Recent content by Mrs Webmuppet

Had a second swarm arrive yesterday, I didn't see them arrive -I was out assisting my mentor with his hives. It was a nice surprise before I had to go to work this morning. Erica - My chickens live in Omlet accommodation , my bees are in National hives, an assortment of new hives, ply hives...

I had a swarm arrive in a bait hive a couple of weeks ago. I'd never seen it happen before, it was quite spectacular . The sky over the hives went black and the noise was quite something. They all trouped into the hive then later they went under the hive..... Took two of us to get them into a hive.

I'd love to have a poke around a Beehaus but no one I know of locally has one (I live in deepest darkest Suffolk and it takes a long time for any of those modern fan dangled ideas to catch on !).

I have a smoker from Simon the beekeeper. it does take a while to get going but once it's going it stays alight for ages. I have calm bees so I hardly use it plus I'm so involved in what I'm supposed to be looking for ( I am a newbie and I have to remember my instructions from my mentor) I...

I have a purple Cube too (and a green Eglu aka the retirement home). I daren't get a Beehaus my mentor is very old school ,his face was a picture when my daughter asked him what he thought about plastic hives....if she hadn't been so young he might have said 'bad words' (she told me afterwards...

Hi Finman, any other plants you can recommend for the bees?

I'm slowly clearing (my poor back only allows me to do so much) the nettles from the land where my bees live with a view to planting some bee friendly plants. Ok I know a few plants won't make huge difference to the bees but at least it'll look prettier than the nettles. I have so far cleared a...

I use Tesco cheap washing up gloves 46p for two pairs. Not too thick but not too thin either.

I keep my hives in someone else's garden. I own the hives and kit . In exchange for the use of the patch of land I have to keep the areas strimmed and tidy (no mean feat it's quite an area and it was nettle /bramble infested).

I had terrible problems with wasps around my hives (and all the hives have one bee space entrances but as soon as I approached the hives the wasps were ready to pounce)The wasps nest has been located and hopefully it has been destroyed but it's taken more than one dose of the stuff. The wasps...

Checked two of my hives. Still can't work out what's going on with either. They don't appear to have laying queens and haven't had for quite some time . One of them since the end of June has been queen less,despite repeated attempts at getting them to raise queen, so far they have destroyed one...

My mentor swears by banana skin for chalk brood too.

It's not been a good season here in Suffolk. The weathers been pretty dry, the grass went brown ages ago. My mentor has had a fraction of his normal honey yield. I have had the grand total of 21lb of honey so far and that's pretty much it for the year apparently. The brambles have finished and...

My bees no longer live in my garden....I got offered another location with far more room and away from any grumpy neighbours.

The hive in question turned nasty....they went to my mentors remote apiary to be requeened. They even went for him when he came to take them away (I was reassured that it wasn't just me they didn't like, he said he didn't want me attempting to requeen them where they were).