Spruce's honey bees

Delicious Mr Shiney,
bee heaven

 

We have some hives overwintering in the corner of a field next to a copse, which should be moved to various corners of fields locally soon. A young lad has them and he has had a good yield last year from the flora which had an unusual flavour to the honey. It tasted of Lavender, which I know is not widely grown around here. I did not think they would travel far for food!

 

Thanks Spruce, Ill be looking at emailing them today, its a small club at the college but should be the easiest for me to get to, another larger club is also based at a college (one big college with different campuses). It may be just me, but I have seen very very few actual honey bees in my area, we are not arable country, quite high and hilly. However I know that we have a lot of Whins, blackthorn and heather (we own land on a mountain that has a whole top covered in ehather), other than that I would be afraid we dont have a great diversity of plant life, though bee's aren't slow at finding food of course!

As landimad said about honey tasting of lavender, is this true or is it simply a trick of the senses by something else? lavenders certainly strong to our senses but can even small amounts actual change honey? and are there other plants that can influence the taste of honey to an untrained taster?

It would be interesting to know about an Irish honeybee! we certainly have the wet and grey weather here!

 

It must have been brill to get off work early and go Beekeeping.

I'm really glad that things are ok and they got through the horrible weather. How often do you have to inspect the hives?

 

Fern4

Meant to be every 7 days , as my queen has both her wings not clipped.
I check for swarm cells (newbaby queens)

Development of a Queen Bee
Day Stage
egg laid 1 egg
2 egg
3 egg
4 larva
best queens are reared as
queen cells from eggs or very
young larvae
5 larva
6 larva
7 larva oldest larva that can be
reared into a queen
cell sealed 8 larva
9 pre-pupa
10 pre-pupa
11 pupa red eye
12 pupa yellow thorax
13 pupa yellow abdomen
14 pupa pupae are very delicate and
fit loosely in queen cells.
Combs should not be shaken
or roughly handled during this
time.pupal moult
15 pupa queen emerges
16 adult

 

Just 16 days to become a Queen . What happens to the current Queen ( who laid the eggs) - and all these new Queens? Do they get pushy and fight one another?
Jenny

 

Hi Jens
the old (original) Queen flies off (swarm) with about half of the bees , and the newly hatched Queens fight it out to see who will take over to the death , queen bee's will only sting another Queen bee , occasionally you can get mini swarms after the main one when there are two new Queens in the hive but it doesn't happen that often also the swarm is to small to be viable as a new colony and normally die quite quickly or too small to survive the winter.

Spruce

 

Thought it might be a bit of a horror story Spruce .

 

Says it all

 

ah The Lion King, one of my fav movies of my childhood...they just don't make them like they used too

 

Hi All

Been to check over the bees , warm and no wind , all looking great I have put the queen excluder on each of the hives and have put a super on both to give them more room as each brood box is nearly full , didnt see her majesty in either but I saw eggs so was happy with that so at least I know they are both laying , I noticed a greenish pollen on some of the bees legs so thats a new one on me so I will have to have a check and see what plant it is from, the bess where so relaxed on the frames I was watching them do little dances which was great to see and took no notice of me one bit!

No stings in me or the gloves so doing well up to now.

I will be starting a new project in the weeks to come I am trying to source the "Native Welsh Black bee" as they are meant ? to be more suited to the conditions of Wales ie wet and gray !
I have joined a group of beekeepers based in Swansea who are keen to get it re-established so as soon as I know more I will let you all know I have a feeling I had these about 15 years ago and more like rottweiler than bees but time will tell.

I have started to plant up along the brook with marginal water loving plants , and must thank Armandii for the plants he supplied very generous of him.

Spruce

 

So glad your bees are all in good form and enjoying this wave of sunshine . We have loads of dandelions here Spruce. Is there pollen that they can extract from the flowers please?
Jenny

 

Hi Jens

Dandelion
Taraxicum officionale




Rich in pollen and nectar so is a great plant for insects and especially bees

Spruce