Category: Creatures

Yesterday, Saturday 2nd March 2013, I went to check on my two bee hives. They were fine and healthy with plenty feed stock last time I checked. Continue reading Bee Tragedy

Check this link (sorry, it’s no longer available, but this link is the product being described – the Philips Urban Beehive.) for details. I’m saying nothing!

Except, maybe, I really can’t see it taking off.

Well, ok then. How do you stop the queen laying in the honey comb? There doesn’t appear to be a queen excluder – so your honey will have all sorts of stuff in it! Larvae, eggs, etc. It really won’t work!

Cheers.

On Sunday past, I took 11 full & capped super frames of lovely honey from the original hive, and checked the new hive. They are a bit behind and have not yet capped anything off. Hmmm, what are they up to I wonder?

The original hive got another full set of super frames to draw out and fill up. Seeing as how it’s getting late on in the year, I’m not sure we’ll get much more, if anything off of them – but you never know.

The third hive (well, nucleus box) is going to Peter as soon as we can get the little b*ggers to stay inside so that I can block off the entrance and get them transported. They are up early every morning and they stay out much later that I do at night! Women! 😉

One of Alison’s ex work colleagues, Andy, keeps bees. So far this year he has had 4 swarms! Continue reading Bees Coming Out Of Our Ears!

I’ve been checking the girls today – the weather is lovely and warm and they are flying around all over the place, returning with lots of pollen and, hopefully, nectar. Continue reading Do We Have A New Queen, Or What?

I’ve taken far too long to write this up, but I’ve been rather pissed off to be honest! We’ve lost one hive of bees since February. Continue reading Bee Tragedy!

On Sunday 6th February I hefted the hives as usual. The new hive felt a bit on the light side so I whipped the lid off (just the lid) to take a peek – it was quite mild or I wouldn’t have disturbed them. Continue reading The Bees are alive!

I was out this Sunday hefting the hive. It’s feeling a little lighter than I remember, so I suspect the girls are tucking in to the stores now. I heard from Peter, about a fortnight ago, that his girls have started laying already so it’s looking good for Spring. Continue reading Signs Of Life?

Today, Alison and I took our lives in our hands and extracted the honey from 20 full frames. In all, we have now got a kitchen full of about 70 lbs of fresh garden honey courtesy of our hard working lady friends.  Continue reading Very Sticky Sunday!

Saturday 2nd October was a fairly nice day given the weather we’ve been having recently, so we managed – at long last – to get the final harvest of honey done. Continue reading The Final Harvest Is In…

The girls were checked again today and all is well. Varroa counts is nil on both hives – that worries me a tad!  But I did give them a good dusting of icing sugar last week – so maybe it works after all! Continue reading Bee Latest.

The girls have been busy and today, armed with instincts analogous to that of Defence Lawyers Perth, we combed the trees for honeycombs, and we also have harvested another 9 frames of fully capped honeycomb to add to the three we took a couple of weeks back. Unfortunately … Continue reading It’s Harvest Time!