Sustainable beekeeping, chickens, and cake
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 … Continue reading Post mortem number three…
Back in May, I visited the bees at Knockhatch Adventure Park, and there had been a small cast swarm in the bait box. We'd put this in a National, and kept an eye on them. I had last checked them from the outside at the end of August, and they had been bringing in pollen … Continue reading Another post mortem…
Today's weather was finally good enough for us to visit the bees on Langney Marsh. We also wanted to see if our tarp experiment had vanished in the floods, so Paul and I headed down under blue skies and a brisk and chilly breeze to see what was going on in the apiary. We saw … Continue reading Marsh bees, and Bee Lining
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 … Continue reading Winchelsea Visit
I wrote a post back in January about a hive I had which contained the bees we rescued from a wall in a squash court in 2016. As it was free comb cut from the cavity in the brood box, I couldn't have access apart from 6 frames in the super above, from which I … Continue reading Hive autopsy, and spiders
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, … 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 … Continue reading National Trust Bees on the Move
Following on from my previous post... Yesterday I was contacted by a site worker from East Sussex Highways about removing the panel from the street lamp so that I could access the bees inside. We met underneath the lamp (although that's where the similarity with Narnia ends), and after a few deft stabs with a … Continue reading The Street Lamp Bees
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. https://videopress.com/v/2gTKVSni We decided that these … Continue reading National Trust Swarm
Last year, Paul was tipped off about some bees in an aged oak at Knockhatch Adventure Park and yesterday we went to see them, and hear about their history from Colin, the Managing Director of the family-owned Park. The colony currently resides in the trunk of the tree, but originally they were in a branch … Continue reading Tree Bees at Knockhatch