Wednesday 19 October 2011

1st of many mistakes

When doing varroa treatment, don't put on a super and then leave it for two weeks otherwise they will make wild comb:



Luckily the queen hadn't started to lay but they did fill it with honey. We were able to take it down and save the hive. Friends of ours haven't been so lucky and now have an unmanageable hive.

With the honey and comb in a plastic bag we take it home and do some googling. We decided after some reading to attempt to separate the honey and the wax in our small flat using a saucepan and sieve. We did not see any problems with this plan.

Despite causing lots of sticky mess we do manage to separate them and get quite a bit of honey and very little wax. Considering how much comb there was we were expecting to be able to get lots of wax with little honey. We have barely enough for a tea light.


Note: Sieves easily get blocked with wax however using a neighbours hair-dryer is surprisingly effective

Monday 1 August 2011

We've got bees!!!!

August 2011 we received our nucleus of bees at the door.

The bees are kept in my sister-in-laws garden which is five minutes from where we live. We had made the hive up weeks previously in preparation for their arrival. In hindsight if you have the money, buy one ready made it will save lots of arguments and swearing however we like many are on a budget.



The cat was not amused by the arrival of the box of buzz, which we transferred to the hive at dusk.


Our bees are very docile and smoke is not needed for an inspection, we only have one suit between us and I am more than happy to be around them without the protection. 


I am in love!




Our smiling bee hive made up in the living room before being transported to its future home.