My Diary of Keeping Bees

And Finally

My Bees

My Diary of Keeping Bees

Using sustainable, low-impact, low-cost,

chemical-free, small-scale, 'organic',

natural beekeeping, in a Cedar Top Bar Hive

SEPTEMBER-2011
Bees starting to get ready for
winter but still going strong-
bringing in lots of pollen.
I sit and watch them every day
and am amazed how close the
cats and I can get to them
Have removed feeder and now
feeding fondant over the top
bars covered with a plastic food
box. Have filled the roof space
with a pillowcase stuffed with
sawdust and added a sawdust
divider after the last follower
board of their home to keep
them a bit warmer. The cedar
roof seemed to be leaking and
so have added an aluminium
roof. The bottom boards are
still lowered for the time being.
There is black mesh to stop
the cats sitting in front of the
hive and a tarpauline ready to
put over the hive in the winter
The bees seem to be building
comb diagonally across the
hive from front to back and have
removed all of my carefully
added wax strings from the top
bars which now hang down like
spaghetti across the
window-DOH again

AUGUST-2011
My bees were a swarm collected
from the gutter of a house about
15 miles away on the evening of
August 14th 2011.

The first day they arrived I was
very concerned that they were
going to abscond as for several
hours the garden was black with
bees . But they seemed to have
settled in well now and are
bringing in pollen and keeping
the local wasps at bay.

Have bought a WaspBane to
help them which has so far
caught several wasps
(Click on the thumbnail below
for more information)

Have been feeding them with
2:1 sugar solution since they
arrived. Only seem to have one
problem so far-I am using a
miller feeder along the top bars
and the bees are filling up their
feeder with comb.DOH!