Recent Blogs Posts

  1. Sorting out the second attempt to swarm.

    They're playing with me I tell you, I can hear them sniggering when I pack up to leave.

    The brood half (national) of my artificial swarm has a nice, new laying queen. Very new, there was maybe half a frame of eggs when I took a look this afternoon to pilfer a couple of frames of stores for the new Nuc as I'd managed to scrounge a spare Nuc box. Opening up the difference in temperament was immediately noticeable, so while I was in there I thought I'd confirm that what I thought was ...
    Tags: inspection, swarm
    Categories
    Inspections
  2. A relaxing saturday

    So things chug along quite merrily. If I have a complaint about my bees it's that they love gumming things up. I've seen it noted that Hoffman frames attract Brace comb and mine is certainly no exception. Still, that aside things seem to be progressing nicely. The first super is being nicely drawn and starting to fill up. Possibly a little ahead of schedule I've added a second super and started to cycle drawn comb into the top box and foundation down below. We've got a huge stack of foundation ...
    Tags: inspection
    Categories
    Uncategorized
  3. Open Sesame!

    A busy weekend all round. On Saturday I took a trip to what I hope is going to be my new apiary on a nature reserve. As they're holding regular work days at the moment to keep things under control I've been lending a hand too and one of the tasks this time around was to clear an area behind some brambles off the main path to make room for some beehives so it seemed rude to leave something being done for my benefit for everyone else to sort out.

    We cleared an area that is far bigger ...
    Categories
    Inspections