The Plot Thickens.

After a long time considering my options I have decided to go with a hive partly of my own design, it is a combination of Warre, Christ and is most closley modelled on the hive of Roger Delon called a "Stable-climate hive", I have researched this for a long time and concluded I am more interested in keeping healthy happy bees with as little intervention as possible, I am no organic bee keeper by far but I do feel we should look after our bees interests and a lot of things all fell into place one day when reading the little translation of the stable climate hive by David Heaf, I take my hat off to this guy go find him on the net and check his ideas out, I urge you to think about how we can look after our bees. Any way the post title suggests a thickening plot well more about that next time but just to say wall thickness is key?????

Where does the time go?

It has been a very long time since I last posted please accept my apologies so many things have happened I would not know where to start so each week I will post about 1 item and look forward to hearing from you in return.
Oh yes not forgetting a link to somewhere different CLICKHERE

The Apiary of Dreams (if you build it they will come)

Hi all I post today with a real sense of trepidation, excitement and eagerness, you see I went to visit a local bee keeper who has almost stopped keeping, due to the rising costs of bees, varroa mite destroying his colony's and yaffle's pecking through the side of his hives and eating his bees, He has gone from 30+ hives to almost 0, Dave has very kindly offered me space and hives in his apiary all I have to provide are some woodpecker protection, bees and foundation, he has also said that I can learn from his experience, 30 years worth, now that is an offer to good to refuse, so very soon I will talk to Dave about cleaning up a couple of hives ready for next year. Exciting or what?
 You may be thinking why the title of this post? well David thought his beekeeping was about over but when he walked down to his hives a couple of days after I had called him to his joy he discovered a swarm of bees had just taken up residence in one of his hives, from out of the fields "came the players" so as to speak, a lovely gift for a nice gentleman.

Please check out today's link HERE I really think you will like it, as usual I am not letting on where it takes you just click and see.

Mobile phones to blame for colony colapse disorder and loss of bees

It seems we all might in part be responsible for the death of millions of our tiny buzzing friends, what do you think I would love to read your views?

Check out this link to the Independents article HERE and please leave your thoughts back here for us to read.

ECO WARRIOR

I must confess to you I am no Eco-warrior however it has been my conscious effort to reduce as much as possible my carbon footprint in developing my beekeeping.
Hive building was to be the key area for this activity I am now building what I think is the most carbon neutral hive I can, topbar, yes I know I was going with Dartington hives but the amount of ply wood involved just made me gasp, big carbon foot print.Instead I am now using recycled wood, very few fixings and a lot of hand sawing,I have allowed myself to use a battery drill/driver and my band-saw but that will be all the power tools I will use.
So next stage is roof building and covering material considerations assuming my new "Eco-warrior" stance I am not sure what to use yet but I will post when I know.
Please check out the link HERE it takes you to an interesting site about reducing your carbon footprint.

stung and loving it

Hi all, finally got to see inside a beehive the other day I got stung twice, being brave or rather trying to "experience things properly" I decided to go commando with the bees, well, not no undies commando but no veil commando, you see if I live in fear of getting stung it will become a controlling factor in my approach to my beekeeping, so I decided to experience it first hand and yes it hurts, but not as much as I thought it would, its scary because you can hear the bees but you can't see them. As my friend opened the hive 1 or 2 guard bees decided to go on the rampage and I got "hit" as they say.
So, I now have first hand knowledge of the consequences of bee keeping which includes running around someones garden flapping your arms and pulling off layers of clothing because your not sure where the little buggers are. Highly amusing afterwards though.
My concerned friend was very kind but I bet he laughed later when I had gone home and rightly so.
Am I put off? you may ask, "not on your nelly" I reply, no I feel sure that this is the way forward hive construction continues at a pace and there has been an offer of another site for later use, more later about that.
Long post I know but worth the read I hope?
Check out this link HERE for info on honey bee pollination you will be suprised at what bees do for us.

My daughters blog

CLICK HERE




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