Vartusmeister
New Bee
Hi everyone,
I am a fairly new beekeeper, started the actual hobby 1 and a half years ago, currently managing 2 full-size and one nucleus colony, as it seems (for now at least), all overwintered.
Although there were elderly family members in Hungary who had bees for decades, I pretended to be too busy to take up the hobby. Anyways, here I am now, living in Scotland since 2012 and I am the one who continues the beekeeping in the family, even if it is a bit far away from the original region.
My first full year of beekeeping was a half success: I managed to overwinter my initial nucleus colony (sourced from local BKA, led by a Colonsay AMM), but I moved the poor creatures to a full-sized hive too early in March, resulting a fantastic proportion of chilled brood. Then again, successfully did a split in late May because I desperately wanted to increase, but once the rain started in June, it never stopped, so the queen became poorly mated, soon superseded. And I got a small swarm of very yellow bees which were clustered close to my apiary at the beginning of August.
I also harvested 4 kilos of honey for my own consumption.
I learnt a lot from my own mistakes and also from the talks provided by different associations. I regularly read the forum but did not ask or tell anything yet, better if I keep my mouth shut until I cannot say anything constructive
Hope that time will come soon...
Until that: happy beekeeping for everyone and keep posting, I read a lot!
I am a fairly new beekeeper, started the actual hobby 1 and a half years ago, currently managing 2 full-size and one nucleus colony, as it seems (for now at least), all overwintered.
Although there were elderly family members in Hungary who had bees for decades, I pretended to be too busy to take up the hobby. Anyways, here I am now, living in Scotland since 2012 and I am the one who continues the beekeeping in the family, even if it is a bit far away from the original region.
My first full year of beekeeping was a half success: I managed to overwinter my initial nucleus colony (sourced from local BKA, led by a Colonsay AMM), but I moved the poor creatures to a full-sized hive too early in March, resulting a fantastic proportion of chilled brood. Then again, successfully did a split in late May because I desperately wanted to increase, but once the rain started in June, it never stopped, so the queen became poorly mated, soon superseded. And I got a small swarm of very yellow bees which were clustered close to my apiary at the beginning of August.
I also harvested 4 kilos of honey for my own consumption.
I learnt a lot from my own mistakes and also from the talks provided by different associations. I regularly read the forum but did not ask or tell anything yet, better if I keep my mouth shut until I cannot say anything constructive
Hope that time will come soon...
Until that: happy beekeeping for everyone and keep posting, I read a lot!