BBKA Forum

Must be nice to be able to transport your bees to increase resources and honey. I wish I had a car. lol
I was considering asking the Percy estate manager if I could use the old barn up at the Penny Wells as an apiary site.
As its only an hour on the bus down from mine and is very sheltered.
I know its an odd question Steve 1972 but do you find your Hartlepool location or your Alnwick apiary better.
Im Pretty near the coast a little north of Berwick so i imagine being inland and a bit further south would suit my girls just fine.
I have actually transported bees on public transport a few times its very strange that everyone seamed happy to maintain social distancing and had the whole top deck to my self...no idea why.

It is odd how people are so interested in bees until things 'get real'.

Pollen loads
It seemed every other bee was fully laden



All the hives were like this yesterday for around an hour then it stopped.
Some of the voices in my head were telling me to ditch the mouse guards,while the others were reminding me that lady luck and I fell out more than half a century ago and that if I did she'd send the rodents straight over.
Another frost last night so I'm sort of glad I didnt

I spent the day putting up an 8 ft high fence round my apiary and trying to finish the block paving off.
I have nearly finished the observation hive I'm building and will be populated with the one and only nuc I intend to pay for this year. God willing it doesn't arrive before I get round to finishing it. lol

Bobbysbees wrote: ↑

18 Mar 2021, 17:18

I spent the day putting up an 8 ft high fence round my apiary

Planning regs must be a cinch in your locale!!!!!

I live in town and its "wind screening" 1 side of the garden has 25ft leylandiis along it the other side has a 20 ft laurel hedge and my mini Dutch barn is 8ft high so if the neighbors don't like it they can moan all they like. Most of the back gardens have at least 6ft fences. So I figure if the neighbors don't mind bees they aren't going to whine about the height of a fence that is there for their benefit not mine.

Carried on cleaning up kit. Finished off making some floors, had a few more frames to make up. All in all, everything is looking good.

Sorting out old papers from parents house. Just come across a receipt from A.W. Gale paying my grandfather £46 and 10 bob for 3 hundred weight of honey on 30 July 1962. About 13p / lb? Rather amusingly, the receipt is for 3cwt of English honey, which shows grandads bees must have foraged a bit further than 3 miles ‘cos he lived in North Wales..

A W Gale was an independent beekeeper of about 2000 hives and not Gales Honey, which were principally importers.

I want to turn the entrance so the bees are aimed to the back fence but like the look of the national box faces, can the frames run left to right or must they be front to back ??

M1chael the frames can run either way but you would need to turn the boxes side on (known as the Warm way so that the frames run at 90' to the entrance. The Cold way is when the frames run front to back inline to the entrance.)
hope thats of help