Bees

[Arzosah]

How did you all get the bees to start with ?

How did you all learn ?

Someone I'm very close with wanted to learn to keep bees, and a local beekeeper offered a kind of apprenticeship. Unfortunately, he had to move and the arrangement faltered, but the Beekeepers Association https://www.bbka.org.uk/ might well know of similar people, or put an advert in their newsletter or something.

[Adjee]

How did you all get the bees to start with ?
How did you all learn ?

We just read a couple of books, signed up to several You Tube channels then purchased some hives, prepared them, found a beekeeper, traded some work for a a couple of bee colonies then learnt as we went along. Bees are pretty intelligent and know how to look after themselves. One of the worse things you can do is interfere with them too much.

Ive kept bees on and off for a number of years. The latest ones died over Christmas, found them frozen outside the hive under some snow. Been busy cleaning out one if my hives ready to start again!

The temperatures get down to -20c here so we wrap all our hives for the coldest part of the winter adjusting the lids as the same time to reduce any condensation risk. We had a serious issue with a large flock of bee eaters taking up residence at the end of our field last year, I doubt many made their migration back to Africa as with all our bees they ate they would have been too fat to fly! We had to combine several hives to ensure they survived and were healthy for this year.

[Medusa]

I would love to have hives, mostly for the honey, but partly for the old custom of "telling the bees". Our local Council was spending money on planting wildflower areas, unfortunately last year they failed to do this. We have wildflower areas in the garden and plant things to attract the pollinators as we have fruit trees which require cross pollination and also if the bees disappear so do the crops. There is a bee keeper course local to me which I would love to attend, but seems pointless if I cant have my own hives. I do store honey as part of my preps and buy from local bee keepers where possible as the supermarket stuff just isnt completely natural. My husband was tipped two jars of honey from a bee keeping customer, it was delicious and consumed with lemons and garlic when the winter lurgy hit.

[Adjee]

Spring honey harvested today tastes lovely. Need to split a hive in the next few days so have added an extra one to the hive line ready for when it happens. Hopefully we will be helping in setting up a new hive line on some land in exchange for honey sharing and some beekeeping advice to the family that own it. Started making some hives and putting together some frames today.

They want go without foundation like we are trying this year. Looking forward this.

[Arzosah]

Good luck, Adjee, I hope it goes really well.

[Adjee]

Having a honey rush here at present as we are surrounded by fields of sunflowers so having to check all the hives constantly to replace the honey laden frames. Any uncapped frames are also checked physically and with a refractor. We prefer to manage the hives this way via frame manipulation rather than keep adding extra "supers". Use foundationless frames has worked really well with no swarming and lots of beeswax in the storage tubs to play with later.

Not sure what people do in the UK.

All split colonies have raised their queens so a good year so far...........

All surplus honey will be up for sale/barter soon.

[Medusa]

We definitely have not seen as many honey bees this year but the various types of bumble bees are enjoying the lavender. We try to grow something throughout the spring and summer seasons to keep them going. We were lucky enough a few years ago to have a bumble bee nest in the garden which we were able to observe which was incredible. I am wondering if the lack of honey bees means that there used to be local hives which are not there anymore. Husband is currently working for a bee keeper so hoping he might be able to buy a couple of jars for the stores. He has been tipped with jars of honey from previous customers which was much appreciated. Adjee I have read about free flow hives and wondered if you have an opinion on these?

[Adjee]

I have read about free flow hives and wondered if you have an opinion on these?

I have seen them demonstrated at several Bee Keeping shows and am not convinced by them (or the answers from the people doing the demonstration) but I have no experience of using them. They seem very expensive for a little gain and are certainly not the "Hands Off" Bee Keeping some companies portray them as.

You still have to manage the Deep box and monitor the bees in it for the usual issues, I think they can only have one deep and although we run some hives with just one it does limit brood space so can lead to swarming. You will probably need to use a Queen excluder to prevent brood being formed in the super that you will be automatically stripping for honey.

Some bee colonies will not touch the wax frames they have (other bee keepers I know have had the same issue in Langstroth hives), there are tricks to get around this such as coating the foundation with beeswax but it does not always work.

If the weather is cool the honey could clog the flow system and bees could be sucked into the honey flow causing a problem inside the hive.

Like I said I have no experience of these hives and like many things it is down to personal choice but would be interested to hear an honest opinion from anyone with personal experience of them.

[Medusa]

Thanks Adjee, I appreciate your reply and opinion

[Frnc]

I've not seen one bee this year. I have some brambles that have flowers they usually go to, grows into my honeysuckle which also had flowers. I was meaning to put some water out but forgot.