this is where our bees will live.

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this is where our bees will live.
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alison
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 12918
Location: North Devon

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 06 4:55 pm Post subject:
My MIL lives about 2 miles from Thornes in Windsor. Trouble is, next time we are down there they are shut for Christmas shut down

hedgewitch

Joined: 26 Nov 2005
Posts: 5834
Location: Daft wench GHQ

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 06 4:59 pm Post subject:

alison wrote:

My MIL lives about 2 miles from Thornes in Windsor.

Trouble is, next time we are down there they are shut for Christmas shut down

Honestly, local shops, eh?

Mrs Fiddlesticks

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 10460

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 06 5:05 pm Post subject:
National. Wanted something that would be easy to get spares/frames for. WBC looks pretty but....

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 06 5:32 pm Post subject:

Mrs Fiddlesticks wrote:

National. Wanted something that would be easy to get spares/frames for. WBC looks pretty but....

you are paying for a lot of unneccesary timber.
Commercial brood boxes are good as they are large enough for the most prolific queens & you can put national supers on top, but nationals are more plentiful.
Trouble with national & WBC brood boxes is they aren't big enough for a good sized colony so get an extra brood box or two.
If you try & keep them in one box you will almost certainly have swarming problems.

jamanda
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 35057
Location: Devon

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 06 5:37 pm Post subject:
That's a lovely spot. I'd like to keep bees - but like you we couldn't really have them in the garden. How often do you need to visit them if they are away from your home? We did have a colony of fuzzy little bumblebees living in a hole under a slab last year. No honey, but they were sweet.

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 06 5:52 pm Post subject:

Jamanda wrote:

That's a lovely spot. I'd like to keep bees - but like you we couldn't really have them in the garden. How often do you need to visit them if they are away from your home?

We did have a colony of fuzzy little bumblebees living in a hole under a slab last year. No honey, but they were sweet.

About 15 to 30 minutes per hive each week through the season which
is from April through to September generally.

squirrel01

Joined: 16 Oct 2006
Posts: 5

Posted: Sat Nov 04, 06 10:48 pm Post subject:
ive got 15 acres of old bog land, how would bees do on the heather....

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Sat Nov 04, 06 11:46 pm Post subject:

As long as there is sufficient nectar & polen you can keep them almost anywhere.
Bees will range up to 2 miles from the hive any further & the energy they expend counteracts the energy gathered.
There is hardly anywhere in britain where they couldn't find sufficient supplies although obviously some sites are better than others.
Heather honey is superb. Willow pollen is an excellent early protein source necessary for the young larvae to develop.
Don't look at your own land but the area around you.
Hawthorn, sycamore, rosebay, clover, lime trees all good nectar providers. The list is endless.

Bodger

Joined: 23 May 2006
Posts: 13524

Posted: Sun Nov 05, 06 7:40 am Post subject:
Just a thought Mrs F ! Do you think that you might need some protection for your hive from badgers ? I know that in the wild they dig wasps nests out.

Alchemist

Joined: 02 Mar 2005
Posts: 123
Location: Aberdeenshire

Posted: Mon Nov 06, 06 9:06 am Post subject:

If you're still having trouble contacting the local society, you may be able to get through to them by talking to the BBKA and getting a different contact or the location of the next meeting. Joining the local society is definitely worthwhile though. If it's anything like ours you'll find that second-hand hives are always coming up for sale at reasonable prices. Also they may have extractors and such available for loan. Hive hardware can be tremendously expensive if you have to buy everything yourself.

PS Good luck, beekeeping is great fun.

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Mon Nov 06, 06 9:18 am Post subject:

bodger wrote:

Just a thought Mrs F !
Do you think that you might need some protection for your hive from badgers ?

I know that in the wild they dig wasps nests out.

They will attack bee hives & when they do it can be an expensive process as they tend to rip the hives to bits to get at the comb.
But in twenty odd years of beekeeping it's never happened to me so I would say it happens but not common.
I would talk to other beekeepers in your area before taking measures.
This guy is good for hive parts. https://www.stamfordham.biz/
I haven't found anyone cheaper for frames & his hives are cheap as well.
He doesn't do western red cedar so they need treatment but the commercial broods I bought from him are doing fine.

Mrs Fiddlesticks

Joined: 02 Nov 2004
Posts: 10460

Posted: Mon Nov 06, 06 9:34 am Post subject:
finally got a response from our local BBKA branch. They do have extractors for hire and a demonstration apiary in a school in the county. We've been invited to their honey show in a couple of weeks to meet them and get a flavour of the organisation.

alison
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 29 Oct 2004
Posts: 12918
Location: North Devon

Posted: Mon Nov 06, 06 8:44 pm Post subject:
https://www.northdevonjournal.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=198599&command=displayContent&sourceNode=198598&contentPK=15821843&folderPk=96192&pNodeId=198811 This is my friend Ruth, who I did my course with, and who got her bees a couple of months before me.

Camile

Joined: 26 Apr 2006
Posts: 376
Location: Co. Galway - Ireland

Posted: Tue Nov 07, 06 8:23 am Post subject:

Hello,

We have our own bog as well .. and it's full of heathers, broom and so on .. and we've been told it would be the best honey ever:

So it's now been 5 weeks since we joined the "Suck Valley Bee Keeping Association", well actually only my girlfriend is an official member, but we both go to the workshops because we are learning how to build a hive ourselves, and I do the woodworking, and she will do the beekeeping.

And next meeting is actually tonight .. so far we made a brood box and it's actually pretty straight forward to make ..

Camile

squirrel01

Joined: 16 Oct 2006
Posts: 5

Posted: Wed Nov 08, 06 11:08 pm Post subject:
the suck valley bee keeping Association, where do they meet...

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