Bee Basic Exam

I took the BBKA basic exam this week. The person examining me was Celia Davis the president of the Warwickshire beekeepers association, chairperson of the Solihull branch and author of a couple of Bee books. I figure trying to show someone with that level of expertise the basics is going to be difficult as they must see lots of people and the level of expectation is going to be high.

I get the results in two weeks, the test is divided into practical parts and theoretical parts. I think I did OK, I may have made a couple of mistakes and could have had more knowledge of diseases. I had done my homework and studied and I know the principles etc, and I have a couple of years of experience so I should be alright.

Will keep you posted on the results. If I don't pass now I can take the exam again next year.


The orchard is fine examined the trees and the fruits, everything looks fine, I reckon some of the pear trees have rust leaf and I plan on doing some research on the subject over the next couple of days. I have seen rust leaf before on pear trees else where and in most cases it was just left as treatment may be expensive or labour intensive.

I have had more bird damage to some of the apples and as the orchard is still young, I guess its expected. Once the orchard has been established longer and I have more fruit, I am hoping that the percentage of fruit damaged is less. At present I can go around each tree and pick off damaged fruit. I then give it to my son who feeds it to next doors horses. They are loving the apples. In a couple of weeks the gages and the plums are going to be ready.

It will then be time to enjoy apple and plum crumble.

We have Honey

I have extracted my first super this week. Now I have jars of honey some of which I will be giving away. I have had several people request honey, ever since I started bee keeping people are always requesting honey. I have not taken any orders as I cannot confirm that I can meet the orders yet, but may in the future.I have about 15/20 jars at the moment and most of this will be given to friends and family.

It took a while to extract, I removed the super on Saturday and extracted on Saturday afternoon and returned the supper with the wet frames so that the bees could clear it up.

I then left the honey in the extractor until Monday evening; when I bottled it. As you may expect it was sticky work. It's was nice to see the finished product after all this time. My wife is going to make a honey cake this coming weekend. I will invest in an extractor next year. This year I used the association extractor.

Other news

The farmer next to me and noticed that we have creeping thistle he has sprayed his pasture land for the weed when he discovered it. Another farmer with a quad bike came with a tank on the back and a sprayer. I obviously don't want to spray so I have had to read several documents from the Organic Gardening website, which lists many government documents and scientific papers on the subject. I have read a couple, some very detailed. They all seem to recommend the same thing. Cut the grass before flowering and then put down additional seed, and keep this up for 3 years.

So on Sunday last week my brother and I cut the grass down to about 2 inches and will doing the same on Saturday, but slightly shorter.

Its hard work, we don't normally cut that much grass at one time. I will also be ordering some meadow flower seeds and red/white clover seeds to throw out this weekend prior to the next cut.

Otherwise all is well, the trees are doing ok, the Laxton Superb apples are doing great, as are other varieties but the Laxton Superb looks like a bumper crop. I managed to eat a couple of cherries before they were all taken by birds, lots of plums in trees, but not a single pear. I can see that the red berries are ready. All in all a small but nice harvest for year two.

Support for some of the trees.

Some of the larger trees the ones that are over 10 feet tall most of which are plum trees were beginning to droop, partially because of the weight of the fruit. I may have a good harvest of plums and apples depends on the birds etc, the pears were poor this year and I reckon the cherries will be eaten by the birds. Oh well

We have added additional support stakes, these support stakes are made of eucalyptus branches from a tree I trimmed in the garden a couple of weeks ago. Lets see how well they do. I have also adjust the tree ties on all of the trees that needed it.

Turned the compost heap, and reckon next weekend I will have to cut the grass again.

No pictures this week, I didn't take the camera, however the orchard as a whole is looking good.

4 stings in seconds

On Friday I wanted to check the bees at the bottom of my garden, I really only wanted to see how much of the sugar syrup that had consumed, and see if they needed any more. So I went down, with my suit on but no smoke. Big mistake. I opened the hive and looked at the feeder and bang 4 stings within 2/3 seconds.

Thankfully only one left any poison in the system and even that's fine now.

Didn't do much work on the orchard this week, but did go looking for pests, they were reduced in number, the natural predators are doing well. The trees are fine and plum trees are looking heavy, I am going to add additional support of over the comming weekend with help from my brother.

The trees are all growing and some have increased in size by more that a couple of inches in the past week.

The weather has been awfully and have not been able to check on the bees either at the orchard or at my parents, will do so over the course of the week.

Third Hive trees are fine

Last Thursday I got a call from Bernard telling me about a swarm in four oaks Sutton Coldfield that I could collect. That was it, I was off collected the swarm and took it home. I still had one spare hive and I put the swarm in, minus a crown board and the following morning I realised that I needed the crown board as the swarm had started to build new comb on the roof of the hive. I had to make some adjustment and a little later I had all the bees in the brood box and a single sting to show for it.In fact that night I built 5 more frames so now the new hive is up and running. I order 2 new rapid feeders and put one on the new hive. It can store 6 liters of syrup, which is going to be great for the coming autumn and hives at the orchard.

Then over the weekend we got the grass cut at the orchard. It looks great, I have seen less and less aphids though I have found some on the cherry trees. The trees are really growing and I recently looked at some old pictures of the trees when we planted the trees and the difference is stark. Im glad I do have pictures and records, as watching the trees grow is slow and hardly noticeable. Some of the mushroom compost is rotting down famously into a type of ash.

In the hive at the orchard I have found some eggs not many but they are there. I can also see less chalk brood, perhaps the ventilation is improving things. Bernard still recommending replacing the frames with newer frames and foundation. I have already moved the oldest darkest foundation to the ends of the hive ready to be replaced.They seem to be making honey and its not as hard as I was expected,

My cousin Jayesh his Wife Sunita came and visited, with the kids. They just missed out on a picnic which we the family were having when we got the call to say they were coming. We have also been looking at various chickens, for the house.

I am a little worried about the plum trees the branches are getting heavier and I am going to have to provide additional support and the past two days have been very wet, I have not been able to check on the trees.

The plan is I will get some additional support and the work will be carried out over the weekend.

Lots of fruit and Chalk brood

I have checked on the all the trees, we have lots of apples, plums and cherries but not lots of pears, in fact I haven't seen any. Most of the fruit is still growing and lots of sun water and time will hopefully ripen it. I am worried about some of the branches as the fruit is weighing down the branches, I am tempted to thin out the fruit, then again I want to achieve the biggest harvest. I am going to have to work out a balance.The ground is now a blanket of green grass and yellow from the flowers. My son loves wondering around looking at the horses in the next field and picking the grass and flowers. The grass is up to his knees.
The whole place is growing and even though we cut the grass recently around the trees it's in desperate need to get another cut. Lots of ladybirds I haven't seen any caterpillars recently, or bumble bees on the last few visits.

The bees, both the hives have less bees that I would expect, at this time of year I think that the ones at the orchard have swarmed. In both hives I am not seeing eggs and lots of chalk brood. I have contacted the Apiary manager at Sutton park and am seeing him and other bee keepers this afternoon and will get a chance to show them some of the chalk brood that I have collected. I am relatively new to treating chalk brood, as I have never had to deal with it before, so I will be trying to discuss this in detail at the weekly apiary meetings.

This is worrying and without the eggs and lave my hives aren't going to survive very long. I want to put a second hive in the orchard as soon as possible, and will be looking out for either a swarm or a small nuc. I will also have to buy some new bits like rapid feeders. The hive etc is ready at home. I may have to build a couple of frames with foundation though.

I have and will be showing a couple more friends inside the hives, this week.

Ed Swinton emailed me and has informed me that some of the Beekeeper pictures are on the BBC website. http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/manchester/hi/people_and_places/arts_and_culture/newsid_8709000/8709635.stm

Artifical Swarm

I attended my regular Warwickshire bee keepers practical session on Tuesday, at Sutton Park and checked on a brood and half of bees. It was scary, I don't normally wear gloves when checking my own hive and haven't worn them when attending the regular Tuesday sessions. However when I entered this hive with roughly 60,000 bees I wasn't scared. Not when I initially went and opened the hive, or when I removed the almost full super, but when I started to check on the brood frames and saw the number of bees in the hive I was. I found a number of queen cells but no queen, she may have swarmed already.

I went through the entire hive and not one sting. What's more I had an audience of 30+ people. Even if I had been stung what could they have done, not much and they wouldn't have been happy with me swearing or jumping around in pain. It would have been my own fault for not wearing gloves. Anyway did the job, and came out feeling a hero, but boy was I relived, didn't show it though. I have learn t' a lesson, I will be taking gloves in my pocket next time.

After seeing the queen cell on my own hive on Sunday. I decided to perform an artificial swarm.

Then yesterday I did a artificial swarm, it was difficult, as I can never find the queen. So I forced all the bees into a new brood box and then added the older one on top. Left them for several hours then came back and split the two brood boxes.

Now I have two hives, one still at the orchard with 2 queen cells and no queen and the other hive is at my parents.

Getting the second hive was an adventure. I had to carry the Bee hive across the orchard and then put it into my car and drive the 15 miles to my parents house and deposit the hive.

I am hoping that both hives will be fine. I have learn t that at times I do need help and I should ask for it. When I told other beekeepers of the trouble I had with the artificial swarm I had lots of volunteers that are willing to help me, when required. The artificial swarm was difficult especially on my own and some help would have been brilliant. Then carrying the hive to the car was painfully, as its heavy, well over 20Kgs.

Lets see how things are in a couple of weeks.