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Celebs getting on-board!

just a little note to share.... Just stumbled accrosst this. I think its really great to see celebrity's and media figures getting involved and creating awareness. http://************************/burtsbeesauction/ Love Celie Birtwells hive too - Given me inspiration to decorate my owv hive now! X
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Time For A Split

(this article is a re-post from my main blog www.EssexBees.co.uk and is aimed at simplifying beekeeping for those who have more than a passing interest ... so please don't shoot me if it's not technically perfect :laughing-smiley-004 So, back to my article post...) Early Spring is a busy time for beekeeping. With Winter behind us and the death toll evaluated, the surviving bees are buy at work building up the colony strength. As beekeepers, our job is to make sure that the bees have access to enough food to compensate for "bad weather" days as well as enough space to expand. The first issue is easily solved. Inside each of our hives is a feeding frame which can hold 2 litres of sugar syrup. Our sugar syrup is made with 1 kilo of...
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There's Always Something New To Learn

Now that Richard is focusing his writing skills on our new blog (www.FoodOnOurDoorstep.co.uk), it's time for me to take up the reins and accept my responsibility for maintaining this blog. So with that in mind, coupled with the fact that I still hadn't had official confirmation of what happened to our hives, I dragged myself away from Facebook and joined the local Beekeepers Association. Now, if I'm honest, I've never been one for groups and associations - too many office/project/committee meetings in a former life at various financial institutions have rather tainted my view, I'm afraid - and I wasn't really sure what to expect. Initially, the fact that the meeting was held in the Women's Institute hall in Rayleigh did fill me with...
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Not Quite A New Blog...

Hi all, I've been keeping various blogs on both beekeeping and smallholding for a few years now, but only recently joined this site. Not that I'm big headed or anything, or even believe that I've a talent to write anything interesting or amusing, but I do like the idea that someone, somewhere will actually read the drivel that I spend far too much time writing :-) As a result, I'll be using this blog as a repost of my "real" blog (which you can find at www.EssexBees.co.uk and, if you want something more than bees, have a look at www.FoodOnOurDoorstep.co.uk) Anyway, I do hope you enjoy (or at least, don't dislike) my postings Dan
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New Hive Established

Finally released the queen today having been given a colony over the weekend but without a queen who had reverted to her old hive somehow but was delivered 2 days later. Had to cut out 5 sealed queen cells that were produced in those 2 days and a further 2 that were produced whilst I kept the queen in her cage. Plenty of honey being brought in and 3 frames of stores with 2 half frames of brood. Hopefully the queen will get on with things now.
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Uh oh - could be about to swarm!

Mrs FG and I just finished inspecting our two colonies on a beautiful day. Good news: they are both doing really well, loads of stores, loads of larvae and capped brood, loads of bees :-) The smaller colony was filling half of a brood box already and going great guns. Loads of stores - where did they get that from already??We reduced them from two boxes to one by taking away the bottom (largely empty) box. I think the second box probably helped them during the Winter (and most of the foundation has been stolen out for the top box expansion) but the wooden frames looked a bit mouldy so we want to exchange them for nice new ones with new foundation. The larger colony is already huge; mostly filling the top box and starting to look...
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Thu 31 Mar. Bee Inspector

Wet damp day, not the sort of day I will look at the bees. But had the Bee Inspector call me in the morning. To make sure I was in to inspect my bees and take a few away. Part of The National Bee Unit Apiary Survey. There were a lot more bees in the hive today. As the weather not that nice, Looks like they are having a day off He was happy with the bees. Found the Queen and added a QE. Also a lot of honey coming in OR they are moving honey from the Brood box to give the Queen more room to lay. Right Hive. 9 frames of brood Super 1/4
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Fri 25th Mar.

I meant to have 2 hives. But the bees did not want to swarm last year. So starting with only 1 hive this year. Hot sunny day and I just had a look at my hive for the 1st time this year. Not as many bees as I expected to see. Small amount of honey left in the super. 4 frames had Lots of brood on both sides. Did not see the Queen. But was not looking for her. I will leave them alone for 2 weeks. Hive. 8 frames of brood. Super 1/5.
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The roof is back

Five hours and three people later and the roof was back on. It was a good excuse to have a good clean out and a lot of old woodwork was disposed of. The bees are doing ok and this Sunday 6th March I had a look at the pollen patties that I had put on last week. The results were interesting. The first hive had really set about the patty and taken at least half of it. Hive two had chosen to eat the crease proof paper rather than the pattie and the third hive had shown no interst in either! Fascinating things, bees!
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Bees in schools 2

Following the success of the bees at my sons' school, my brother's school in Leeds expressed interest in also having bees and my brother asked me for help. Being over 100 miles away I contacted LBKA to see if they could help. In early January a local beekeeper and I met the teachers from the science department. It was an excellent meeting with three of the staff signing up to the next local weekend course. The chosen site is ideal for teaching and the bees will link into so many other parts of the curriculum. The future looks exciting and I look forward to monitoring its success
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Where's the roof?

Just enjoying a leisurely Sunday morning and thinking about braving the rain to go and check my own bees and the association hives when the phone rings. It is my mother "I think you had better come early as I think one of the hives has lost a roof". We normally go to Sunday lunch so it was action stations get the kids sorted dog ready better half on alert and rush through to see the damage. The good news was that all the hives were fine the bad news was that the roof of the shed were I store my spare equipment had gone. Not too far fortunately but it must have just missed the power and telephone lines for most of the village. Everything in the shed is soaked and I suppose it will be a good time to get rid of the rubbish
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Colony 2 is strong and happy

Just checked on colony 2. They hadn't eaten any fondant :-( I had presumed they were hiding to the right, under the second bee escape in the crown board so I dug that out. No bees at all :-( I decided to lift the crown board right off and see if there was anything left. To my surprise, the LEFT-most 3 or 4 frames were chocker with bees (and unimpressed with the extra ventilation). I turned the crown board round 180 degrees and put the fondant on over the hole which was now right over the cluster. Everything back together and watched them for a bit. There were quite a few orientation flights and some foraging. They were clearly happy all the time, close against the left side of the brood box. I'll check again in a few days to see if...
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100% survival so far :-)

Just checked the bees with Mrs FG (I was kitted up, she is hard core and laughed at me). I'd been very worried about colony 2. We got it from PH quite late in the season as a nuc, then Apiguarded it which stopped it expanding much for 3 weeks or so. Overall it's much smaller than colony 1 which we got from GWW and Widders last Spring. In the warm weather recently, both had been flying but colony 2 dumped a load of dead bees out in the process and wasn't seen at all in the last warmer period, despite colony 1 flying strongly. Colony 1 is clearly big and strong and colony 2 much smaller or dead. I thought I'd try the 'bang and listen' test with a stethoscope I got last year. Colony 1 gave me a decent 'sod off! We're sleeping' roar...
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