Beekeepers love their equipment. Both bought and home made.
So it is that time of year where the days are getting shorter and the nights are getting colder. Time to wrap up the hives for winter. We have a mild winter here in the UK so I don’t plan to do much. The poly hives are great for this as they retain heat much … Read more
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Flow frames are great, but they are a pain to over winter. Luckily with low quantities of wax they don’t get wax moth larvae eating their way through them and destroying them however they do get a little mouldy. They are then a pain to clean before deployment in the spring. A steam cleaner is … Read more
As is always the case with my beekeeping I have one harvest a year. Like other years the harvest was end of August and beginning of September. It is a difficult job judging when to take the harvest. You want to have a period of good weather where the flow is in full stream. Too … Read more
OK so anyone who uses flow frames will know that after a year or so they get a bit manky. Chat forums are full of people asking how to clean them or if they should clean them at all etc. I always tried not to clean them but this year they are particularly grubby. I … Read more
So I tend to do wax once a year. Everyone does wax differently and I have tried many ways. The important thing to realise is that wax gets messy, Seriously messy. So be prepared for a big tidy up. Equipment Good sized bucket to store the dirty wax. Old fashioned Steamer Juicer / cordial maker. … Read more
Firstly this is not an endorsement for any product or company. This is a description of my journey and the ups, downs and reasoning behind my discissions. The Problem 2023 was an awful year for me with honey. I had 3 flow supers and one cut comb and a double brood for Queen rearing and … Read more
So the idea here was to make a really nice bee water feeder in order to keep the bees happy during the hot spell we are encountering. The designs for this are fairly simple, though I have to confess this is not my invention and I did see it somewhere online. The main concept is … Read more
This year I am going to revisit my Queen cup method of queen rearing. So the idea is to breed up some drones whilst preparing the cassette to accept new eggs. Progress Red hive is double brood from the beginning of the season. 3/6/23 step 2 got everything together. 3/6/23 Step 3 inserted the cassette … Read more
Some swarms are easy to collect and can be done simply with a white sheet, a bucket, and a nuc hive whilst others require a bit more effort. My main piece of kit is a multi-functional box swarm box. This box is set up to take the Langstroth frames that fit into the normal hive … Read more
