It's been a while since I last posted - apologies to my one reader ! I'll try and make amends over the coming months.
After a lot of deliberations at the end of 2016, I made up my mind to expand my Beekeeping operation.
I have taken nearly 28 years of Beekeeping to decide to step up my volume and now, in my (very) early 40s I'm taking the plunge.
Having lost 2 colonies over winter - a nuc which was a v v late swarm gifted to me and a weak WBC, I currently have 25 colonies to expand from. The aim being to get to 50 colonies by the end of 2017, and, all being well, expand again in 2018.
Why ?
Well having had a lot of stress over the last few years I'm only really and truely happy when I'm out and about Beekeeping. I get so much satisfaction from it it seems madness not to at least try and make it a more commercial operation than get to be an old grand master of Beekeeping and never know!
Yesterday was a fun day out at BeeTradex, with my first Bee Farmers AGM, and today was a mix of more frame building, nuc preparation, and the exciting job of establishing a new apiary which is based at the rear of a small garden centre and Xmas tree plantation.
I decided late last year to amalgamate all my 14x12 hives in one location here to make life easier. I also have 2 Maisemore 14x12 poly nucs to go with them, along with a couple of spare broods to expand into there.
My main apiary is a bit depleted now, but have plans to expand it again - it does need a good thrash back with a strimmer - and I dropped off 5 nucs ready for expansion.
The other apiary I established last year has 5 v strong nationals - I have high expectations of this site and now need to finish off fitting foundation to well over 500 frames and make 3-4 new hive stands.
Next weekend (weather and time permitting) I'm collecting 25 second hand nationals along with 100 supers from a source I have - he's kindly scorching them as I type and these will be the bedrock of the expansion plans this year.
I do realise that if we have a good season I'm likely to run short of supers - one never has enough.
Anyway. Enough for now - here's to a warm Spring !!
Somerford
After a lot of deliberations at the end of 2016, I made up my mind to expand my Beekeeping operation.
I have taken nearly 28 years of Beekeeping to decide to step up my volume and now, in my (very) early 40s I'm taking the plunge.
Having lost 2 colonies over winter - a nuc which was a v v late swarm gifted to me and a weak WBC, I currently have 25 colonies to expand from. The aim being to get to 50 colonies by the end of 2017, and, all being well, expand again in 2018.
Why ?
Well having had a lot of stress over the last few years I'm only really and truely happy when I'm out and about Beekeeping. I get so much satisfaction from it it seems madness not to at least try and make it a more commercial operation than get to be an old grand master of Beekeeping and never know!
Yesterday was a fun day out at BeeTradex, with my first Bee Farmers AGM, and today was a mix of more frame building, nuc preparation, and the exciting job of establishing a new apiary which is based at the rear of a small garden centre and Xmas tree plantation.
I decided late last year to amalgamate all my 14x12 hives in one location here to make life easier. I also have 2 Maisemore 14x12 poly nucs to go with them, along with a couple of spare broods to expand into there.
My main apiary is a bit depleted now, but have plans to expand it again - it does need a good thrash back with a strimmer - and I dropped off 5 nucs ready for expansion.
The other apiary I established last year has 5 v strong nationals - I have high expectations of this site and now need to finish off fitting foundation to well over 500 frames and make 3-4 new hive stands.
Next weekend (weather and time permitting) I'm collecting 25 second hand nationals along with 100 supers from a source I have - he's kindly scorching them as I type and these will be the bedrock of the expansion plans this year.
I do realise that if we have a good season I'm likely to run short of supers - one never has enough.
Anyway. Enough for now - here's to a warm Spring !!
Somerford
