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Now, ordinerily I wouldn’t use this page to essentially “promote” a company but on this occasion I shall make an exception as I think it is a great concept. I met a gentleman by the name of Dale Gibson at the London Honey Show earlier this year; in fact his honey won one of the awards that I was asked to give out. The award was for the “Best Restaurant Honey“.

I wanted to know a little bit more about this as I am genuinely interested in how people and companies in London are really pushing beekeeping. Sadly I couldn’t really talk to Dale at the awards but made contact afterwards. Interestingly his hives are 150m away from the restaurant who seem to be making a push for everything being local. Anyway, let me tell you a little bit more about the restaurant and their menu. Read the rest of this entry »

I often say that it would take a lot to suggest to anyone that I am the fountain of all knowledge when it comes to beekeeping but I say that I am the World’s leading expert at being a beginner. Therefore I thought I would write a small piece for all your potential beekeepers out there who maybe considering starting to keep bees next year.

What exactly do you need to start keeping bees? There is quite a lot of discrepancy when you read all the books on starting to keep bees and what equipment you need but, in reality, there is a basic set up and then there is a slightly more comprehensive suggestion. Let me start with the basic set up. Read the rest of this entry »

I was very fortunate this week to be a part of a wonderful event at The Lancaster Hotel in London; The London Honey

The London Honey Show at the Lancaster Hotel

Show. Famed for being the first hotel in London, if not the UK for keeping bees on the roof this seemed a very apt location and WOW, what a success.

The room from start to finish was filled with people and Jo and her team got it spot on with a healthy mix of exhibitors and excellent speakers - though sadly I missed every single one of them and so am going on 3rd party reviews all of which were excellent. Of particular note was that of Tim Baker, a Head Master who has encouraged his school to take up beekeeping with superb results; more on that later. Read the rest of this entry »

As a lovely autumnal day drew to a close yesterday, I found myself, over a nice glass of red wine, reflecting on the year I have just had. Like most beekeepers, the removal of my 2nd application of Apiguard and a penultimate inspection, I feel as if this is the right time to analyse it all.

I sat in the bay window of our house, exhausted from the days festivities following our eldest sons 3rd birthday party. Being pirate themed I sat and mused in scraggy shorts, a stripy shirt, bandana and eye patch, not my usual attire while musing about bees; however I made some notes and am now typing them up as I sit aboard a flight to Turkey ready for a working week away from home. Read the rest of this entry »

Mixed emotions today but a mixture of bad luck, inexperience a severe lack of equipment, bad weather and a bee disease sadly ended what I originally called my feisty hive.

I knew it was going to happen but just not quite so quickly. I was up at the hive today, opened the lid and all I saw were wasps robbing the hive and big fat wax larvae having a field day amongst frames now devoid of bees. Not a nice sight especially when you then have to prise apart the frames woven together with larvae web.

This was the first lot of bees I ever got as a swarm from a good beekeeping friend with a queen named cleopatra or neffatiti (we couldn’t really work out which one remained in the hive).

Oh well, I have learnt a lot and hence the mixed emotions:

• Get more equipment is the primary one; I basically had to let them swarm as I didn’t have enough. This left me without the option of another viable colony to combine when times got tough.
• Try not to go on holiday in May (or at the very least the day you spot queen cells in a hive!) – not sure how easy this will be but I had no real option but to let them swarm!
• The bad weather seriously hampered my ability to manage the hive, especially when I was dealing with the swarms (or not as the case may be and the disease management.

All in all not a great day but at least I can move on now having learned a lot about a disease which I hope not to see again. Even if I do at least I will know what to do this time. Always learning from experience.

(graphic from www.beedoodles.wordpress.com)

[google1] I read this fantastic guest blog by Amy Leigh, a newbie beekeeper from San Diego, and felt I needed to share it with everyone. Amy’s blog can be found on her Benefits of Honey blog

We’ve come up with a list of 15 beekeeping innovations throughout history that has developed the industry to what it is today.

Let us know what you think and please feel free to add some more onto the bottom of the list………..

Read the rest of this entry »

[google1] So the time has come. I have been keeping bees for a while and peer pressure has stepped in. The talk around the local association is now about taking beekeeping qualifications. This apparently seperates off the beeminders and the beekeepers and obviously I want to be included in the cool group; the latter

Little huddles of soon to be beekeepers are in one corner of the apairy and the individuals that are left over just mill around looking a little lost. I have decided now is the time that I need to step up to the plate and join the real beekeepers and take a simple qualification and be accepted as “one of them”! Read the rest of this entry »

This last week has been so unbelievably hectic that I have yet to write about my talk at the Grow Your Own Show. It was funny but I was nervous in a funny way.  I am used to public speaking in my corporate life and so give me an audience to discuss the intricicies of the European Property Market I would have no problem, beginner beekeeping is quite another.

Unperterbed I soldiered on and prepared a presentation with lots of visual aids (I found lots of photos online which I have included at the end of this post – sadly I haven’t referenced them so I apologise if I have used a photo of yours)

All in all I felt it went really well (though I did upset a farmer when talking about pesticide use) and over the two talks I did I must have presented to at least 200 people. All in all a very enjoyable experience.

So, it is all getting a little bit busy at the moment, work is building to a crescendo, the potty training of number one son is in full flow (not literally thank god), the weaning of number two son is moving messily along and then there is the bees…….with all this wonderful weather we are having it looks like swarm season is as early as the apple blossom (about three weeks early apparently)

How can I fit it all in….the answer sadly is that I can’t. The difficulty I find is that you can water the garden at 5.30am but you can’t really go in and see the bees. Knowing how grumpy I am at that time of the morning I wouldn’t dare open up a hive of probably 25,000 buzzy bees. Read the rest of this entry »

So I was really excited this weekend to be going up to check on the bees. The weather was good, the bees had been flying around like maniacs and I knew the blossom on the fruit trees was out with avengence. Perfect conditions for the bees to make me lots of honey.

I also decided that I would give my wife a little bit of time off from our two year old, Sebastian, who is always running around in a way that only two year olds can. Therefore I decided to show him the bees. What I didn’t account for, in my infinite wisdom, was the combination of a very active two year old and him being half way through his potty training period. What fun it turned out to be. Read the rest of this entry »