Recent content by Martin Bee

As a horticulturist as from the 70's I have found a hand full of soil rubbed over the fresh cut wound has enough of natural bacteria etc in it to dry up the bleeding and aid the healing process and this is only done on any wounds larger than a secateur prune.

I think it was a rather late swarm and a poor queen so not large enough to keep warm in the winter. I am in a high cold position hence the bee house which now protects 5 nationals and 2 warre hives with space for one more. It is my one and only and was done in the autumn after the bees were...

Well Emma you have started but before you buy more skeps why not try and make you own. It is fairly easy as I found to make from straw left behind from the edge of a field after harvest. Bound by long bramble stems de-thorned and split with the pith scraped out. Best done with new bramble but...

Yes Steve there are beekeepers in a four mile radius one is commercial and has a number of apiaries but the nearest one about half a mile is a leave alone who just produces swarms. They are all stripy mongrels which doesn't help my darkies.

I am thinking of improving the gene pool of my dark bees by getting an unmated black queen from Scotland and trying to turn her into a drone queen to improve the chances of mating my queens with dark drones rather than local mongrels. Any advice as I wood be doing this in a double nuc with a QE...

You are not far from Kew gardens who have a lot of interest in bees and I am sure there are students there who may be able to add more ideas as they have a lot of public integration. I was a student there 53 years ago so I can't give you any names to look up.

Be(e)ware of being interviewed

I posted this before. Following a visit from a Canadian beek I now use the dried flower/seed heads of the Stag-horn Sumach (Rhus typhina). They keep smoking well as the seed has an oil content. As can be seen from the photo I have a good supply as 3-4 seed heads lasts about an hour and doesn't...

I posted this before. Following a visit from a Canadian beek I now use the dried flower/seed heads of the Stag-horn Sumach (Rhus typhina) which are still on the bush from last year. They keep smoking well as the seed has an oil content. I have my supply near my bee shed as you can see in the...

The Warre has a smaller footprint and the connecting piece from the hive to the outside landing board had to be made from painted insulation foam which I am used to working with as I have made two national hives from insulation foam. Also the legs had to be taken off which was not a problem as...

From my emoji of my beeshed designed and built last year for 8 nationals inside but I only had 6 available so I used 2 Warres that I have used for six years. The shed is based on similar ones I have seen in the Alps.

As you see I have a bee shed which I built last autumn with 8 nationals. But as you can see from the article below the Americans can do it even better!!! Robotic Bee Hives Beewise's Beehome is a high-tech beehive that helps beekeepers remotely monitor and care for their bees...

My first cuckoo heard this year was last Monday in the Elan Valley

As in the past I worked for Thames Water doing ground maintenance with reservoirs, Sewage treatment works, associated water ways and drainage rivers etc. there is nobody in London more than about 1 mile from Himalayan Balsam. Along with Japanese knotweed it was quite a problem to control.

I have Warres and just have a plastic mesh between the top box and quilt. When the bees have deposited enough propylis I just freeze it and shake it off. This keeps the cloth on the bottom of the quilt box clean.