Fox Gloves

[stilllearning]

cotoneaster...they love it !

 

[greatbritishhoney]

Rosebay Willowherb - looks similar to foxgloves and the bees love it. It can be a bit invasive though, depends on how neat you want your garden to be I suppose.

 

[Vergilius]

The bees love pollinating our loganberry plants in particular- for some strange reason.

Ben P

 

[Stephenw]

Good thread, have slowly been realising that my garden is more bumble bee friendly than Honey Bee friendly, better start planning/planting before my girls arrive!

Thanks CAK29

 

[Erichalfbee]

The bees love pollinating our loganberry plants in particular- for some strange reason.

Ben P

Yes, raspberry is important forage here in Cumbria coming in earlier than bramble. I think Finman's bees forage a lot on raspberry as well.

 

[freethorpe bees]

Broad bean flowers too. Grow them and you have yummy beans as a bonus!

 

[Stephenw]

Last night in our beekeeping class we were told of a man who had 10-16 supers on some of him hives. I was like wowww.

Steve

 

[richardbees]

'Poached egg plant' and Borage

 

[Teemore]

Last night in our beekeeping class we were told of a man who had 10-16 supers on some of him hives. I was like wowww.

Steve

That was Ged Marshall - he did a talk for the Institute of Northern Ireland Beekeepers on 12th Feb and I think he did the same presentation for Randalstown the night before. Ged had a number of pictures of hives with 11-12 supers on and, if i remember correctly, another picture depicting a hive with 12 supers that had already had 10 supers removed for extracting. He moves hives for pollination purposes but his main crop is OSR closely followed by forage beans. He also has a fair amount of borage near some of his sites.

 

[MJBee]

Just ordered some bee friendly seeds - buddleia globosa, borage, and sedums among others from "Chilternseeds.co.uk" they stock a tremendous range of flower and veg seeds including a lot of rare varieties - worth a look IMO.

 

[Stephenw]

Yeah teemore ya know who im talking about. Was the presentation good? Where is he from?


Thanks


Stephen

 

[oliver90owner]

Where is he from?

Steeple Claydon.

About three miles from where I grew up.

RAB

 

[Erichalfbee]

-------

 

[Erichalfbee]

Just ordered some bee friendly seeds - buddleia globosa, borage, and sedums among others from "Chilternseeds.co.uk" they stock a tremendous range of flower and veg seeds including a lot of rare varieties - worth a look IMO.

I love Chiltern Seeds, they have some lovely stuff.
I must admit to getting a lot of my bee forage seeds from Fleabay simply because of price......for example Chiltern sell Phacelia 50g for £2.45 but I got 2Kg for £5.00 inc pp on fleabay.
__________________

 

[Teemore]

Yeah teemore ya know who im talking about. Was the presentation good?

Ged's talk was excellent. He has a really approachable manner and gives measured responses to questions thrown at him. I'd have loved the chance to speak with him at greater length but literally as soon as the talk finished he was spirited off to the airport for his flight home - he was v. tight on time!

It was interesting to hear first hand the approach of a commercial bee keeper and Queen Rearer (He describes himself as a Queen Rearer and NOT a Queen Breeder) where time and economic constraints have a huge impact on hive management techniques. It was yet another illustration that the less you interfere with/disturb a colony of bees, the more honey they produce and the better they do in general. Hopefully a few of the folk at the lecture got it into their heads that you don not need to pull a hive apart every other day to see if the bees are still there!

The biggest focus of his talk was his commercial Queen rearing. In the past ged ran about 400 hives for honey production but has dropped that to 200 and he operates over 300 apidea producing in excess of 1000 Queens per annum.

 

[Stephenw]

Good good. I was looking in the farming life today and he was in it about his recent visit.


Steve