Hambrook Honeybees

25/06/2022

Feeding the .

As a rule I try not to feed bees. Beekeepers feed for two reasons - to replace honey they've taken from the bees, or to bolster the bees' stores when they fear there might be a lack of flowers to forage on. My take on it is that I want to foster bees which are good foragers - so if I've left them alone and not taken honey, they shouldn't need feeding... and sugar syrup is a poor substitute for them anyway, compared to their own honey. I dare say in time I might make exceptions but it seems to be working so far.

However, this was a small swarm to start with and I want to give them a fighting chance. Time will tell if they can establish themselves properly or not, but the weather is hit and miss for a few days, so I decided to give them some sugar syrup - the aim is to give them some energy to help them build comb. I also don't use foundation [wax sheets that most beekeepers use to "help the bees along" - more on this in another post I dare say], so I think it's fair to give them a hand with some syrup instead. At this stage they won't store the syrup anyway, they'll just use it to feed themselves, secrete wax for the comb, etc.

You can buy bee feeders to put in your hive but even the commercially available ones seem to have issues with bees falling into them and drowning. These are my own design, though to be honest it's probably unfair to call them a "design" - just some takeaway trays with a chickenwire "ramp" in them. Touch wood, I have never found even one bee drowned in one of these.

They were out today despite the hit-and-miss weather, flying with purpose, so I hope they're going to make a go of it.

In other news I've just been given, and refurbished, a top bar hive that has been in someone's garden for 10 years. It's come up really nicely. More on that to come!

24/06/2022

Update on the .

I transferred them to a small hive (called a "nuc") yesterday. Not a big swarm but they have been out and about doing orientation flights today so fingers crossed for them.

I will give them a couple of days to settle in and then feed them some sugar syrup to help them build comb if the weather isn't good.

They're currently in quarantine to check they're all OK. Once I know the queen is laying well, and the bees are healthy, they will go into a full size hive in the "out apiary" (a lovely field near Thornbury).

22/06/2022

Picked up some today! Currently leaving them to get settled into the bin before I come and remove it...

17/06/2022

Hi bee fans. Not done much bee activity this year as Real Work has been taking over a bit. However I'm happy to report that most of the bees I extracted from buildings last year are surviving and thriving - even the ones extracted on a rainy day in the Cotswolds which were a nightmare and I didn't think they'd make it.

This year I've rescued a couple of swarms and they are both doing nicely. Can you spot them in the picture?

If you like this page then if you could give my Real Work page a like and a follow that would be very much appreciated - you can find me at https://www.facebook.com/HambrookPH.

25/06/2021

A quick update on the chimney bees! Here you can see the chimney cap. I've turned it over and the combs are hanging off it. I'm glad I got to this one when I did. If they had had a couple more weeks to build, they would have been bracing the comb to the sides of the chimney and it would all have been very messy. By the end of the summer they could easily have filled three feet of the chimney with comb and that would have been a real headache to remove.

These bees are now in their new hive - job (hopefully) done.

23/06/2021

As well as swarm collections, I do sometimes do cutouts, removing established colonies of bees from buildings etc. Bees can live quite happily in roofs or chimneys for many years, but in this case the bees were entering the house so they had to go.

This is the one service that I do charge for, by the way - done properly an extraction takes me away from real* work for a day, and usually requires building work, work at height, or both.

Today's job was in possibly the most beautiful garden in the whole Cotswolds. The bees were in the chimney. I moved the hive into the box and encouraged the remaining bees out, first with smoke and then with repellent. Once the bees were in the box I treated various points in the house with repellent too, and cleaned out the fireplace where the majority were coming in. I left the box in place for the day so that the foraging bees could join their colleagues throughout the day, and then removed them at night. I sealed up the entrance holes, treated the chimney cavity with repellent too, and the builders will re-cap the chimney tomorrow.

This is my lightweight timber platform which I strap to the chimney - it means the box can be close to the hive site. By securing it with straps, no damage is done to the stonework and it's easily removed in the evening. (Don't worry, health and safety fans - the box itself was secured to the chimney too after the photo was taken - just in case the wind picked up.)

These bees will settle into the apiary for a couple of days and then we'll move them onto frames in a "normal" hive.

I chanced not wearing my suit when putting them in the apiary, got stung. 🙄 🐝 *sad trombone*

13/06/2021

There can't possibly be a better evening than collecting a swarm, meeting good people and nattering about bees.

Huge thanks to Steve Saunders-Rawlings for the call to this swarm. They had settled up in a hedge - interestingly there has been a swarm in this spot before, and the previous owners of Steve's house even removed the chimney on the house because they couldn't get rid of the bees in it!! Bees definitely have a race memory of some sort for places, swarming to the same place year on year and so on.

This one will go to a good friend of a beekeeping colleague of mine, to be looked after.

Oh yeah, my bee suit is not the most flattering garment. I am not actually that portly... nor am I in the Klan.

12/06/2021

250 likes!!! Thank you everyone - I really appreciate your support (for the bees as well as me!)

Had a quick look in on the garden bees today. Both the main colonies (from rescued swarms) look to be doing well. And the small one is hanging in there. They're still very small but building comb and bringing in pollen so I'm going to keep feeding them to give them a helping hand.

Will soon be transferring the wild swarm (which was the video in my last post) into a long term box. I will try and video that.

07/06/2021

Busy busy today!

Got a call for a swarm last night, they were about 5m up in a tree. That's at the limit of my throw-it-in-the-back-of-a-car ladder so I left it last night but went back today. They were very good tempered bees considering I had to knock them into a box and go up and down the ladder with them.

Then off to actual work, where we have a wild colony and I'd set up a bait hive earlier on in the year. Lo and behold, there are bees moving in! Video below. Very excited about this one - the wild colony there is the one that actually got me interested in bees in the first place.

Then on to look at a cutout (removal of an established colony) from a lovely dovecote. The bees are bursting at the seams there and they're in a surprisingly small space. These ones are lined up to go to Bee The Change Project.

04/06/2021

I don't know what to make of these girls!

A couple of weeks ago I put a swarm in a hive that I have on my shed. Next to it was this bait hive. Some time in the last two weeks, some bees have appeared in this box. There aren't many of them at all - just this and one more frame - but today I'm 90% sure I saw a queen in here. So where did they come from?! Maybe a small swarm moved in without me noticing? I don't think this can be the queen from the other box - that box is MUCH busier and they're building comb like crazy.

It's a mystery...

04/06/2021

!!

Local beekeeper - happy to collect/help you deal with honey bee swarms for free. Drop me a message via FB Messenger and I will be(e) in touch straight away. 🐝 🐝 🐝
A friend of mine had this lovely swarm in his garden this week. Bees swarm when the colony is strong and the current queen flies off to find a new home along with several thousand of her workers. The parent hive will already be raising new queen bees to replace her.

When they swarm, there will be an epic cloud of bees buzzing around, and then after a while they settle down in a clump like this. The clump sends out scout bees to find somewhere to live, and if they find somewhere, the scouts return and do the famous "waggle dance" to communicate where the new site is. Once enough scouts have checked the site out, the clump takes off again (another epic cloud of bees) and flies to the new home.

If you're lucky enough to see a swarm -
* don't spray them with water or smoke
* please don't try and kill them with a bug spray
* it's probably best not to touch them
* drop me a message ASAP and I will arrange to remove them.

04/06/2021

04/06/2021

PINNED POST - ABOUT ME

Hambrook Honeybees is not a commercial enterprise - I don't farm and sell honey (yet) or wax products and I'm not a bee breeder.

I don't charge for swarm collections. I do charge for extractions (where the bees are in a building or structure).

Once bees are in a hive I try and interfere with them as little as possible. Many beekeepers spend a lot of time trying to prevent their bees from swarming (because they want to maximise honey production) and generally messing around with them. I believe that the bees know what they're doing, and wherever possible, I will leave them to get on with it.

If you have me collect a swarm for you or extract a colony, they will go to my garden to settle in and make sure they're doing OK, and then they will be moved to a lovely apiary out in the South Gloucestershire countryside.

13/03/2021

What is a swarm?

Honeybee swarming is a natural process. Bees swarm because their colony has outgrown their current home - whether that's a beekeeper's hive or a tree. The colony usually has only one queen, but in preparation for a swarm, the colony will raise new queens. Before the new queens hatch, the old queen will fly out of the hive along with a lot of worker bees - usually between a third and half of the colony. These bees will then settle somewhere to wait and scout bees will go and look for somewhere for them to live. This interim stage is where people might see a huge clump of bees in their garden (see picture) and call a beekeeper for help.

Honeybees are not generally aggressive, and will only sting if something threatens the colony. The good news is that honeybees in a swarm are usually extra docile, because in preparation for the swarming, the worker bees will have eaten lots of honey to sustain them long enough to find a new home. Full stomachs make them torpid.

If you're lucky enough to see a swarm, give me a call...

15/12/2020