one for the shopping list. It's from a farm in Much Hadam down the road from me. Compared to the cheap shit the Mrs gets from Aldi its chalk and cheese different.

http://localfoodfreshproduce.blogspot.c ... h.html?m=1

That’s beekeeping on a very different scale. I have Huge respect for someone that goes into it as a commercial venture because the risk and uncertainty is pretty big.

Thanks for sharing

[gremlin]

I'm liking this thread. It has a real buzz to it.

[David]

I'm liking this thread. It has a real buzz to it.

Yes, it's very sweet too!

[slowhare]

Lost all our four hives to CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder). It was devastating and we never recovered from it.

[Taff]

Quite a few people have asked me to produce cut comb for them, I've only done it once before so I've not a bit of an experiment going onto a hive this afternoon.

3 different ways of producing honey, the usual wired frame that will go into a centrifugal extractor. The wires provide support to stop the comb collapsing in the extractor.


Sections, thin wooden frames that the bees fill with honeycomb, easy for me to pop out of the main frame and sell, I found the weight of these could be variable last year.



Cut comb, very thin unwired foundation, when its capped I'll cut into pieces and package.
This will probably be messy.

[Taff]

Very occasionally things don't go to plan.

I've had a colony at a friend's farm for about 2 years and I need to get them home, but they're bad tempered fuckers and I can't take them straight to my apiary, so I needed to sort them out by requeening them.

Long story short, things went bad, and then to rat shit and then while carrying a heavy box full of bees, I landed up dropping them.

Bees don't like that sort of thing at the best of times but this lot just went mental, so half a pint of petrol later they were culled.

I've never had to do this before and hope to fuck I never have to do it again
Bad beekeeping on my part.

[Supermofo]

Very occasionally things don't go to plan.

I've had a colony at a friend's farm for about 2 years and I need to get them home, but they're bad tempered fuckers and I can't take them straight to my apiary, so I needed to sort them out by requeening them.

Long story short, things went bad, and then to rat shit and then while carrying a heavy box full of bees, I landed up dropping them.

Bees don't like that sort of thing at the best of times but this lot just went mental, so half a pint of petrol later they were culled.

I've never had to do this before and hope to fuck I never have to do it again
Bad beekeeping on my part.

Ufff, that looks like it went very sideways. Must be heartbreaking, so feel for you.

[Taff]

new day and my head is a bit clearer so here's a bit of background to the decision to cull this colony.

about 12 years ago I had a colony in an orchard that I couldn't get near because they were so aggressive, I persevered and over several months and dozens of stings (and hundreds that didn't get through the suit) I eventually got them sorted. What I didn't know until later in the year, was that over that time the farmer was also getting stung every time he went in that field so I made the decision that I would not put up with it in the future.

So starting yesterday morning, this colony had a 50/50 chance of making it through the day, and about 1/3 of them have.

Yesterday afternoon I moved the hive a few feet to one side and in its place left a replacement box with mostly empty comb, 1 frame of food and 1 frame of brood including eggs from a nice colony. This meant that the flying bees would return to the empty box and will start to raise a queen from the frame of eggs.
Divide and conquer.

That bit went sort of ok, but I didn't put straps on the hive before starting to move them, and that oversight ultimately led to everything going to pot.

This is pretty much the same as making the decision to take an aggressive dog that's biting everyone it comes into contact with on a one way trip to the Vets

[Mr. Dazzle]

From the bee's POV you're a vengeful god raining down hell fire. Maybe you should revel in that feeling.

Must be a tough decision though, one that all live stock farmers have to make at some point.

[Mr. Dazzle]

Bought some (I assume) local honey in the Greengrocer today. I only went in for some cabbage and left with a £7.50 jar of honey (and a cabbage). It's labelled "Buckinghamshire Honey" and has a local phone number on it for one Mr J Egan, whoever he is.

Its really good though. It smells quite strongly of a fruit/flower I can't put my finger on. I'm gonna have to eat some more to try and nail it down

[Taff]

The 2024 beekeeping season started today (for me).

We went into winter with 3 colonies and I've just done the first inspection of the year. It was a little bit on the chilly side which made them a little bit tetchy, but it's just a quick look so it's ok and hopefully they'll be better when it's warmer.
fortunately they have all survived the winter, 2 are positively thriving and the third is doing ok, one colony is even starting to pack the honey in

Sorry, no photos because I forgot my phone

[Skub]

Good to hear things are buzzing....

[Taff]

I completely forgot about this thread until we were talking about bumble bees this week and I can't believe that's it been over a year since I posted in it. ,

So, 2025.
It's been an interesting start with all of the dry weather that we've had, nature has been loving it so far.
I started the year with 2 colonies, fed them loads over winter to make sure they started the year strongly, and boy did they ever. Both colonies started swarming preparations during mid April so they got split from 2 to 5 colonies with 2 bought in Queens and the fifth 'home bred'.

We're in the 'June gap' right now, nature's pause between spring and summer flowers, and the next 3 weeks or so is going to bring in my main crop of honey from the lime trees which will come into flower in the next week or so.
To make sure there's enough room for the honey I've put on an empty honey box on the hive with a spare empty right at the top of the stack.

[Felix]

Oops

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c23mrprk952o

[Taff]

Oops

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c23mrprk952o

This seems to happen most years unfortunately.
I pity the beekeepers that have to go and sort that lot out, it'll be a friggin mare.

[Mr. Dazzle]

I do like the solution though.

Reset the hives, come back in 2 days

[Dodgy69]

Thats two beekeepers on here I know of.

[Cousin Jack]

In my old house we had cotoneaster bushes screening a fence and the local bees loved the tiny flowers on that. Clearing out dead wood in the bottom of the bushes involved sticking your head very close to large numbers of bees, mainly honey bees with a few bumbles for luck.

I was nervous at the start, but over the years I found that if I ignored them they did the same. Occasionally a short sighted one would mistake me for a flower but in over 30 years I was never stung. Since then I ignore bees, I still hate wasps though.

[Count Steer]

In my old house we had cotoneaster bushes screening a fence and the local bees loved the tiny flowers on that. Clearing out dead wood in the bottom of the bushes involved sticking your head very close to large numbers of bees, mainly honey bees with a few bumbles for luck.

I was nervous at the start, but over the years I found that if I ignored them they did the same. Occasionally a short sighted one would mistake me for a flower but in over 30 years I was never stung. Since then I ignore bees, I still hate wasps though.

We've got a cotoneaster on the front of the house. Some days you can step out of the front door and hear them before you see them. I think we're keeping someone's honey bees happy.

Always amazed me they get anything at all from those tiny wee flowers.

Went to a place today and, in the walled garden, they had whole rafts of allium with huge globes of many mauve flowers* on and bees were all over 'em.

* might be schubertii or christophii. I just call them 'sputniks'.

[ZRX61]

I still hate wasps though.

The ones here (yellow jackets) build underground nests/hives.. which most people don't know about until they run the mower over the entrance, at which point the entire tribe come boiling out of the ground & attack everything within 100ft. The little fuckers release a hormone when they sting to let the rest of them know to join the party & it turns into a total shitshow within a few seconds. People & pets die.