Beekeeping - Short and Sweet

This week is my Questions and Answers week, for those of you listening for the first time, it’s where supporters from my Patreon page can post questions to me that they have maybe encountered and I’ll do my best to give an answer. If you’re listening via Patreon, my thanks for your continued support and for those of you listening to the later release of the podcast, don’t miss out on the latest podcast by simply signing up on my dedicate web page.
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Well, it’s been an eventful week! I collected more swarms and promptly lost the biggest one, I posted a picture of it on Twitter and Instagram, and someone commented I would need a triple nuc to fit it all in, well, I only had a single nuc box  on board the truck so they went into that overnight and when I returned the following morning they had decided they didn’t like the new location and had disappeared. What was really sad was there was just one single drone left behind wandering around on the floor of the nuc trying to work out where the party had disappeared to. It reminded me of my teenage years, but that’s another story entirely that isn’t for this podcast!

Moving on to a slightly different topic it’s been a tricky week for inspecting, cooler temperatures again and some quite rainy days, interestingly, when I have been out to check on the bees, and I have to say I’ve not looked in many colonies this week, I’ve seen quite a few queen cells torn down. I suspect this is probably down to the weather and the bees not wanting to put effort and resources into queen cells during the colder weather. But, how do they know what the long range forecast is going to be? It’s not like they have the internet or access to the met office. Maybe it’s down to air pressure or something, I really don’t know. To take my mind off such complex thoughts I’ve just spent an hour or so at the workshop making up some clearer boards with Pete, another job done so at least the time isn’t wasted.

Lets get started with this weeks burning issues, first up is Paul Andrews who asks

“Hi Stewart,

How do you get the bees to read the books! This year has been manic, all going well until 3 weeks ago when I saw swarm preparations. I had given space and already split 2 hives, I moved the best queen cells into new nucs along with brood and left the queen behind in brood box. Phew, all done, shut up and did same in the rest of the hives. The next week all again! I cut cells out placed in mating nucs I had just bought after setting them up with bees. Then on Sunday Oh no, queens gone and no eggs, set up boxes with the best remaining cells and shut up. All hives had space in brood and in supers and queen, only a year to 2 old. Any ideas? Paul

Hi Paul,

Your tale of swarming colonies is not a solitary incident and I’m sure many beekeepers will have experienced exactly the same issues. I like that you took action and I’m sure you’ll get some really nice queens from the splits that you’ve made so not all is lost.

You questions seems to be asking having split the colony and reduced it’s size why did the queen still swarm?

I think the one thing that you don’t mention and I’m making an educated guess here, is that you left the queen in the original hive with the flying bees and some brood and  that I believe is the problem.

By leaving the queen with the flying bees and brood, albeit a reduced amount, you’re still giving them a chance to swarm. I would suggest if it happens again, removing the queen and leaving a single queen cell with the flying bees would be a more controlled way of splitting them. Reduce the number of queen cells to just one and the flying bees can’t swarm. You can still split nucs from the colony with queen cells if you’re looking to increase or reproduce queens but I would remove the queen and let her continue in a nuc building u

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Hi, I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to Episode 63 of my podcast, Beekeeping Short and Sweet. The bees have exploded into Spring and I’ve been out collecting swarms from various locations. Today I thought I’d share my memories of a very Special day back in the late 1980s when I collected my very first swarm.

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Here's the picture of my very first swarm running up the board into the hive: First Swarm

Swarm collections, some beekeepers love them while other beekeepers don’t want to touch them with a barge pole, and I can see both views. If you’re new to beekeeping and only have one colony, or maybe you don’t even have one colony as yet and you’re waiting to be able to collect a swarm to put into your hive, then, when the phone rings, your pulse quickens at the anticipation of heading out to collect a ready-made colony of bees nestled in a hedgerow somewhere.

However, if you’ve got as many colonies as you want and are not looking for more swarm call outs, the ringing phone can be an almighty pain in the backside.

Let me explain both perspectives as I’ve encountered both emotions over the years.

Collecting swarms and rehousing them to start a new colony is something I think most beekeepers will experience during their beekeeping adventures.

It’s a simple task that most beekeepers can tackle, you need a minimal amount of equipment, a little patience and a steady hand, and that’s it really.

I’ve collected swarms from all manner of different locations over the years and each one has provided a range of challenges, laughs and frustrations.

Thinking back over the years I can actually remember the very first swarm that I collected way back in the late 1980’s.

At that time I only had three colonies and we had moved house from a small country mid-terraced cottage to a traditional terraced house in Norwich. We only had a small back garden, perhaps 8 metres wide by 20 metres long and the bees were on a concrete pad next to the shed at the end of the garden. I arrived home from work one afternoon to be told that the bees had swarmed and were now hanging from a cherry tree that was in full flower a couple of houses further down the road.

At this time in my beekeeping career, I hadn’t actually got a great deal of beekeeping equipment. My bee suit was an old boiler suit that had previously belonged to my father, slightly comical as I’m 6’3” tall and he was 5”8”, the legs were, needless to say, a little on the short side. To this I added a wide-brimmed hat with some net curtain pulled over the top and tucked into the boiler suit collar, some washing up gloves and a pair of wellington boots. I really looked the part.

Anyway, back to the swarm, They were about 8 feet high in the cherry tree and the weight of the swarm pulls the branch down to a point just out of my reach. Not to worry, I had a pair of step ladders in the shed. Now I’d never seen a swarm being collected or ever collected one myself at this point, all I knew came from reading books, no such thing as google or youtube to see what to do. It all sounded simple enough, shake the queen into a box and the rest of the bees would follow it said. So I found myself up a ladder with a cardboard box and a rather large prime swarm the size of a small torpedo hanging down nicely positioned to go into the box. I was all ready to collect them when I realised I had suddenly got myself an audience of friends and neighbours, there must have been seven or eight people standing around watching me, it suddenly felt quite intimidating.

Oh well, what could possibly go wrong. The important thing is to take a deep breath and go for it I told myself, be firm and shake all the bees into the box to make sure you get the queen, I rehearsed the whole process several ti

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Hi, I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to Episode 62 of my podcast, Beekeeping Short and Sweet. 

Oilseed Rape and Bees by Allan Calder

BBKA Guidance Sheet on Buying a Nucleus Colony

With May just around the corner, it’s a timely moment to talk about jobs for the coming month and also a little update on what my bees have been up to.

The end of April and into the beginning of May sees a lot of colonies building up strongly which inevitably raises concerns about swarming again. We’ve had some remarkably fine weather, some very warm days and a lot of colonies are well in advance of where they would normally be at this time of the year. On social media, I’ve seen reports of swarm cells in colonies and several beekeepers already being called out to collect swarms from colonies that have jumped at the chance to reproduce during this lovely spell of weather. And that reminds me to mention a word of caution to any beginner beekeepers out there who has one of those, month by month beekeeping guide books, remember they are just a guide, beekeeping is all about managing your bees in the prevailing conditions that you have. This time last year I was coming to terms with a long cold blast of icy weather from Europe and working out how to get cleaned up and start the beekeeping season proper. This year everything is a good three weeks ahead but I’ll come on to my beekeeping in a bit. I think most beekeepers here in the UK have enjoyed a very productive start to the season and most have supers added to their colonies as the brood nests expand and colonies grow larger day by day. That said, I’m looking at the forecast for the coming week and we’ve got rain and cooler conditions to come so things will slow down a little no doubt.

If you’re just starting out in beekeeping May is a great time to get started and is the month I recommend to beginners they should look to being their beekeeping journey. The risk of severe cold weather is usually long gone and nucleus colonies that have over-Wintered as bursting to get out of their nuc boxes and be transferred into a full sized hive. Of course, this year you could have started a few weeks earlier and had a very fast start. The key is to order your first nucleus colony well in advance in the Autumn of the year before you get going or you’re likely to have to wait until late May or even June to get a nice sized nucleus colony.

If you’re unsure of what you should be getting there are guidelines set outbid the British Beekeepers Association in the form of a useful pdf. I’ll post a link to it should you want to take a look.

Generally speaking, a nucleus colony should be around 5 or 6 frames in total and consist of at least three good frames of brood. It will have a good laying queen that has been marked and from either last season or this season so it’s important to know if the queen is marked and what colour mark she has.

Most suppliers of nucs will use the internationally recognised queen marking colour scheme which can be remembered as the acronym Will You Raise Good Bees, standing for White, Yellow, Red, Green and Blue. Each colour covers two years so for instance, last year was 2018 and the colour used was Red. This year 2019 is Green, 2020 will be Blue, 2021, White and 2022 Yellow. Then we start all over again.

Of course, if you don’t want the queen to be marked you can request this from the beekeeper selling you the nuc but for beginner beekeepers, it does make the whole experience less stressful and more fun when you get to spot the queen in those first initial inspections.

If ever I’m selling nucleus colonies I always like to give out nearly new frames. It isn’t necessary but most regular suppliers of nucs will be rotating their frames anyway so the frames will be nearly new, maybe one or two&

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 It’s Easter weekend, so a very Happy Easter to you all. Here in Norfolk, we’re expecting temperatures to rise to nearly 20 degrees centigrade, that’s around 68 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s definitely T-Shirt weather and time to get some decent Spring inspections carried out.
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We’ve been waiting patiently since late Winter for our warmer weather to kick in, it’s been a little up and down with only the odd day warming up before dropping back down to what, in reality, is actually closer to the more normal, average temperatures for this time of year.

With the rise in temperature comes the inevitable start of the swarm season and it’s something we can all work with to ensure, for the most part, we don’t lose swarm after swarm from our hives and miss out on an early Spring crop of honey.

Today I wanted to take a look at the swarming process and look at opportunities we beekeepers can take advantage of, rather than viewing the coming weeks with dread and worry.

For the beginner beekeeper, understanding the process of swarming and knowing key features will allow you to gain control of the situation by knowing what is happening within the colony and how you can affect the outcome to best suit your beekeeping priorities. Now this may simply be that you don’t want any swarms or increases, perhaps you have a couple of colonies and that suits you very nicely. Alternatively, you might be looking to increase from a single colony that you purchased last year as a nucleus colony and you’re looking to grow the number of colonies you have this Spring. Of course, for the more experienced beekeepers out there you’ll already have a good handle on what’s likely to happen over the coming weeks and you’ll obviously have a plan and all the equipment you need at hand and prepared ready for one of our busiest periods of the beekeeping season. It doesn’t do any harm to just recap on the various factors with swarming, so I hope all you seasoned Pro’s out there will keep listening too, who knows I might say something that helps or you might find yourself dropping me a message to tell me a better way of dealing with swarms.

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Another week another challenge here in Norfolk. I’ve managed to tweak my recurring back problem again and that’s causing some fun issues for me, particularly putting my socks on, however, it happened after we moved around 50 of our colonies to the Oil Seed Rape pollination and I think it was probably just tiredness and no doubt laziness that caused it so I’m resting up for a few days and hopefully it will be fine. I really must look into some lifting gear to help move hives around more easily, perhaps that will be something I can report back on in a later podcast.

So this week is my regular Questions and Answers session, thank you to everyone over on my patreon page for submitting some really great questions for this month, and there’s lots of them so let’s get stuck into them straight away. First up with have a question from Ben Hoen, Hi Ben, thanks for the question.

Ben asks:

I have heard the reversing deeps (in a 2-deep 10-frame configuration) can help reduce swarm tendencies.  True?  If so, when's a good time to do that? And any advice on how best to do it and what to watch out for?

Context: I have 2 very strong hives (out of three) coming out of winter (they have 8 frames wide of bees in the top box).  My concern is that they might not fill up the lower box and think they are out of space.  One hive is not using the lower entrance at all currently.  Both are 2 weeks into drone rearing and still appear to be fairly light when hefting them.  I heard that by reversing the boxes you can encourage them to build up, filling up the less-full what would then be the upper box (after reversing it from its lower position), and therefore discourage swarming.

What do you think?

Hi Ben, I think you have almost answered the question for me. I’ve heard beekeepers talk about this as well although I’ve never practiced it myself. I think a lot depends on the type of bees you have and whether they fill the brood boxes fully or if there is additional available space that the bees can utilise. I would also say that a lot depends on your reasons for keeping the bees in a double brood box set up. For me, the vast majority of my bees are very happy in a single commercial brood box and I only double up if I intend splitting at some point during that season.

Focussing on your specific question and I’m in agreement with your comments, I suspect it may help with swarming if the bees have plenty of space in the bottom box because the brood nest will naturally move up into the top box and expand there, this will leave the bottom box relatively empty with stores in just some of the frames, the rest being put above the queen excluder in honey boxes or supers. By reversing the boxes you immediately give the brood area more space and the queen can move up and continue to lay in the newly available cells above. I suspect that’s the reason people say it can help reduce swarming. I hope that helps Ben.

Next up is a question from Charlie Edge

Charlie asks;

when would be the earliest you would commence splitting? 

Also if you did an artificial swarm is there anything wrong with splitting the queen cells down into 2/3frame nucs instead of leaving 1 cell in the original brood box? 

Hi Charlie,
 That’s such a good question and perfectly timed for a lot of beginner beekeepers out there. Unless you have a specific set up for breeding and rearing bees I would say wait wait wait.

So many beekeepers attempt to split colonies way too early and they get set back by cold weather which almost seems to cause a bigger delay that if they’d left them a month before splitting. Smaller colonies, that’s the splits you’ve made, have to work so much harder than full sized colonies at regulating colony temperature and this early in the Spring the weather fluctuates so much that small splits can get dangerously cold at night, so my advice is to wait until t

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Hi, I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to Episode 59 of my podcast, Beekeeping Short and Sweet. We’re finally into some early Spring inspections and I’m gearing up to move some bees to their first nectar flow of the season.

Welcome back and this week has seen that lovely warm early Spring disappear down a rabbit hole and we’re once again back down to more normal temperatures for the time of year. A lot of days over the past week have been down into the single figures, temperature wise and the last couple of days have seen frosts on the truck windscreen which is as much frost as I think I saw all Winter.

I’ve been able to carry out inspections on all of my colonies during that warm spell and I have to say on the whole they are looking really strong and healthy, I have colonies with as many as eight frames of sealed brood ready to explode into life and with our main early nectar flow of Oils Seed Rape just starting to flower it looks as though we might see an alignment of good fortune and a decent early crop of honey.

That said, it’s way to early to be counting jars of honey on the shelf from a crop that’s not yet past 10% in flower, a lot can change between now and then and we have to be careful not to get too far ahead of ourselves.

I posted a lengthy video to my Patreon page showing my first inspections at the University apiary, overall it was a really good inspection but it did throw up a number of questions that I’d like to go over and hopefully give some explanation as to why I did some of the manoeuvres with the hives that I did.

If you haven’t seen the video, it’s available on my Patreon page, check it out here.
I carried out inspections on three very different colonies on video to show my approach to each one. The first was a straightforward single brood box colony, the second was an overWintered nucleus colony still in a nuc box and the third was a colony that had been under-supered for the Winter.

I obviously inspected all of the colonies in the apiary but these were the three I chose to show on the video.

The first colony was the one that had a massive varroa drop when I treated with Oxalic Acid in the Winter, they looked really well and were building up strongly. One of the benefits of this apiary site is the huge amount of early season pollen that’s available to the bees, this means strong, healthy brood and this year the bees were able to get out very early because the weather was so mild. This brings me to the main question that I’ve been asked since posting the video and it revolves around when to add a first super to a colony after Winter.

As with most things in beekeeping it boils down to a judgement call but you can make some initial assessments of the colony and that will help you in making that decision of whether to add a super and queen excluder or not.

When I inspected this colony it was obvious they had grown and were doing well but that alone isn’t enough to make me add a super. What I did notice however, was the large amount of sealed brood that was already present in the brood box which already had a large number of adult bees in it. With so much sealed brood it’s important to remember some of the time lines and numbers. A single frame of brood will produce enough bees to fill a couple of seams between frames so if they emerged over a few days apart they would quickly become congested in a single brood box. It’s easy to see in this colony that the brood had been sealed  for several days prior to me inspecting so I would expect the workers to emerge around the time of the next inspection if I were doing weekly inspections. However, with the possibility of the weather preventing an inspection a week later it might be the case that I would inspect for nearly two weeks and by that time the bees would have definitely emerged filling the brood box, becoming congested and potentially triggering a&

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Welcome once again to my weekly podcast, That week seemed to fly by. I’ve been busy again at the workshop and when this podcast comes out to you on Friday I’ll be gearing up to head out to carry out first inspections on the remaining colonies I’ve not yet checked up on.
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I’m hoping the queen failures I encountered last week are the last of any immediate issues with our colonies. That will make a total of three failed colonies over Winter which is pretty good really in the big scheme of things.

Before I talk more about the colonies and my plans for the coming month I thought I’d update you on the progress out at the workshop.

Well, I seemed to have filled most of the available space pretty quickly. It’s starting to get a little cramped and I need to get a bit more organised. My main reason for taking so much equipment over there was to get it out of the rain. I need to make some repairs to a fair bit of very old equipment, mostly stuff I acquired when I first got started and is now starting to show it’s age. I have some old Langstroth floors that i bought as part of a job lot of Commercial beehive parts, what the beekeeper had done is screwed a piece of timber to the outside long edge on both sides and converted it to a square footprint to allow commercial and national brood boxes to sit on top. They work fine just like that but they are a little on the old side now and some of the wood had started to rot because water seeps in between the added pieces of wood and the main floor. It hasn’t helped with them being sat outside through the wetter months, although this Winter hasn’t been particularly wet or cold, even so, to sort them out I need them to dry out, hence I’ve moved them to the workshop where they are now sat prior to being repaired. There’s no point throwing them away only to have to buy new floors for my expansion plans.

I’m beginning to cultivate that “make do and mend” attitude lots of my fellow bee farmers have and I now understand why with the prices of beekeeping equipment seemingly increasing year on year. Even with price rises we could probably all do with a change in attitude regarding our throw away society, don’t repair it, just dump it and get a new one. We seem to have lost some of the skills in taking a broken thing and repairing it. Not everyone of course, Pete was telling me about an electric drill he managed to salvage because the battery had died and it’s previous owner just dumped it. Pete, for those of you who don’t know, has just started beekeeping and I’m mentoring in exchange for some help around the apiaries and at the workshop. It helps that he can bring hot coffee across the road to the workshop on his way to work but together we’ve made up a heap of kit recently and I’m excited to help him learn more beekeeping skills as the new season progresses.

If you’ve not got a mentor and you’ve only just begun beekeeping have a chat with members of your local association and see if you can go along to help out with a more experienced beekeeper some time. Stand, watch and listen, don’t be in too much of a rush to get your hands on frames, it’s amazing what you can learn from a more experienced beekeeper by watching how they handle their bees.

Anyway, back to Pete and the Drill, Pete managed to buy a replacement battery and the drill works just fine and it’s a decent brand too, so well done Pete for your “Make do and Mend” attitude.

It’s going to come in handy as I have a number of boxes that need mending too.

The workshop is about 10m by 12m so it’s nice size, some of you might have seen the recent videos shot in the workshop. I think it will become a makeshift studio when rain or cold stops us from getting into the bees&

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Hi I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to episode 57 of my podcast, Beekeeping Short and Sweet. I’ve been inspecting this week carrying out first Spring checks on some my colonies and it got me thinking about how I use a smoker, so here are my thoughts.

Websites mentioned in today's podcast:

My Website: http://www.norfolk-honey.co.uk
My additional videos and up to date podcasts Page: Norfolk Honey Co at Patreon
The smokers I currently use available from Bee-Equipment online

Welcome once again to my weekly podcast, If you want to catch up with the very latest podcast do check out my Patreon page where you can get up to date with all of my content as we head into the new season.

The last couple of days have been lovely, Spring days, each day has that characteristically chilly start but as the sun burns through the clouds so the day warms up and around lunchtime I’m talking T shirt weather and that’s just fine for checking the bees. To be specific I’m looking at something like 14 degrees, it’s on the edge for beginner beekeepers, but most experienced beekeepers who can inspect relatively quickly can get into a hive see what they need to see and get out without too much disruption.

Also, and I know I’m repeating myself here but know exactly why you’re checking your colonies. Have a check list in your head or even write it down if you need a reminder.

Size of colony, Large or small?, Food, Do they have enough? Brood, Is there a nice brood pattern forming, Eggs, Can you see eggs in any of the cells? Drones, are there any drones or drone cells? Queen cells, Unlikely in early March but keep an eye open, it’s been warm! Queen, but only if she’s spotted, don’t waste time searching for her.

That’s probably all you need on your list to start with, you can see most if not all of these things as you move through the frames with bees on, quickly and quietly, causing the minimum amount of fuss as you go. Finish off by moving all the frames back in place and close the hive down again. 

Remember to write up your inspection notes and grab cuppa while you think back to what you’ve seen and plan out the next steps.

Of course, you’ll already have checked over your notes prior to inspecting the colony so most of what you see shouldn’t be a huge surprise for the most part.

I’ve already picked out just three colonies that I intend to select as my queen rearing colonies. You have to be ruthless when selecting to raise queens, even if you have just three or four colonies, more often than not, one will stick out as a favourite or something about them will set them apart from the rest. It may be that they are super calm, or perhaps they produced more honey than the rest of your colonies put together last year. Whatever it is, if you just have a few colonies try to be very selective about the one you choose to raise new queens from. It will pay dividends in the end.

I have inspected a few hives this week, and for the most part all of them are doing fine, the warm Winter has allowed colonies to begin building up strongly and some colonies are filling with bees nicely. That’s not to say I’m going to rush out and add a couple of supers and a queen excluder, for me, it’s just too early still. There’s heaps of pollen coming in, mostly from willow now, bright yellow and covering the bees from tip to tail.

What I’m seeing are colonies with maybe 8 or 9 seams of bees and 4 or 5 frames of brood, a lot of that brood is capped and so when that emerges the colonies will have a sudden increase in bees and that’s when they are likely to need a little more space. That’s the point I shall add a queen excluder and super. Around 10 to 14 days time I would think and that’s way earlier than last year. We may be in for a good Spring, who knows?

Th

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Hi I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to episode 56 of my podcast, Beekeeping Short and Sweet. The start of the new beekeeping season is almost upon us and last weekend I travelled out of the County to the first major Trade show of the season, BeeTradex.

Links for this week's podcast mentions;

http://www.patreon.com/norfolkhoney
http://www.modernbeekeeping.co.uk
http://www.bees-online.co.uk
https://www.thorne.co.uk
https://www.carl-fritz.de
https://en.swienty.com
http://beefarmers.co.uk
http://www.northernbeebooks.co.uk
https://www.bee-craft.com/

So, last weekend was the first of the major beekeeping trade shows here in the UK, BeeTradex, it’s held at Stoneleigh Park in Warwickshire here in the UK, although it’s becoming much more than that with various lectures, AGM’s and business meetings also being held at the venue. The weather was much warmer this year and this resulted in a huge turnout of beekeepers and the show hall was constantly busy. The really nice thing was that the hall was large enough to accommodate everyone with room to move about and around displays without constantly bumping in to each other.

The weather was a bit bright and breezy, heavy rain showers blew across the event fair frequently so it was great that everything was under one roof. Those people who were smart had bought advanced tickets as the queue for buying tickets at one point must have been 100 beekeepers long if not more. The main hall was bright and roomy as I said and apart from wanting to chat to equipment suppliers and manufacturers I was also there for the Bee Farmers Meetings which were being held from midday so my morning was a little bit of a whirlwind.

It was great to stop and chat with a few beekeepers who had seen my videos, particularly those who are supporters on my Patreon page, particularly Gregg and Jackie Palmer who were lovely. It was nice to hear Gregg’s plans for the coming season and chat about how he was enjoying his beekeeping.

I was funny to hear how many people were really surprised that I was so tall, I’m 6’3” but I assume you don’t get to see that on the videos, for those of you who did stop to say hello, now you know why I have back problems!

The actual trade show itself was well attended by suppliers, there must have been 50 or 60 stands and i would think there were well over two thousand beekeepers passing through the main doors. Add to this the lectures that were available it all added up to a great day out for everyone.

Some of the highlights for me on the day were actually meeting some old friends  as well as making new friends as I wandered around the stands. I have to wish good luck to my very dear friend Sandra Gray who has just taken up the post of National Bee Inspector for the National Bee Unit. Sandra and I used to work together as seasonal Bee Inspectors and she is not only a fantastic beekeeper and inspector but a great administrator too so I’m sure she will do a fantastic job and with the ongoing challenge of the Asian Hornet incursion I’m sure she will have her hands full.

I also stopped at the Modern Beekeeping trade stand to chat with Paul Beardmore. Paul supplies the Honey Paw hives and the Zukan Apipasta that I’ve been using with very good results. It looks like he is expanding and has taken on the Modern Beekeeping business who sell the Paradise Honey Poly Hives and this will compliment his Honey Paw Langstroth hives as well as the various Zukan feed products and other bits of kit.

I tried to get a moment with the very nice people at Maisemore Apiaries, you’ll possibly remember they applied me with their own Commercial Poly Hives to try out in 2017. Those hives are doing great so far and the bees in them have come through the Winter strongly. I say I tried to chat with them because they were so busy I just couldn’t get anyone to stop for long enough to say hello, even Caroline was so busy she didn’t even see&

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This week sees the return of my regular monthly Questions and Answers podcast and we have some cracking questions as always.
Web addresses and links mentioned in todays podcast:
My Support page; www.patreon.com/norfolkhoney
My Website; www.norfolk-honey.co.uk

David at Buzzed Bees; www.gofundme.com/Rescued-Bees-Drowned-In-Mudslide
Near Native Bees - Bibba www.bibba.com
Apipasta Syrup and Fondant - www.happyvalleyhoney.co.uk

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