Honey Bees For Sale In Lincolnshire 2012

All of my colonies have overwintered successfully, so once again I will be selling my surplus honey bee colonies this year.

The colonies are naturally occurring swarms from my own colonies, that I will have housed on clean foundation, fed, and brought on until they are ready to be sold.

The advantages of this system are that you get the hygiene, vigour, and correct composition of a natural swarm, but with the advantage of traceability. Knowing where they have come from, and their disease status. Something that is missing with a swarm from an unknown colony.

I think that this is a good way of producing colonies. It’s much more natural, less intrusive, and works well for me.

To find out more about my bees, and how I manage them, take a look around the blog, and judge for yourself.

If you are interested in buying honey bees this year, give me a ring on 01507 588543.

Wishing you well

Deano

My Earliest Flowering Willow

Two years ago I was sent some willow cuttings from the research centre at Rothampstead, who keep the National willow collection. The cuttings were for me to use to see which were the earliest flowering willows. My interest is early bee forage. I have  a lot of violet willow (Salix daphnoides), which is my earliest flowering willow and every year I’m relieved when I see my bees foraging on it, as I know that their lean period is over. From then on, there is a steady flow of nectar until early Summer, and only the weather.

Late Autumn, and Still Feeding Bees

The mild weather has allowed my bees to get out and forage, which is useful, as they are light on food. The colonies did not build up well, due to the lack of forage during the Summer, and I was late to start feeding. Having removed the feeders last week, with not enough food being taken down, I had hoped that the bees would bring some Ivy nectar, but that has not been the case. The future for my late season forage is shown below.

Chinese Mint Bush

Wasps under Control, and Bees Foraging

It’s been a while since my last post about bees, and wasps, but that’s because things have been going well. My last post on the subject, Wasps, Bees, and doing nothing, told about the problems that I was having. That particular hive was not coping well, and so I opened it up, to find a tiny number of bees, with a queen, but no brood, and only on frame that had been filled with comb.  Again, it was a hive that had somehow failed to build up that was struggling.

Wasps, Bees, and doing nothing.

I’m having a very uncomfortable evening, at least mentally uncomfortable. The problem is wasps, as has been the case, at this time of year, for the last three years. Part of the problem is the fact that my property has become a great habitat for wasps. Lots of trees, banks, fruit, vegetation, and masses of insects. Allowing lots of nests to thrive through to Summer, at which point they start to try to get into the hives.

Skeps and Swarms

Hi All

I’ve not posted for a while, part of the reason is that I did a skep making course last weekend, which was nice. Since then I have been catching up with my planting out, and thinking through a new system for growing some of my food, which mixes small scale wheat growing, polycultures, hugelkultur, and possibly bamboo.

Two Queens, or Two Swarms?

Another hectic day makes me think back to April and thinking that I was getting ahead. Foolish. Again it was bees that took up most of my time. I also saw two queens within what acted like a single swarm. This is how the day went.

Two Swarms, and a non-Swarm

Although I have stacks that I want to post about, once again, today it’s bees again, and once again, I’ve spent the whole day, in a bee suit, in the sun, and I feel like I’ve got a hangover before I sink the first glass of red.

Today was not all successful, and I wanted to make sure that I record my failures as well as my successes, so here goes…

Bees For Sale in Lincolnshire

With the main rush of swarming now over, and only one colony overdue for it’s turn, it’s time to turn my attention to the second part of the process, which is to re-distribute those colonies. Again, this is working with the bees, in that they want to spread away from the parent colonies, and have been prevented from doing so by me putting them into hives in my field.

If you’re looking for a bee colony then read on.

Swarm Nine Safely Housed

Hi all

I just realised that it’s been a week since my last post, so I wanted to get a quick update in.

Yesterday I boxed up the ninth swarm from my own colonies. This was a much smaller swarm, and was close to the hive from which I think the previous swarm came. The timing is about right too, with almost a week elapsing since the prime swarm came out. Having finished, I got a call to tell me that one of the colonies that I manage had swarmed.