Steffans boufant

[guest40]

Stop it you lot!!


MMMMmmmmmMMMMM Mountain Ash honey..... with just a hint of eucalypt


Sorry Steff
 The Blue gum honey from Tassie is exceptional too

[Steffan]

No need to apologise to me mate, I am not from Tasmania (no scar) I just lived there for a while. Mangrove honey, now that is the business!!

Haven't seen it for years

Steff

[guest27]

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.

Excellent place to keep them.  The productivity (in honey, propolis etc) of urban hives tends to be to the upper end because of all the nice gardens.  Met a guy once who kept bees in a tower block with out a balcony or access to the roof.  He made a custom hive that essentially mounted on a window frame.  bees exited to the world about 10 floors up.  Cecking the hive etc used to fill the room with bees though!  - he lived alone BTW

R

[guest868]

Ah no tower block or flat roof here, just an old council estate semi. Meaning I have young kids behind me, and I'm not sure their parents would be so keen when the bees swarmed.

[themoudie]

Aye shedbrewed,

All part of learning about life! 

If your looking after the bees you won't let them swarm, 'cos you'll have split the colony to increase your stock afore it gets to big for their hive. 

Beeman will now come along and describe 'chapter and verse', whilst kicking me in the shins 'neath the table.

My regards to the Savanah counties, we are now having the customary Glasgae fornight monsoon conditions, interspursed by doses of high UV radiation!

Toodle pip, Bill.

[beeman]

All the books say a good beekeeper never looses a swarm.
HOHOHO every beekeeper I know says thats a load of bowlocks. I even lost a swarm, one year, on the1st april when the temp rose sharply and before I could look in them at all that year.

 Been to boyds house he looks like he is well set up and I find the top bar hive an interesting project. Not for me as I move bees about. I cannot understand why the local beekeepers are so anti/not bothered about giving assistance.

Having read about them they should work but will probably be not so productive as a regular hive. The bullsh*t that some of there supportes give about being kind to the bees is negated by the fact that to get honey from them you need to destroy combs.

Boyds garden is tiny but is suitable for 2 hives. I have kept them in small gardens before and often ask local farmers/ factories if I can use their land with no problems. Towns can give a more varied honey but monculture in rural areas can provide bumper crops if you are willing to move bees. Not moving as in the american way on artics and 1000s mile, but around the local area. I used to take them to the heather but it is too much work and time intensive for me.

You have just got remember as far as bees are concerned they are wild, and the hive you have them in is just a hollow tree as far as they are concerned. They never belong to you you just keep them.

beeman 

[guest27]

Fair enough Shedbrewed - mind a hive or two behind a 6' fence ( simple screening will do) will throw the bees up high on the way out and in.  Had a friend with 3 hives in a small suburban back garden.  They had them there for about 15 years before a swam got into the neighbors hedge - fresh swarms tend to be fairly docile - and they went round with a bag to collect it. All hell broke loose - petitions from the street, letters to the council etc.  Council said a) was nowt to do with them, b) bees were fine things and c) they had been there for so long they were not an issue

Mind considering how nosy the neighbours were one onders whey they did not see a couple goign up the garden in bee suits with smokers once a week.

R