- ONBG (OxNatBees) is an informal mutual support network for beginners and experienced beeks who aspire to practise bee-centric, low intervention, and chemical-free beekeeping in Oxfordshire. To join the group and share ideas, questions, information and experiences, please use this site's Contact Us form.
Next ONBG Meeting
Sunday 19th July 3-5PM, Oxford
Twitter: @OxNatBees
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Recent Blog Posts
- Winter survival surveys show ‘treatment-free’ works August 5, 2020
- ONBG meeting, July 2020: a Bee Tea at Dee Cottage July 20, 2020
- Book Review – Interviews with Beekeepers by Steve Donohoe July 1, 2020
- Look up during lockdown May 1, 2020
- Preparing for swarm season April 4, 2020
- Covid-19: evolution in action March 31, 2020
- A new hive design: the Drayton hive February 27, 2020
- Victorian Twitterstorms February 4, 2020
- Top Bar Hives, warts and all January 4, 2020
- ONBG meeting, October 2019: Hive envy! November 9, 2019
- Convergent theories September 17, 2019
- Learning from the Bees, Berlin – bees au naturel! September 11, 2019
- ONBG+ meeting, August 2019: insulation, cavity size, Golden Hives August 19, 2019
- ONBG meeting, July 2019 – what makes a good hive? July 25, 2019
- At the village fete June 30, 2019
- Learning from the Bees Conference, Berlin June 24, 2019
- ONBG meeting, 15th June 2019 – TBHs, Freedom hives and a surprise swarm June 16, 2019
- Swarm stories June 2, 2019
- Grow, shake or drum? Transferring bees between hive types April 26, 2019
- ONBG meeting, 6th April 2019 – TBHs April 12, 2019
Category Archives: Publications
Book Review – Interviews with Beekeepers by Steve Donohoe
I won the book Interviews with Beekeepers by Steve Donohoe in a draw and so, although it is most definitely NOT in tune with natural beekeeping, I decided to read it and thought I would share a review as it … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Publications
Tagged bee farmers, breeder, breeding, Ethics, Interviews with Beekeepers, Isle of Wight disease, Money, Packages, pollen, Races, Steve Donohoe
6 Comments
Victorian Twitterstorms
Wherein may be found some fine forgotten lore alongside various engagingly heated debates of the Victorian era Outrage and apoplexy predate the Internet. Beekeeping has always been a hive of differing opinions, and I’d like to share some examples from … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Newspaper articles
Tagged Bee Master, Times Bee Master, Tunbridge Wells, Twitter, Victorian
3 Comments
A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings
A Honeybee Heart has Five Openings is a book by Helen Jukes, a member of our group while she lived in Oxford. Autobiographical in nature, it describes a period when she was generally rootless and dissatisfied with how her life … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Members
5 Comments
Lore of the Honey Bee
I’ve been looking at an old bee book, The Lore of the Honey Bee by Tickner Edwardes. There’s almost nothing in it of relevance to us because he was what we’d call a conventional beekeeper, and the book was written … Continue reading
The ‘other’ bees: Steven Falk workshop
A few months ago, the news was filled with stories about intelligent bumblebees. New research showed that they could learn to pull strings and play football. As a ‘bee’ person I was interested, but I had a strange feeling that … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Ecology, Uncategorized
6 Comments
The Bee Meeting: North Tawton and South Leigh
In 1962 Sylvia Plath wrote The Bee Meeting, a poem in which she describes her experience of attending a meeting of beekeepers in North Tawton, a village in Devon. Last weekend, fifty-five years later, the Oxfordshire Natural Beekeeping Group gathered … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Event, Hives, Meetings, ONBG, Publications, Uncategorized
Tagged "Bee Meeting", Plath, poetry
1 Comment
Two swarms in the same hive: an update
Last summer, I wrote about the arrival of two swarms into the same hive. A wild swarm had settled in the empty top-bar-hive in my garden, and a week later a second swarm moved in. The arrival of this second swarm … Continue reading
