I have had a colony at my apiary which was occupying a brood box full of comb we’d taken out of a feral nest in a wall at Crutches Farm in Winchelsea (see post here). The comb had been piled in and robbed out, but we’d discovered bees bringing in pollen, so moved them over to mine in August. We don’t know where the bees … Continue reading Post mortem number three…
Now that the bee commitments are starting to quieten down for the winter, I went to visit Paul to discuss plans for next year with the Market Wood bees, and any other swarms we capture from the feral colonies in and around Winchelsea. I have one of the swarms here at my apiary as we didn’t have a permanent home for it when it issued, … Continue reading Winchelsea Visit
Paul and I wanted to check on the Winchelsea church bees, and also the swarm from the church bees who were too angry to live domestically so to speak, so Paul took them from Mary’s garden down to Crutches Farm, where the bees in the cottage wall had been; those bees are now at mine, in a box full of random comb. Hope you’re keeping … Continue reading National Trust Bees – and a whole lot of moths
I started working with the National Trust bees at Winchelsea when my friend and colleague Paul asked me to help remove some bees from a wall in a National trust cottage at Crutches Farm. We couldn’t get them out so decided to leave them until they had built up again and were a bit more populous; there are always casualties with colony removal. Having plonked … Continue reading National Trust Bees on the Move
Continuing with the feral bee theme, Paul had put up bait hives in Market Wood in the hope of enticing a swarm from one of the nearby oak tree colonies. Sure enough, there was lots of activity and bringing in of pollen when he checked after a week or so. We decided that these bees should be brought back to my apiary, so that I … Continue reading National Trust Swarm
Today I went to Winchelsea for a meeting about the Swift Town plans, and also to check on the bees in the cottage which we tried unsuccessfully to remove a few weeks ago. It was a beautiful day, and the blossom and oil seed rape was out in force. Following the attempted removal at our last visit, Paul patched up the internal wall with cardboard … Continue reading National Trust update
