Calum

Great set of pictures Calum. I'm not aware of anyone in Scotland using bee houses, but there must be someone somewhere using them as they seem such a good idea. Do you know what kind of bee you have? I seem to remember that Carnica are popular in Germany. It wouldn't surprise me if our losses in Scotland were particularly high this winter as the summer was so poor, queens didn't mate well, and colonies went into autumn with too few young bees and too little stores.

Originally Posted by gavin

Great set of pictures Calum. I'm not aware of anyone in Scotland using bee houses, but there must be someone somewhere using them as they seem such a good idea. Do you know what kind of bee you have? I seem to remember that Carnica are popular in Germany. It wouldn't surprise me if our losses in Scotland were particularly high this winter as the summer was so poor, queens didn't mate well, and colonies went into autumn with too few young bees and too little stores.

Hi Gavin, bee houses can be really great - they offer protection from the elements, and you can secure your gear. But they can be limiting too (space, immobile) or just cramped dark places to work in. They offer good protection from the weather for bees and beekeeper!

In the area I am in Carnica are very popular. Other bees in the area are discouraged to minimise interbreeding as alot of beekeepers don't go to the breeding areas. These breeding areas are up in the mountains where queens and bees (but absolutely no drones) can be sent. High quality drones are supplied especially for mating so that the 'strain' stay pure. There are places like this all over the alps and on some islands in the north sea. I guess you have this situation on Colonsay and appreciate how very important these areas are to keep pure stocks of black bees.

I wonder which other Scottish Islands have the same potenial. I thought that would be a good project for the crofting commision to support (EU rare breeds protection too). When I asked the crofting commision they said the were not interested and don't regard beekeeping as a crofting activity.

Our summer was not great either (but being as wet as it was the clover gave good honey), I was lucky adding nine colonies to the eight I had already. Although my experience went against the grain of what happened lcally. In the main though through feeding early in August the bees had pleanty of time to gather plenty of pollen. The lightest colony was 14kg and the heaviest 28kg at the end of September:-you can see from the pictures most of my colonies sit on two magazines through the winter on 18 frames ('Zander' size).


Today for the third day in a row the bees were out collecting pollen (yellow so willow or crocus I guess) and lots of water.

Nice touch.

Every Beekeeper should have at least one of these (a home for solitary wasps!

Calum: interesting concept using the bee shelters. I've heard of bee keepers on the mainland using "bee houses". I'm going to give it a try with maybe 3-4 hives per shelter. I'll send some pic's later in the year.

Alan