Buzzing News
Blog... What's the Buzz down the Allotments
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My allotment has a resident population of Honeybees and a beekeeper deemed by some as “The Bee Man”. I was inspired many years ago to keep bees from seeing the bees in action down in the Devon and Cornwall Bee centres. Since then, finance, time and space were never right. Until further inspired by and then Joining Lancaster beekeepers. Driven by an interest in nature and a desire to help the environment I enrolled on the Bee keeping practical and theory course, bought several books and planned my preparations. This took several months to get the relevant equipment together and wait for the local Bees to arrive.
The bees arrived in April 2022 and settled into a full size hive a few days later. The Bees are very docile and a pleasure to work with. A few weeks later a swarm was observed locally which I was able rescue to add into a second hive. Honeybees don’t survive without a beekeeper to treat them for the Varroa mite. The summer nectar flow arrived hives expanded, and weekly inspections were necessary to keep the bees organised and with space to expand. There was no guarantee of any honey, but the summer was good, so they were able to produce Honey. I extracted the surplus honey late in August leaving the bees their fair share and the Morecambe Bay honey was delicious. The days started to draw in and it was time to feed the bees sugar syrup and bakers fondant icing to ensure replaced stores their food for winter.
The bees now clustered up maintaining their own heat and little help from some insulation they will now be dormant until spring venturing out only on warmer opportunities. I am now preparing for next year and the Bees and I am looking forward to the spring.
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The Bees are keeping well and have grown in number, I now have 5 hives. The bees are regularly monitored to make sure they are healthy and not going hungry. During the wet cold months the bees are fed with sugar syrup and fondant . Summer of 2023 was a little wet so not much honey was available as the bees needed to eat this to survive.
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November 2024 The bees are now tucked up for the winter, they have honey and fondant to keep them going through the winter.
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