Recent content by Macbear

Thankyou for identifying the blue flower. I've an allotment and it thrives. Noting that it is clearly a useful forage plant don't strim or weed it out in some areas. My field beans [grown as green manure] are in full flower now. They will be for the chop in a fortnight, though as I have...

As a hobby beekeeper for just over a decade I've found that greater knowledge has been accompanied by greater challenges. Ignorance and very forgiving bees made room for me to make some real blunders and get away with them. Now, I feel more responsibility. Thankfully, satisfaction and enthusiasm...

Temperature in the higher teens, and my hives are in a sheltered spot, so inspection time. One hive has responded well to my having to take down a huge lot of wild comb which the Q had somehow got into. All bees shaken into the BB and a QE placed on top with a super that they have for their own...

A lot of good advice has already been given. One consideration is hive equipment, I don't think that this has been picked up. If good practice is to refresh Brood frames every 3 years, exchange floors and Brood Boxes annually, for example, who owns what? Add to this replacement of...

With plenty of rainwater available, and quite a lot of old frames my method has been: 1. strip the foundation out and break it into pieces no bigger than three square inches straight into an old pillowcase 2. clothes pegs to close to opening of the pillowcase. Dunk it several times into a large...

When I read this, yesterday, [ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-68604572 ] two issues in addition to those raised above struck me. 1. "When the house was placed in National Trust care in 1952, it came with an instruction not to disturb the bees." Would that be a legally enforceable...

A nasty, introduced species are the greys. Like my pet hate - muntjac. The lack of suitable predators was not in the tiny minds of those who imported/bred them.

Noted that Countryfile, yesterday, featured conservationists pollarding hazels. Just wondered if there had been any thought given to the catkins as a source of forage for bees. Maybe, it is correct to coppice before trees begin to spring into growth, but ...???

Although it feels more than 15C , and both colonies clearly doing plenty of foraging [yellow, orange and whitish pollen] and other flights at 1000, I'm leaving well alone. Yes, the fliers may appreciate more than the current smaller entrance reducer aperture, today, but the forecast is colder...

Beware at the Queen's Club tournament in West Kensington in June 😄

Watched a video which included a young lady [French] wearing a bikini top, and not a lot else, inspecting a hive. A case of "my glamorous assistant" for the guy trying to sell his non-mainstream way of doing things? It made me question whether what he was proposing was any more sense than that...

Yes, ribes is in flower in my neck of the woods, but when the weather app says the easterly wind makes the 7 degrees C feel like -2 even a cursory lifting of the crown board seems like a poor idea. Bees are bringing ribes in, but we've also got snowdrops, hellibore and willow.

Totally agree - I won't be adopting it. A significant element in records is weather which gives the context [colony temperament especially]. The cumulative picture given by a spreadsheet, including comparison with previous years needs to be easy to analyse.

My hives are well tucked away. Mid to dark brown with postcode burned into the outside of each part . Hopefully, as there are only two hives, and landlord limits me to a maximum of four it will not be worthwhile for the dishonest. How disgusting to have criminals who misuse their knowledge of...

I agree. What puts me off is that it is very "wordy". 27 pages; however, I recognise that some beekeepers hold some practices very dear and others reject those same practices. A classic was during a practical exam when I reinstated the QE exactly as it was on an Association hive when I had...