Recent content by Essex Bees

I've been invited to house a hive (or 2) at a couple of local primary schools. Both schools are extremely keen and already have nature gardens/mini allotments and are sympathetic to the cause of the bee. However, one school is concerned with little Timmy getting stung, and would like to know...

I didn't know such a thing existed. I react badly to stings and would love to know how you get on. Also, where do you get the treatment from...is it your GP?

not sure what number we're up to but... "you should be paying me to take these bees away, they're worth money"

Rather bizarrely, over the past 2 weeks I've gone and collected 3 swarms. 2 are ok...ish, but the 3rd is very small, but, bless her cotton socks, the queen is laying as much as she can despite there only being about 100 or so bees with her. I know survival likelihood is low, but any ideas as...

I usually react very badly to stings from UK bees, but when I was in France, it was never a problem. I've been stung 10 times or so this year from 24 hives/swarms and sometimes I react, other times I don't and I'm not taking any tablets Maybe it's to do with how much venom actually gets in...

Thanks for everyone's feedback As I quite like tinkering around with wood, I'm going to make, for want of a better phrase, a set of stairs to go into the frame feeder so the ladies can walk up and down. Will let you know how I get on

For what it's worth, I agree with Moggs Much better to let the bees settle for a week or so rather than upsetting them. Presumably, if it's a Nuc then the queen is new and there was plenty of space to last a good few weeks anyway.

I've just searched for a steam extractor ... nice treat :-) Not that every treat has to pay for itself, but out of interest, how much useable wax do you get ... in terms of something tangible such as number of candles etc I hope this isn't a dumb question ... I do have a recurring habit of...

Thanks Just Bee it's not advertising - I have a couple of blogs about "living the good life" and as I build websites for a day job, the blogs are a little bigger than most :-) Going back on topic - thanks for the info about cleaning my wax. I went to a living museum the other week where...

While replacing foundation, I have amassed a fair amount of old, dirty, wax. At the moment, it's all in clumps in a few dustbin bags in the garage. However, what I want to do is to melt it down and make candles, polish etc. My issue is that it's rather dirty (well, on the surface anyway), so...

(this article is a re-post from my main blog Link removed by admin 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 So, back to my article post...) In my last posting I mentioned that we had...

(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...

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...

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...

Ah ok ... that makes sense Thanks .. it'll save buying the bees scuba gear :-)