Problem: Too Much Honey!

We hope all our readers have been enjoying a relaxing summer without too much to think about, where all the decisions have been easy ones to make. It goes without saying that we have been as busy as our bees, checking that our colonies are healthy.  Even the very hands-off approach of just observing their comings and goings can tell us that they are doing what they are supposed to do: making more bees and making honey! We are pleased to report that our colonies are thriving and have been foraging on the abundance of nectar-rich plants in the area. For the first time since we have been beekeeping in France, we moved one of our colonies to another location to help some farmer friends with pollination. The fact that they have hundreds of hectares of sunflowers was also a deciding factor in our participation in ‘transhumence’. It’s an activity carried out by many commercial beekeepers, where hives are moved to different areas so that pollination is improved and different types of honey can be produced. Our colonies usually provide us with ‘miel de fleurs’, mixed flower honey, as we grow lots of different plants, but the colony that we have moved will be making sunflower honey, a first for us.

When Plan A actually works!

Earlier in the summer we collected a few swarms of bees that did not make for easy work!  We might share a few of the stories once the scars have healed but for now we'd love to share a positive story (it helps with our therapy 😂😂😂).  Last month, on a sunny morning, we received a call from a couple who had noticed a large group of bees in one of their plum trees. We asked them to send a photo so we could assess it and yes, they were right, a swarm cluster had formed on a branch. It was almost text-book in its size, shape, and position, perfect for collecting and re-homing in a hive.

Santa Baby...

If you know of a budding beekeeper and they have been extremely well-behaved this year (or just not too naughty) then perhaps you’ll consider buying them something bee-related for Christmas. You could also treat yourself instead of waiting for someone else to get the hints you have been dropping for the past few weeks….!

Here are some gift ideas:

A starter kit, consisting of a hive plus frames, a beesuit, gloves, a smoker, a hive tool, a brush and a queen clip. New beekeepers will welcome starter kits which contain all they will need (minus the bees) to set up an apiary, along with the protective clothing that is a must-have. There is a school of thought that advocates ‘bare-handed beekeeping’ but this is espoused by people who have dealt almost exclusively with stingless bees and who are lucky enough not to react badly to bee venom. We would always advocate that you protect yourselves as well as you can, which means wearing a veil and gloves as a minimum.

Here Comes Spring 2023!

I’m not admitting to being slow on the uptake, but most things in my life tend to be one step ahead of me these days; it must be the recent high temperatures (any excuse…). That fact is definitely true of the bees, but they are several strides in front when it comes to planning.  Forget about already having the Christmas shopping done, they are thinking about next Spring and how the colony is going to build up. As beekeepers we can help them with these preparations, and Autumn is an important time for assessing the health of the queen bee, the size of the colony and the amount of stores they have gathered. 

Bees and Brambell's

We’ve recently been in conversation with a UK-based beekeeper who is studying for exams in Bee Health, studies that appear to involve for the most part killing bees so they can be dissected and examined. Not very healthy for the poor bees involved, but you can’t make an omelette without breaking  a few eggs, as they say…

Of course, we want the best for our bees and it has been interesting to hear about the new research centred on pest control, and the recent ideas around how to identify and treat for certain diseases. As in France, the same in England, with last year seeing an increase in the number of outbreaks of European Foul Brood, a disease that can lead to colony loss. The effect of varroa mite infestation also appears to be more insidious than first thought, with the mites being vectors for several different diseases that can deplete a colony of bees over time.

Helianthus By Any Other Name

Sunflowers are everywhere in this part of France, a wonderful show of bright yellow that heralds the long summer days and has beekeepers rubbing their hands in anticipation of a bumper harvest of the well-known granular honey. Without wishing to dampen the mood too much, sunflowers are also a vivid reminder of the current situation in Ukraine as they are the country’s national flower. The sunflower, soniashnyk in Ukrainian, is also the symbol of the resistance movement against the invasion by Russia.

Dear Diary

“Keeping a diary” seems to be something that most people have done, in one way or another, at some point in their lives. It’s usually as angst-ridden teenagers that we scribbled down incredible insights (hands up those who admit to identifying ever-so-slightly with Sue Townsend’s Adrian Mole, aged 13 and three quarters).  Those diaries were always supposed to be secret, but as we got older we didn’t have the time or inclination to retain the habit. Perhaps social media, with its instant access and global reach, has replaced the traditional form of diary-keeping, but there is definitely still a place for old-fashioned observation in the world of beekeeping. Fictional diaries such as ‘The Diary of a Provincial Lady’ (E M Delafield) and ‘Diary of a Nobody’ (G&W Grossmith) are amusing and tell a good story, dealing as they do with the comings and goings of ‘ordinary people’, whereas Samuel Pepys’s Diary and Daniel Defoe’s ‘A Journal of the Plague Year’ are informative and useful in helping us understand life in a definite place and time. The ‘diaries’ or records kept by scientists are even more so, and this is where the link with beekeeping comes in.

When you start your beekeeping life, you may only have one or two colonies and so it will be fairly
easy to remember what’s going on, when and where. Having said that, we have been known to mis-remember things e.g. which queen bee is in which hive, even when there are only two of them! As time goes on, and as the number of colonies rises, remembering becomes more difficult, and so we urge people to get into the habit of record-keeping right from the start. Records are not just for checking what you did last time you did a hive inspection, but they are essential when you want to look at performance – colony build-up, productivity (bees and honey), resistance to disease etc.