The GC Beekeeping Thread.

Hello and welcome to the beekeeping thread.

I am Pete or Poly Hive and I started my bee adventure in 1987. From one nucleus colony, in three years, due to one of the most virulent cases of Bee Fever ever, it became 14 colonies, and then it went semi commercial with 50, rising to 80 at one point, and literally honey by the ton.

At this time I have slimmed right down to enable our move to Scotland and retirement. I sold my bees in very early Spring and have my hopes pinned on the bait hives I have set out up north to attract a couple of swarms.

If you have any questions I will do my best to answer as in all probability I have made just about every mistake it is possible to make. So why make them if it is avoidable?

PH

 

Hi Pete....it's so nice to have a bee expert on GC again. Good luck with your bait hives I'll be watching your thread with interest

 

Many thanks Fern.

A bait hive is a blatant attempt by the beekeeper to attract a passing swarm.

Actually of course it is a little more complex than that. A colony that decides to swarm, which is of course sex, reproduction, sends out scouts to find a new home. They have a brief, not too big, not too small, snug, and preferably inaccessible. Ponder your unused chimney..lol Anyway what I set out is a hive as follows, floor brood box and crown board and roof. I put in the hive some nice old comb and sprinkle with an essential oil which is said to mimic the Queen pheromone. The scouts will assess various sites then reach a decision and then guide the swarm at the first blink of good warm weather to the new site. I was lucky enough to watch all this quite closely some years ago and had the time to find the camera.


PH

 

Sounds fascinating Pete, I love the idea of honey Bees and always prefer to buy honey from local suppliers.

I absolutely loved the programme on BBC 4 a few years ago following the presenter through getting her own hives and finally producing her town honey.

Sent from my SM-A300FU using Tapatalk

 

I thought this might be of interest:



PH

 

I have always wanted to keep bees, I think I'm related to Pooh bear and love honey, unfortunately I am now sugar intolerant and have been told to cut out sugar to avoid diabetes, so that's one hobby that won't now be happening. Look forward to your stories about your hives though.

 

The hive at the National Trust garden where I work.



Something got into them about an hour later, hive was covered in them

 

Hmm well with four supers on and a single National brood box I am going to make a reasonably shrewd guess that they were busy swarming. For many strains of bee a single Nat is just not big enough. I hope there are some bait hives around to collect the swarm. Might be a plan to let the owner know as if they are not checked they will swarm again and again called casting. Little swarms headed by Virgin Queens. The prime swarm (the biggest one) is headed by the old queen.

 

Ta

The Head Gardener is the bee keeper, she's back in on Wednesday

We were a bit concerned about them swarming, one of the lads got stung 3 times

 

She is not going to be happy. Tomorrow might be a very good day to like low. Turn the compost perhaps?

PH