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There’s no doubt that bees are riding a wave of popularity. And nowhere more so than in London. That’s great news. But there’s a problem just around the corner. The coming crisis is that London’s bees don’t have enough to eat. And bees can’t eat kind words. There are some 3,225 beehives in a...

Please read below the open letter which I sent on 20th March 2013. "This open letter is to notify you that, with immediate effect, I am resigning my Membership of the London Beekeepers’ Association (LBKA). After five years of LBKA Membership, I have been dismayed by the unwelcome blurring of...

Earlier this year, when I resigned from my local Beekeeping Association, The London Beekeepers’ Association (LBKA). My conscience dictated that I expose the self-serving practices and irregularities of a small number of LBKA officials. The LBKA has become unrecognisable from the benevolent...

Picture a beehive, its cedar wood faded to grey, perched on a parapet four storeys above an street in old Bermondsey. Now zoom in to London’s Tower Bridge, zig South a bit, zag a fraction West, and you have arrived. Welcome to Apis ! This is a blog about honeybees. Mostly. That’s why it’s...

I was surprised to learn at our local BKA AGM that non-beekeeping Members outnumber beekeeping Members (160/144, if I recall correctly). Are there any other BKAs out there with a higher non-beekeeping/beekeeping Membership composition?

I e-mailed the Food Standards Agency with the following question: Dear Sir/Madam, Please could you inform me what the minimum font size for lettering is for use on Honey Labels ? The reply came back: "Labelling is looked after by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. I...

Sorry that this duplicates earlier thread...I looked long and hard before posting, but missed it. Apologies ! The BBC has picked up on a disagreement between London beekeepers... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-19913180 There may be too many bees in the capital, the London...

I realise that combining Local Government, horticulture (and the BBKA!) on this Forum carries a risk of immediate defenestration, but here goes….. With Boris’s “Capital B” programme underway and the general rise in popularity of the craft of Beekeeping, it is reasonable to anticipate that...

For interior designers, or for urban beekeepers ? I love the "flower-pot / pollen" arrangement outside. What are they "smoking" in Holland ? Silly question ...

Much to my surprise, I found a single, large, sealed QC one third down a central brood frame on a regular National brood box yesterday. (Perhaps that explains why I noted a couple of patches of drone brood when inspecting the same hive last week). There is still plenty of sealed brood, larvae...

I came back from hoilday 12 days ago and found and marked a young Queen in one of my hives. I was surprised to see no sign of the old (also blue-marked) Queen, but assumed that some sort of supercedure had occured and that my inexperienced elder son had not noticd the QC when he was inspecting...

History : I combined two National hives when I found one of the Queens dead in mid-November 2009. The previous week I had a couple of experienced neighbouring beeks looking at the hives to help me check for disease etc, but we had all been unable to find and mark the remaining Queen (which had...