Author Archives: adminash
Around this time of year, beekeepers are assessing their honey stocks. All going well, through spring and summer the bees will have collected enough honey to feed on over winter, and the beekeeper can harvest the surplus. Bees need to convert nectar into honey, chemically converting the sugars with enzymes, and dehydrating to contain less […]
Keeping bees makes you more aware of the surrounding environment. The weather, the seasons, the trees and their cycles. I’ve been prompted to spend a few quid on some tree identification apps, so I can understand the surrounding flora a little better. The seasons in 2013 have been pretty odd. The spring was much longer […]
During the cold, sharp Winter which never seemed to end, I took an apple grafting course with the London Orchard Project, at Hackney City Farm. Grafting is a relatively simple idea, but amazing that it actually works. It seems to be something dreamt up in a child’s biology lab, but the simplicity is genius. I […]
The sun is shining, the ground is warm, the birds are singing, flowers are blooming, and number five is alive. My new queen is laying eggs (lots of them), and the bees are actively out collecting pollen and nectar to feed the hive and make honey. This beek is happy, with everything back as it […]
There’s some simple maths for queen bees in beehives. In general for a healthy colony you need more than 0, and less than 2. They truly are a special and important part of a honey bee colony. In Spring, the number of bees within a hive grows very fast. Sometimes, the colony also decides to grow […]