Steffans boufant

[guest987]

&feature=related

Thought this would be of use should Steffan decide to become a Hairdwesser.

Vidal Rob.

[mini-thumper]

&feature=related

Thought this would be of use should Steffan decide to become a Hairdwesser.

Vidal Rob.

Shouldn't that be Vidal Bob? And I should know!

Boyd

[guest987]

Beehive, Boyd.

This reminds me. I will have to pop along to see Pancho my stylist. The old barnet needs a trim.

Rob.

[mini-thumper]

Beehive, Boyd.

This reminds me. I will have to pop along to see Pancho my stylist. The old barnet needs a trim.

Rob.

Are you psychic? I built a hive last weekend and I'm looking at some prospective tenants tomorrow courtesy of our own Beeman.

Boyd

[themoudie]

Aye Boyd,

Look after them well! the past winter and the mite have wiped a lot of stock out. Was speaking with a man who keeps bees, sells honey, and also trades all the associated paraphenalia. From a total of 260 hives last autumn, he started this season with 10! 

We have no honey bees about the place, no hover flies and smaller numbers of various bumble bee species. Our solitary masonary bee colony didn't hatch as many this year, but they have flown and we will just have to see if they laid many eggs. I think not, as the late frosts may have done for them.

Scottish heather honey will be in short supply this year and the price will be high.

Go canny and adjust your veil!

All the best with the wee beasties, Bill.

[guest24]

This problem with the bees scares me horribly. Something so humble and its loss will be catastrophic if they continue to die out.

[beeman]

Its true boyd is going to keep bees, at least they wont get in his hair, He is taking them to his house next week.
Poor old boyd is completly smirtten by keeping bees, having looked into my hives he still thinks it is a good idea.

This year has been a good year for my bees, up to 10 colonies from 3, in april. but 1 good year does not make a recovery I'll wait and see for a couple of years before I'll be happy with the recovery.
beeman

[guest24]

I keep the back corner of my garden as a pretty wild area, complete with stinging nettles for the ladybirds and lots of other things for whatever lunches in there! There seems a goodly supply of stag beetles emigrating now each year from the piles of wood that all live behind the stick wall.

Any pointers to a particular type of flower that bees would enjoy?

[Sprunghub]

......not the same sort of bee's as the bee's you "keep".....but we have a thriving & 'developing' nest of Red Tail Bumblebees alongside the bike garage. Started of as little things about the size of a Bluebottle but the 'newer' batch are getting bigger - proper Humble Bee sized "Thumpers".

Don't bother about me & the bikes being outside their back door, but if I go out there after dark they all "thrumm" in unison to see me off. 

Adds to the 'patchwork'.....

[themoudie]

My Mothers description of the Duke after being taken shopping on the back. It goes like a "Red Arsed Bumble bee"! That was from a 52 year old women, not prone to swearing and who had problems co-ordinating a push bike, but loved going a backie on the AJS 18S or the Duke. Still have the bent wire and pipe cleaner model "Red Arsed Bumble bee"! she bought for the top yoke.

I hope your colony are sucessful 'Sprunghub' and may the bees be fruitful for Beeman and Boyd.

The bumbles going well on the foxgloves, 'Shirley' poppies and verbascum. Still no hover's! 

As for flowers? Variety is the spice of life for bees, everything from box, lime, ivy, willowherb, buddlea, thyme, beans, peas, onions, heather, clover, stonecrop, carrots, honeysuckle, to nettles, carrots, wallflowers, oil seed rape, raspberries, strawberries, blackcurrants and catoneasters. 

Home made mead!

Toodle pip, Bill.

[beeman]

Don't forget Himalayan balsam one of the biggest producers of nectar. Trouble is it is an invasive pest and should be eradicated.

Some parts of the country beekeepers actually take hives to the areas where it is abundant. Many plants that you see bumble bees on cannot be accessed by honey bees such as most large clover varieties.

The small clovers on your lawn do attract bees though. I remember having my bees on a field of clover for seed nothing but a constant, the field was alive with bees and the smell of clover heavy in the air........ honey tasted just like the smell must stop as I am rambling on past times
beeman

[themoudie]

Aye beeman,

Rambling??? 

No, just waxing lyricaly of times of yor, whilst slumped in a comodious, well beaten, leather armchair with a glass of mead in the mitt.

Himalayan balsam!  Old wifey's collecting the seeds and sowing them as it looks 'pretty'!  So it may do, but by killing off the native veg, the watercourse banks are left bare in the winter and increasingly prone to erosion  Harrumph!

Bee keepers up here move the hives up near 'clearfell' sites when the Rosebay willowherb invades, as it too produces a good nectar, which can be blended with other honeys. Wild thyme and heather smells are one of my favourite combinations, on a hot August afternoon/evening on the hill! 

See, all chilled out again! Bill.

[guest868]

Another intrigued potential beekeeper here as well. Sadly though I don't think I have the right area to keep them, living as I do in a rather residential area. It pleases me to read of others keeping them though.

[guest40]

boufant = beehive

apt?


NAH

[themoudie]

Another intrigued potential beekeeper here as well. Sadly though I don't think I have the right area to keep them, living as I do in a rather residential area. It pleases me to read of others keeping them though.

Aye shedbrewed,

On the dreaded Hugh Fearnley Whittingstall programme a wee while ago they tracked down a young loon from Sarf London who had installed multiple hives on his family house flat roof extension and was marketing the honey professionaly from a stall in one of the street markets of the area. They also conducted a 'blind' taste test and his was voted better tasting by all, including Hugh himself. Variety of plant species from which to go and gather nectar was suggested as being the likely reason. Also higher ambient winter temperatures in the city meant better chances of survival and a longer flowering season from which to gather the nectar. 

You just don't want the 'flight path' to be through the patio, or next door to lodge a complaint with the carncil that they are 'dangerous'! 

Toodle pip, Bill.