A week ago Jim & I checked all 3 hives, as we were worried that the bees may have used up their supplies during the unusually mild Autumn and early winter we have had. We checked the Dolphins and found some empty combs, we removed one of these. Decided to offer them some fondant to see if they took it. We had prepared some TBs with about 1" fondant attached along the underneath. We put one of these in. We then checked The Lizards. They seemed to have used up some of their supplies; we found an empty comb (which we removed) and then one with just a small amount of honey still in it at the LH end. After that the combs seemed to still have quite a lot in. We put in one bar of fondant to see if they wanted it. The Nectans were harder to check. They are still in the nucleus box and it is completely full. We tried to lift a bar at each end, but both had bees on, so we decided to leave it until they cluster to one end. Jim hefted the box and felt it was much heavier than when he brought it back from his parents house. Realised that we need to get them out of there pretty quickly in the Spring. We put the third bar we had prepared into the Lizards hive.
Yesterday I checked to see if the fondant had been taken. The Dolphins had taken the lot, so I put one more bar of fondant in. The Lizards had taken one bar, but hadn't finished the second, so I just left that one in there. I put the bar I had prepared for them into the Dolphins hive, so they now have 2. I decided to just take a look in one end of the Nectans and found I was able to remove the end bar now, which was empty. I went back to the house and prepared another bar of fondant and put this in for them. They seemed immediately interested. Will check again in a few days.
Welcome to Sue & Jim's Natural Beekeeping blog.
We are neighbours in the beautiful coastal village of Welcombe on the North Devon/Cornwall border. We both decided to start beekeeping about a year ago and began to attend apiary meetings of the Holsworthy Beekeepers Association. We signed up for the course they were running over the winter and started this, along with another neighbour, Richard, in January 2010.
It was a very good course, but we were all uncomfortable with some aspects of conventional beekeeping. We then came across Phil Chandler and his Barefoot Beekeeper book and website. This way of beekeeping uses Top Bar Hives which are the type used all over Africa, The Caribbean and many other places in the world. They predate the conventional hives that are used in most developed countries by hundreds of years. The bees build natural comb onto top bars and are managed with as little intervention as possible.
We realised that The Yarner Trust, in our own village, was running a Natural Beekeeping course, with Phil as tutor, in April 2010, what a coincidence ( or is it synchronicity? ). Anyway we all signed up and Yarner asked us if we would be prepared to look after the bees for the courses and house them in Sue's field. Jim and Sue decided to say yes and the hunt was on for a nucleus of bees that would be ready in time for the course.
This was not an easy task. No one knew, at that stage, how their colonies had fared over the severe winter and most people had a long list of people already for their nucleii. Beekeeping has become very popular recently with many people realising that bees are in trouble and need our help. Also, as we learned more, we realised that there was a lot of prejudice amongst some conventional beekeepers against Top Bar Beekeeping. Oh dear 'politics' even in beekeeping! This, unfortunately, meant that some beekeepers said they wouldn't sell us bees to go in a Top Bar Hive. We also needed a couple of hives to start the apiary off.
After a couple of months of phone calls and headaches Phil managed to source a nucleus of bees and Dave Baker, one of the Yarner Trustees, made 2 Top Bar Hives.
So, we were off!
The weekend course with Phil went ahead and was great. Sue & Jim were now very 'green' beekeepers. We have had quite a lot of problems over the past 2 months, mostly to do with the fact the bees are in conversion from 1/2 Dadant frames to Top Bars. We are now awaiting our second nucleus, which are on Top Bars already. These are coming from Heather Bell bees on the Lizard. We had similar problems again in sourcing bees, especially as many beekeepers had losses over the winter.
We began keeping a small book, with notes to each other, in the hive. It served as our record of everything that we did and how the bees were doing. Unfortunately we had a leak in the roof this week and our book got wet. Hence the birth of this blog. We will be adding all the notes from the book here over the next day or so and then be using this as our record of the progress of the apiary.
Phil Chandler (The Barefoot Beekeeper) website: www.biobees.com
The Yarner Trust: www.yarnertrust.org
Heather Bell bees - source of Top Bar nucleii: www.cornwallhoney.com
Varroa Mesh: http://www.themeshcompany.com/acatalog/Beekeeping_Varroa_Mesh.html
Made to measure Varroa Mesh: http://www.jtwirecloth.com/prod06.htm
Icing sugar applicator: http://www.industrialpesticides.co.uk/product.asp?p_part_code=PP246
Flash band for hive roof: http://www.screwfix.com/p/evo-stik-flashband-225mm-x-10m/22704
Konig Microscope: http://www.sherwoods-photo.com/konig_field_microscope/fdm.htm
Natural History Museum Microscope - a toy, but good for the price: http://www.play.com/Toys/Toys/4-/15116803/-/Product.html?opFR=true
It was a very good course, but we were all uncomfortable with some aspects of conventional beekeeping. We then came across Phil Chandler and his Barefoot Beekeeper book and website. This way of beekeeping uses Top Bar Hives which are the type used all over Africa, The Caribbean and many other places in the world. They predate the conventional hives that are used in most developed countries by hundreds of years. The bees build natural comb onto top bars and are managed with as little intervention as possible.
We realised that The Yarner Trust, in our own village, was running a Natural Beekeeping course, with Phil as tutor, in April 2010, what a coincidence ( or is it synchronicity? ). Anyway we all signed up and Yarner asked us if we would be prepared to look after the bees for the courses and house them in Sue's field. Jim and Sue decided to say yes and the hunt was on for a nucleus of bees that would be ready in time for the course.
This was not an easy task. No one knew, at that stage, how their colonies had fared over the severe winter and most people had a long list of people already for their nucleii. Beekeeping has become very popular recently with many people realising that bees are in trouble and need our help. Also, as we learned more, we realised that there was a lot of prejudice amongst some conventional beekeepers against Top Bar Beekeeping. Oh dear 'politics' even in beekeeping! This, unfortunately, meant that some beekeepers said they wouldn't sell us bees to go in a Top Bar Hive. We also needed a couple of hives to start the apiary off.
After a couple of months of phone calls and headaches Phil managed to source a nucleus of bees and Dave Baker, one of the Yarner Trustees, made 2 Top Bar Hives.
So, we were off!
The weekend course with Phil went ahead and was great. Sue & Jim were now very 'green' beekeepers. We have had quite a lot of problems over the past 2 months, mostly to do with the fact the bees are in conversion from 1/2 Dadant frames to Top Bars. We are now awaiting our second nucleus, which are on Top Bars already. These are coming from Heather Bell bees on the Lizard. We had similar problems again in sourcing bees, especially as many beekeepers had losses over the winter.
We began keeping a small book, with notes to each other, in the hive. It served as our record of everything that we did and how the bees were doing. Unfortunately we had a leak in the roof this week and our book got wet. Hence the birth of this blog. We will be adding all the notes from the book here over the next day or so and then be using this as our record of the progress of the apiary.
Phil Chandler (The Barefoot Beekeeper) website: www.biobees.com
The Yarner Trust: www.yarnertrust.org
Heather Bell bees - source of Top Bar nucleii: www.cornwallhoney.com
Varroa Mesh: http://www.themeshcompany.com/acatalog/Beekeeping_Varroa_Mesh.html
Made to measure Varroa Mesh: http://www.jtwirecloth.com/prod06.htm
Icing sugar applicator: http://www.industrialpesticides.co.uk/product.asp?p_part_code=PP246
Flash band for hive roof: http://www.screwfix.com/p/evo-stik-flashband-225mm-x-10m/22704
Konig Microscope: http://www.sherwoods-photo.com/konig_field_microscope/fdm.htm
Natural History Museum Microscope - a toy, but good for the price: http://www.play.com/Toys/Toys/4-/15116803/-/Product.html?opFR=true
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