Category Archives: Pests

Winter projects

This blogsite has been a little quiet recently because contributors have been beavering away on various projects bearing fruit elsewhere. Andrew has written a book! Beekeeping Simplified with the Drayton Hive is available from Northern Bee Books The Drayton Hive … Continue reading

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Bees Without Borders: conference report

What: 6 lectures, mainly on wild / unmanaged bees, by European researchers titled Bees Without Borders – I attended by Zoom and the recordings have been released here. Some of the lectures were very technical. When: 21st November 2020 Who: … Continue reading

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Winter survival surveys show ‘treatment-free’ works

Each May OxNatBees surveys our members for information on winter losses. This graph shows losses year by year, compared with other surveys. The stand-out point is that our losses for untreated hives populated by local bees (blue “ONBG” line) are … Continue reading

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Covid-19: evolution in action

I can’t help wondering if the lockdown will make people reassess high-intervention beekeeping. This lockdown is going to exert heavy selection pressure for colonies that can fend for themselves.

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Convergent theories

A potential problem with a natural beekeeping group is: members never talk to conventional beekeepers. So 14 of us visited a large (80 hive) commercial apiary… with a twist. It’s run by the Swindon Honeybee Conservation Group, headed by Ron … Continue reading

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Training new beeks

In early February, we held a couple of afternoon training sessions for new beekeepers, to give them an outline of what’s involved in keeping bees in the UK. We started with basic biology, and how this drives their very alien … Continue reading

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Learnings from the Learning from the Bees conference

In my earlier post on the Learning from the Bees conference, I discussed the “who was there and what it was about” aspects. This article covers what I actually learned about bees. I always particularly enjoy lectures and books covering … Continue reading

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