Category Archives: Swarms

ONBG meeting, 13th May 2017 – swarms and exotic hives

Posted on June 7, 2017 by

Eighteen folk met at Gareth’s apiary in West Oxfordshire, where he experiments with hive variations and populates them with free mated bees descended from the extensive population of local ferals. Gareth is a trustee of the Natural Beekeeping Trust, has … Continue reading →

Posted in Apiary visits, Experimentation, Hives, Meetings, ONBG, Swarms, Warré | Leave a comment

Two swarms in the same hive: an update

Posted on March 22, 2017 by

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 →

Posted in Books, Hives, Swarms, TBH | Leave a comment

Open mating and genetics – Drones

Posted on January 14, 2017 by

Conventional beekeepers aiming to maximise honey production suppress swarms, replace queens with ones from breeders, and cull drones as a “waste of resources”. This post covers some of the less discussed, subtle implications of drone genetics; and advantages of queens … Continue reading →

Posted in Honey bee research, Research, Swarms | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Bees nest in a tree (not quite)

Posted on January 12, 2017 by

The picture shows an apple tree in the garden next door. Faith spotted the comb after the leaves came down in Autumn 2016. In between seeing it and taking this photo something has been munching the edges somewhat; it was … Continue reading →

Posted in Ecology, Garden plants, Honey bee research, Local lore, Swarms | Leave a comment

“Imkers and Angels” – musings on a 1917 beekeeping documentary

Posted on December 8, 2016 by

It is winter. I have recently found a silent-film about beekeeping, a documentary entitled Het Leven der Bijen or The Life of Bees. You can watch it here. The film follows a simple and repetitive structure. First a juddering title-card describes … Continue reading →

Posted in Stings, Swarms | Tagged , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Racial profiling of North Oxfordshire mongrels

Posted on November 4, 2016 by

Like many natural beekeepers, I am interested in having locally adapted bees, especially tough “survivor stock” from unmanaged feral colonies which thrive without treatments for varroa mites. In observing my several swarm-caught colonies, all gathered ‘locally’, I have always wondered … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimentation, Honey bee research, Local lore, Research, Swarms | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Spreading the Bee Buzz #9 – Local Bees

Posted on August 28, 2016 by

The latest in our series on beekeeping for a village magazine – written for non-beekeepers, and to suit the broad range of ages and knowledge among the readers. Beekeepers have sometimes imported foreign breeds. Some large-scale bee farmers still do … Continue reading →

Posted in Multi-part series, Spreading the Bee Buzz, Swarms | Tagged | 2 Comments