Beekeeping - Short and Sweet

Hi, I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to Episode 114 of my podcast, Beekeeping Short and Sweet, Finally, We’ve had some rain, The Spring honey extraction has turned into a honey cut out and I’ve another tale of trouble with the truck.

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I’m grateful to Honey Paw hives for sponsoring in part our podcasts for this season. Honey Paw hives are, as I’m sure you’re aware, Poly Langstroth hives and we’re setting up an apiary full of their hives this season courtesy of Honey Paw. Check out their range of hives and other equipment on their website, I’ll leave a link to their website in the show notes as usual.

Honey Paw Hives - Designed by Beekeepers, For Beekeepers.

Check out The Pollinators Documentary here

Hi everyone and well, here we are again, another week and another series of challenges, it all goes with the territory of being a commercial beekeeper but sometimes these little bumps in the road go straight through to the bone. So we finally got some rain, after a very lengthy period of dry Spring weather with some accompanying high temperatures we finally got what was predicted to be a few showers for a few days and that turned into some prolonged fairly heavy rain that has lasted for at least a week and is due to continue through the rest for this week with sunshine and showers predicted right up until this podcast is released. I try to get the podcast recorded and edited by the middle of the week if I can and that means that on the release day, which is normally Friday things can have changed quite dramatically. So, here I am on Monday typing away with dark grey ominous clouds outside and rain threatening. I’m actually home from the new unit, I must come up with a location name for it, I have the workshop over with Pete so I need to think of another name to call Unit 2.  It’s crazy how much work happens online for me these days and it’s not a surprise to see maybe twenty or thirty emails from various beekeepers around the world asking questions about their beekeeping or a particular technique.....

......And finally this week I had an email from Peter Nelson, the director of the Pollinators documentary who I chatted with a while back on the podcast. If you’ve not heard the interview do go back and have a listen to Peter’s story. However, the reason for Peter’s email, other than some friendly beekeeping chat was some exciting news about the documentary. Peter attached a press release and I’m simply going to read it out here, 

The award-winning documentary THE POLLINATORS, will be released across all digital
platforms on June 16, 2020, right ahead of National Pollinator Week (June 22 – 28).
The Pollinators is a cinematic journey around the United States following migratory beekeepers and their truckloads of honey bees as they pollinate the flowers that become the fruits, nuts and vegetables we all eat. The many challenges the beekeepers and their bees face en route reveal flaws to our simplified chemically dependent agriculture system. We talk to farmers, scientists, chefs and academics along the way to give a broad perspective about the threats to honey bees, what it means to our food security and how we can improve it. The Pollinators has screened widely in theatres and communities across the U.S. and around the world. We are thrilled that it will now be available digitally and viewable in your home.

To find out more about the film and to sign up for email updates, please visit our website and watch the trailer.
Well, that’s it for this week, Thanks for hanging around until the end of the podcast and keep the comments coming.

I’m Stewart Spinks

And that was Beekeeping Short and Sweet

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Hi, I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to Episode 113 of my podcast, Beekeeping Short and Sweet, Honey Extraction has begun, the sun continues to shine, we start moving bees back to Summer sites this weekend and my queen rearing plans kick in next week.

I’m grateful to Honey Paw hives for sponsoring in part our podcasts for this season. Honey Paw hives are, as I’m sure you’re aware, Poly Langstroth hives and we’re setting up an apiary full of their hives this season courtesy of Honey Paw. Check out their range of hives and other equipment on their website, I’ll leave a link to their website in the show notes as usual.

Honey Paw Hives - Designed by Beekeepers, For Beekeepers.

Welcome back to the podcast, it’s been an exciting week of beekeeping with a few “Heart in Mouth” moments with the new queens I was introducing last week. Work continues at the new unit to get everything organised and I’ve got a few very busy nights ahead of me moving bees off the Oilseed Rape and back to their Summer apiaries.

So last week you’ll recall I was introducing those new queens in cages into the newly created nucs, well on Saturday I went back to the 14x12 apiary to have a sneaky peek into the nuc boxes before shooting a video this week. I’m glad to say everything worked really well. I had intended to check on just a couple of nucs to see if the queens had been released but then got carried away and checked them all. I think we had about 14 or 15 caged queens at this apiary, I can’t quite remember, anyway, they had all been released and were all alive and well. I saw each and every one of them which is a bit of a rarity but it worked out nicely. Of the 14 or however many it is, I saw eggs in all but three nucs. I’m hoping the last three queens will start laying in due course and that when I go back to inspect them again I’ll have a 100% introduction success rate. The queen cages actually worked really well, I have to say, I was a little nervous at seeing the workers head out of the escape tab and then watched the queen as she also tried to force herself through the narrow gap. But, the design worked great and the bees in the nucs chewed through the fondant and released the queens in textbook fashion. I still have to go over to the Alpaca farm to check on the nucs I created there, those are the ones that give me the greatest concern, they’re the ones I made up from frames straight out of a queenright colony and then put the caged queen straight in. I do still think I’ve made a blunder there but who knows, maybe it will all be just fine.

We’ve had no rain at all in the last week and some very sunny, warm days. While I was at the Alpaca farm the farm owner stopped for a chat and said that a couple of her alpaca’s had been stung because bees were congregating around the water troughs where the alpacas get their drinking water from and it occurred to me to mention today that water is an essential part of colony life in a beehive and it would be prudent to make sure your bees have access to a decent supply of water to use. It appears right now they are using it to cool hives such are the daytime temperatures. If you evaporate water you get a corresponding drop in temperature on the surface where the water was and that can have the effect of keeping daytime brood box temperatures down and avoids the brood nest from overheating..............

Well, that’s it for this week, Thanks for hanging around until the end of the podcast and keep the comments coming.

 I’m Stewart Spinks

And that was Beekeeping Short and Sweet

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Hi I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to Episode 112 of my podcast Beekeeping Short and sweet. This week we’ve had some new queens to introduce and I’ve been forced to delay extracting our Spring honey harvest.

I’m grateful to Honey Paw hives for sponsoring in part our podcasts for this season. Honey Paw hives are as I’m sure you’re aware, Poly Langstroth hives and we’re setting up an apiary full of their hives this season courtesy of Honey Paw. Check out their range of hives and other equipment on their website, I’ll leave a link to their website in the show notes as usual.

Honey Paw Hives - Designed by Beekeepers, For Beekeepers.

Welcome back to the podcast, it’s been another fast and furious week of beekeeping with more sunny and dry weather. It’s been dry for some time now and we don’t have any sight of rain on the forecast horizon for some time. On the face of it you could be forgiven for thinking that’s a good thing, warm, sunny days means the bees can get out and forage from early in the morning, I was at the allotment this morning at 5:45 and the sun was warming up nicely as I did the rounds of the cabbages and beetroot, but I was there to water some of the plants and that’s the same problem our wild flowering plants suffer, if it’s too dry with no rain at all the plants don’t have the resources to produce large, full flowers dripping with nectar and bursting with pollen. Instead we get smaller flowers with very little nectar and tiny amounts of pollen. So here we are, at the end of May hoping for some rainfall. I’m very lucky as most of my apiary sites are located near lakes and rivers, wild brambles cover vast areas of riverbanks and have their roots dipped nicely in the damp ground around them. But once again it’s all about resources, as with most things in the natural world, plants and animals need resources to grow and develop and our honeybees are exactly the same.............

..............And finally, a short while ago I supplied a nucleus colony to a new beekeeper, Jemma, I’m sure she won’t mind me telling you, but she was super excited to have her first bees and settled them into their new home and began her journey in beekeeping. Then a few days later I got a flurry of excited messages saying she had watched as a swarm flew over her head and settled on a branch within easy reach. having watched my videos, Jemma was confident enough to have a go at collecting them just days into her new beekeeping career. To cut a long story short, the bees went into a nuc box and promptly absconded, I’m guessing they were too large a swarm to feel comfortable in the nuc but such was the luck of our intrepid new beekeeper that the swarm went straight back to the same branch they had previously settled on. Having offered up further advice to Jemma I’m delighted to say the second collection and housing of the swarm has been successful and there are now two hives with bees sat at the bottom of the garden. Congratulations Jemma, it’s fantastic that you’ve done so much in such a short space of time. I’m certain they’ll give you an enormous amount of pleasure, oh and pain, just wait for that first sting, it’s bound to happen.

Before I go a quick hello to backdoorbread on Instagram who left a lovely comment and who has only just started beekeeping in the last couple of days, it always delights me to know that I can help out beekeepers even when they’re on the other side of the planet, in this instance, Vermont USA.

Well, that’s it for this week, have a great beekeeping week, 

Stay safe and Please do remember to check out my Patreon page where you can access lots more content, that’s www.patreon.com/norfolk honey.

I’m Stewart Spinks and that was Beekeeping Short and Sweet.

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Hi I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to Episode 111 of my podcast Beekeeping Short and sweet. So this week I’ll reveal the exciting news I have for you and with rising temperatures outside clipped queens have been both a blessing and a conundrum, they just don’t always do what you read in the books!

Catch up with my latest podcast here

I’m grateful to Honey Paw hives for sponsoring in part our podcasts for this season.
Honey Paw hives are, as I’m sure you’re aware, Poly Langstroth hives and we’re setting up an apiary full of their hives this season courtesy of Honey Paw. Check out their range of hives and other equipment on their website, I’ll leave a link to their website in the show notes as usual.

Honey Paw Hives - Designed by Beekeepers, For Beekeepers.

Welcome back everybody, especially to everyone who continues to get the very latest podcasts each week as they are released, if you’d like to be first to hear the weekly podcast pop over to my patreon page and check out the podcast tier.

Last week I threw out a teaser about some exciting news and I posted a picture of the event on my patreon page just a couple of days ago. And that news is, I’ve finally got too fed up with falling over my own feet in the honey extraction room that I’ve signed the lease on a small commercial unit here in Norwich and have been moving in over the last seven days. It’s a personal milestone for me and something I’ve been hoping to do for some time. The unit is situated just a 15 minute walk away from my home. It means I can gather up all of my essential equipment together and not end up scratching my head trying to figure out where I left the last box of jars or have to drive to the workshop to count up how many sheets of brood foundation I have for my Langstroth hives.

The very best part is that I can now set out the honey room section of the unit in the best possible configuration to make the process of uncapping and extracting honey as easy as I can and that should really see a lot of time and frustration.  The grand plan is to section off the rear of the unit into the honey extraction area so that can be kept clean for honey and food production as I’m hoping to get back on track with some of the other products we used to produce. The front of the unit has a roller shutter door as well as a standard door entrance and that’s been really useful for brining in all of the equipment but will also be great for moving in the heavy honey supers without having to negotiate a doorway that’s not quite big enough without scraping my knuckles on the door frame. I can see it will be quite chilly in the Winter so a portioned wall and teaching room that will double up as an office for me is also on the wish list but that will have to wait as the cost of building the stud walls is beyond me currently. If there are any builders listening that fancy swapping a days work for a days mentoring do get in touch, although I do have a very good friend who is a top notch builder/plasterer so I’m hoping I can get him over to price up the job.

Next week is honey extraction week so I’ll go through putting on the clearer boards and what types I use and why and I’ll report back on exactly how we get on with actual honey extracted in a couple of weeks.

I hope you are also enjoying a Spring nectar flow and your supers are filling up with golden honey to reward you for all your work with your own bees.

Well, that’s it for this week, have a great beekeeping week, 

Stay safe and Please do remember to check out my Patreon page where you can access lots more content, that’s www.patreon.com/norfolk honey.

I’m Stewart Spinks and that was Beekeeping Short and Sweet.

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Welcome to Episode 110 of my podcast Beekeeping Short and sweet. What an interesting week, swarm call outs, a climb onto a roof to vacuum an unwelcome colony and a sudden blast of cold air to slow everything down.
CHECK OUT MY LATEST PODCAST HERE

I’m grateful to Honey Paw hives for sponsoring in part our podcasts for this season. Honey Paw hives are, as I’m sure you’re aware, Poly Langstroth hives and we’re setting up an apiary full of their hives this season courtesy of Honey Paw. Check out their range of hives and other equipment on their website, I’ll leave a link to their website in the show notes as usual.

Honey Paw Hives - Designed by Beekeepers, For Beekeepers.

Well, what a week that was, I’ve done a few interesting swarm collections in my time but this past week provided a first for me using Pete’s patented Bee Vacuum. I say patented, it’s not but it had the feel of one of those Wiley Coyote Acme DIY bits of kit, destined to blow up in your face. It didn’t quite do that but we had some fun with it.

I’ve also collected a swarm from a compost bin and been confronted by a sudden blast of cold air from the north which really put the brakes on things last weekend. By the time you get to listen to this we could be through the worst of the cold and heading back up to Bermuda Shorts and Hawaiian shirts temperatures!

I’ve also got some exciting news to share that has me working overtime this week so do stay tuned to hear all about that.

I don’t know about everyone else, but for me, at this time of year the weeks just seem to mould into one continuous routine of inspections and working on preparing for the next week of beekeeping, I do very often lose track of what day of the week it is, luckily I have the weekly routine of the Friday podcast posting to keep me on track. I appreciate it’s not the longest of podcasts but sitting down in front of the computer and putting out a weekly beekeeping comment is something I’m quite proud of, especially as I’ve now hit 110 podcasts.

So last week saw the first of the swarm call outs, I don’t normally go out to collect swarms, at least not any more. It was something I was desperate to do in the earlier days of my beekeeping career, wanting to get out there and climb trees, fall through hedgerows, clamber across garden shed roofs all with the desire to collect that swarm. You see, I wanted to increase my stock of bees as quickly as I could, little did I realise just how quickly it would increase, there were swarms everywhere it seemed.

If you are looking to increase the stock levels you have then swarm collection is a great way to do it and if you have the time, it can be great fun.................

............ Well, that’s it for this week, have a great beekeeping week, I almost forgot to mention the exciting news I have for you all, but  I think I’ll save that for next week, I have a busy weekend ahead of me and I’ll give you a full round-up of what I’m up to next week.

Stay safe and Please do remember to check out my Patreon page where you can access lots more content, that’s www.patreon.com/norfolk honey.

I’m Stewart Spinks and that was Beekeeping Short and Sweet.

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Hi I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to Episode 109 of my podcast Beekeeping Short and sweet. Multiple splits from one hive can help with quick increases in colony numbers, I have just the method to help. Also, viruses it seems are not just the domain of us humans. Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus has struck again and this time I’m taking decisive action, listen in to hear my thoughts and course of action.

Sign up to listen to my very latest podcast here

I’m grateful to Honey Paw hives for sponsoring in part our podcasts for this season. Honey Paw hives are, as I’m sure you’re aware, Poly Langstroth hives and we’re setting up an apiary full of their hives this season courtesy of Honey Paw. Check out their range of hives and other equipment on their website

Honey Paw Hives - Designed by Beekeepers, For Beekeepers.

Hi Everyone and welcome back to the podcast, it’s been a fairly standard weather week, some nice warm sunshine combined with a day of rain and chilly nights.

The effect of this on the bees can be quite dramatic and is a catalyst for swarming. Colonies building up strongly fid themselves suddenly trapped indoors getting in each others way, just leads to the need to break out and get some fresh air, sounds somewhat familiar to be honest.
I hope that last week’s explanation of the Artificial Swarm without finding the queen was easy enough to understand, remember, if you can’t find the queen you put a sealed queen cell in the new hive with all the flying bees and destroy all the queen cells in the old hive where the queen still hides. It’s really that simple.

This week I wanted to talk about a couple of topics, firstly, creating multiple nucs from one parent colony and secondly the bad news that I have Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus in a colony again and it’s pretty terminal. I discovered this during my regular inspections this last week and it got me thinking about why we inspect our bees. I suspect for the vast majority of beekeepers out there, running a couple of hive or maybe even a dozen colonies, inspecting your bees is the highlight of the beekeeping week so you want to take your time and enjoy the experience. The problem can then become one of looking at your bees in such a way as to not always see what’s right in front of you. What I mean by that is sometimes we can get so worked up about looking for eggs, queens and queen cells that other important issues such as disease can get missed and lead to more challenges further down the road. When you inspect your bees, no matter what time frame or how many colonies always make a point of looking for healthy brood and adult bees. It doesn’t take more than a few seconds and it’s something you can tick off the list of things that need your attention. I’ll come back to the CBPV later in the podcast but first something altogether more enjoyable, creating a multiple increase from one colony to end up with an apiary full of hives by the end of the season.

I can’t stress how much this is a last resort for me, I hate killing colonies of bees but I need to protect the rest of my livestock, it hurts to see them killed but as a responsible beekeeper it’s something I feel I have to do.

The good news is that the vast majority of my colonies are healthy and doing fine, this step hopefully will keep them that way for the rest of the season.

Well, that’s it for this week, have a great beekeeping week Stay safe and Please do remember to check out my Patreon page where you can access lots more content, that’s www.patreon.com/norfolkhoney

I’m Stewart Spinks and that was Beekeeping Short and Sweet.

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Hi I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to Episode 108 of my podcast Beekeeping Short and sweet. It’s most definitely swarm season, I’ve lost one, gained two and split another colony. This week, more about artificial swarms and how to perform one without finding the queen.

Check Out My Latest Podcasts Here

I’m grateful to Honey Paw hives for sponsoring in part our podcasts for this season. Honey Paw hives are, as I’m sure you’re aware, Poly Langstroth hives and we’re setting up an apiary full of their hives this season courtesy of Honey Paw. Check out their range of hives and other equipment on their website, I’ll leave a link to their website in the show notes as usual.

Honey Paw Hives - Designed by Beekeepers, For Beekeepers.

This week’s update includes the inevitable news that some of our colonies have decided to swarm. It’s not a total surprise to be honest, we’ve been seeing rudimentary queen cells for some time now, those are the queen cups without eggs and more recently we’ve seen eggs and very young larvae in them making them queen cells in their own right. It was predictable that sooner or later the timing of these queen cells would work against us and I’d miss one or two and a few colonies would get away from us.

By that I mean, with a weekly inspection routine I’ve been removing queen cells regularly which should mean that by the time I come round to inspecting again there still shouldn’t be any sealed queen cells. Sealed queen cells are important because once sealed, the young queen larvae inside has been fed and nurtured as much as it can be by the colony and there is nothing more they can do now until the virgin queen emerges. This then, gives the green light for the colony to swarm as the sudden and dramatic reduction of the number of bees in the colony after the swarm won’t make any difference to the sealed queen cell.

What this means is that if you carry out regular inspections and you remove every queen cell you see it should be possible to prevent them from swarming, right? Wrong!
As I’m sure you either know or are finding out, bees will find a way to circumvent the beekeepers best efforts and find a way to swarm.

I once had a colony that persisted in producing queen cells, week after week until finally they produced 58 queen cells in one week, I methodically went through and removed every last one of them, or at least that’s what I thought I had done but alas, a week later I found they had swarmed, I had removed 57 queen cells and missed the one they had hidden in the midden of some drone brood created art such an angle the queen cell was completely hidden within the mass of drone brood. Fifty-eight queen cells is my record number in one hit I think, it looks quite impressive when you see frame upon frame of queen cells but it really isn’t what you want to see as a beekeeper. Some beekeepers might be tempted to use a great many of the queen cells to produce more queens for expansion but I suspect all you’re going to do with that particular colony is reproduce lots of swarmy colonies, not something I really want to have to deal with.......................

Have a great beekeeping week Stay safe and Please do remember to check out my Patreon page where you can access lots more content, that’s
www.patreon.com/norfolk honey

I’m Stewart Spinks and that was Beekeeping Short and Sweet.

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Hi I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to Episode 107 of my podcast Beekeeping Short and sweet. Queen cells have started to pop up in several colonies and last week I touched on the Artificial Swarm technique, this week I’m going to delve a little more closely at this beekeeping staple.

Check out my latest Podcasts here

I’m grateful to Honey Paw hives for sponsoring in part our podcasts for this season. Honey Paw hives are, as I’m sure you’re aware, Poly Langstroth hives and we’re setting up an apiary full of their hives this season courtesy of Honey Paw. Check out their range of hives and other equipment on their website, I’ll leave a link to their website in the show notes as usual.

Honey Paw Hives - Designed by Beekeepers, For Beekeepers.

Well, here in Norfolk in the UK we’re fast approaching that time in the season where colony reproduction will either begin or be in full swing, I’ve already seen several queen cells with eggs and larvae in and one colony got a head start on me and has already swarmed!

It can be a tricky time as we found out last year and there can be a certain amount of panic as colonies throw up queen cells and beekeepers struggle with how to tackle the situation.

Before we get into the details of the so called artificial swarm method of swarm control let’s look back at this week and update you all on how things are going.

As some of you will know I inspect on a weekly basis so at the moment I’m comfortably able to get round all sixty or so colonies and spend time working through them. I really don’t know how sole beekeepers manage to get through 150 plus colonies on their own with weekly inspections but I guess I’ll find that out eventually.

We’ve had about 10% throw up queen cells with the majority now producing rudimentary queen cups, the difference being the rudy’s, as we call them, don’t yet have an egg or larvae in them.

The highlight of the week was undoubtedly the church colony removal, quite a nerve-wracking experience for someone who isn’t used to being around 8m up on a scaffolding platform. The cut out was performed on Friday last week, it turned out to be quite a cold morning and the bees were fairly well tucked away in the corner sheltered from the prevailing Easterly wind. It was interesting to see just how sheltered it actually was in the spot they had chosen. The comb had been built across the corner between buttress and main wall and to be honest I could see why they had been able to survive there. With the overhanging brickwork it really was very sheltered indeed. Just to remind everyone, the reason for removing them was at the request of the church who are going to have some repair work performed to the east wall and wanted the colony removed. They had delayed removal in the hope the colony would die out overwinter and not have to pay for scaffolding, not a particularly Christian approach and they were lucky that we were able to find someone who could provide use with scaffolding free of charge. I say free of charge, I’m actually going to supply Markus the owner of EFL - Roofing Specialists with a nucleus colony to get him started in beekeeping once we’re out of lockdown so it is actually costing me, however, the church is very local to where I grew up and I’m a soft touch it seems.

I have posted pictures and video on the Patreon page of our removal so do take a look at that if you’re interested......................

Next week, as I mentioned earlier, I’ll talk through how to create an artificial swarm when you can’t find the queen.

Well, that’s it for this week, time to get out into the warming sunshine and check some of my colonies.

Have a

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Hi, I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to Episode 106 of my podcast Beekeeping Short and sweet. During my inspections over the past week, I’ve noticed a few colonies starting to prepare for swarming. Stay tuned for my latest update and some suggestions for swarm season preparations.

Sign Up to my latest podcasts HERE

I’m grateful to Honey Paw hives for sponsoring in part our podcasts for this season. Honey Paw hives are as I’m sure you’re aware, Poly Langstroth hives and we’re setting up an apiary full of their hives this season courtesy of Honey Paw. Check out their range of hives and other equipment on their website.

Honey Paw Hives - Designed by Beekeepers, For Beekeepers.

Welcome back to the podcast, and as lockdown continues  we find ourselves in a quite weird world right now, traffic has reduced to minimal numbers, it’s like driving around on an early Sunday morning every day of the week. Something else I’ve noticed as I walk to my allotment each day is more people are inclined to say hello, even though they are keeping their distance, people I’ve seen over the years and never had any interaction with now make eye contact and smile or say hello or good morning. It’s kind of strange. Maybe it’s that feeling of vulnerability that makes people suddenly feel like making contact with others. Personally, I’m as grumpy as ever when I walk up to the allotment and see the slugs have been at the cabbages but that’s a completely different problem.

It’s been a fantastic week for inspecting our colonies, the weather for the last week was fantastic, Easter weekend was sunny, dry and mostly warm, however the forecast if for a return to more Spring like conditions of warm sunshine coupled with cool breezes and cold nights. My inspection of the colonies on the Oilseed Rape is probably the most interesting as there are around 33 colonies there and it was full inspections including adding queen excluders and supers to several. It takes quite a while to go through 30 plus colonies having a detailed look and making sure all is ok. It’s a great time of year to be thorough, not as many bees in the hive just yet so room enough to be able to look closely at frames of brood to make sure all is well and healthy.

Something I did notice and worth mentioning here is what is termed the “through gut” of the larvae, it’s really obvious when you look closely at larvae. In healthy larvae it can normally be seen as a coloured line running along the back of the larvae and is a good sign the larvae are feeding and growing well. The colour is produced mainly by the colour of the pollen so it may well vary quite a bit and, at the moment, for all of my colonies on the oilseed rape the colour of this line is a fairly bright yellow. Larvae stuffed full of Oilseed rape pollen...........................

I’m Stewart Spinks and that was Beekeeping Short and Sweet.

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I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to Episode 105 of my podcast Beekeeping Short and sweet. This week I’m in full inspection mode as we work our way through the hives and see how they’ve fared, start adding supers and carry out some vital disease inspections.

Catch up with my very latest Podcasts, Videos and much more here

I’m grateful to Honey Paw hives for sponsoring in part our podcasts for this season. Honey Paw hives are as I’m sure you’re aware, Poly Langstroth hives and we’re setting up an apiary full of their hives this season courtesy of Honey Paw. 

Honey Paw Hives - Designed by Beekeepers, For Beekeepers.

Firstly,  a very Happy Easter to you all.  We’re off and running with the new season in what are very difficult times for everyone and I hope that you are all staying safe and taking care of each other.

It has to be said that for me, the current coronavirus situation hasn’t really affected what I do terribly and I’m very grateful for that. I’m still without my usual team of unpaid helpers, Steph and Pete, all of us trying our best to maintain social distancing and not travelling unnecessarily. That means Pete is left in the workshop doing all the essential building work, Steph is helping out with social media posts and I’m out on the bees.

And what a first week of inspections it’s been, it’s all too easy to get carried away with early season inspections but I have to say most colonies have come through the final stages of Spring looking in really fine condition.

Have a great beekeeping week Stay safe and Please do remember to check out my Patreon page where you can access lots more content, that’s www.patreon.com/norfolk honey.

I’m Stewart Spinks and that was Beekeeping Short and Sweet.

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