Sustainable beekeeping, chickens, and cake
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
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 … Continue reading National Trust update
I visited these bees with Paul a few weeks ago to see about removing them. The cottage is due to be renovated at some point, and as we wanted bees for the Marsh, it would be somewhere to relocate these bees before work began. Now is a good time to try and remove bees as … Continue reading National Trust Bees
I rescued these bees with a friend of mine from the panelling of a wall in a social club that was going be demolished, on April 10th, 2016. It was a cold day and a bit drizzly, and the location of the colony was near the car park for a popular bridleway/public footpath, and it … Continue reading Squash court bees