Episode 115: Sneaky and Grumpy Bees

Hi, I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to Episode 115 of my podcast, Beekeeping Short and Sweet, Our Summer nectar flow is about to begin but this week I’ve had to contend with some sneaky and grumpy bees, listen in for stuff you just don’t find in the books.Catch up with my latest podcast hereI’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.Before we get started this week I wanted to say a quick hello and thank you to the team that moderate my Facebook group “Stewart’s beekeeping Basics”. The Facebook group was set up to give new beekeepers the opportunity to ask those beginner questions in a safe environment where they’re not going to get shot down by know it all beekeepers who find it amusing to harrang new beekeepers and give them a hard time. The trouble is there are always beekeepers out there that get their kicks out of talking down to new beekeepers and that’s where the moderators come in. If you’re new to beekeeping and want to chat with other beekeepers in a controlled and safe environment do give it a look. I also find there are beekeepers who have started their own YouTube channel and seem to think it’s ok to piggyback on the back of the hard work we’ve put in and promote their own channels and products in my group, while I’m not against sharing knowledge I do think they should make the effort of creating their own platform to promote their content and not try to take shortcuts using someone else’s hard work. So thank you to the team of moderators that help me with policing the Facebook group.It’s raining again, welcome to the great British Summer, we are so lucky to have such a variable climate here in the UK with seasonal changes creating something different in the landscape as the months go by. The rain is actually very welcome, perfectly timed for all of the Summer flower plants our honeybees will be foraging on over the next five or six weeks. Remember, the plants need the water in order to produce a decent amount of nectar in order to tempt our pollinators, including my bees, onto their flowers to pollinate them and get a reward of nectar for doing so. This is it for me, the start of the Summer nectar flow, colonies are now in a variety of states ranging from queenless where they have swarmed, being occupied by a virgin queen that has recently emerged, some have newly mated queens that have just started to lay eggs and others such as our skyscraper colony seem to be ploughing on, full steam ahead and doing just fantastically well. The flip side is we have discovered several colonies that have Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus and I think I mentioned before I’m going to destroy these. I just don’t want it spreading throughout my apiaries. Thinking back to the various colonies I currently have, I would say I have an average set up, not everything is where I wanted it to be and I have lost a few swarms from colonies that were totally unexpected. An interesting situation developed with the church cut out colony this week that I want to share with you to give an example of how bees can completely flummox you as a beekeeper...........Well, that’s it for this week, Thanks for hanging around until the end of the podcast and keep the comments coming.Please do take a look at the extra content available on my patreon page, that’s www.patreon.com/norfolk honey I’m Stewart SpiSupport the show