- 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
- Lockdown winter projects February 27, 2021
- Book review: Treatment Free Beekeeping, by David Heaf February 9, 2021
- Horizontal hive types January 17, 2021
- Bees Without Borders: conference report November 23, 2020
- Winter is coming November 7, 2020
- 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
Tag Archives: Warré
Lockdown winter projects
Have you ever wondered what beekeepers do in winter? My own strategy is to try and eat my own weight in honey. Others are more industrious. Here are a few examples our group has shared over lockdown.
ONBG meeting, July 2019 – what makes a good hive?
19 of us converged on the beautiful village of Long Crendon to discuss and admire a variety of hives built by Eric. This led to a wide ranging discussion of a plethora of hive types and their tradeoffs. Background – … Continue reading
Posted in Apiary visits, Hives, Meetings, ONBG, TBH, Warré
Tagged Chimney, copper, forage, Hemp, rewilding, TBH, Torben Schiffer, Warré
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Grow, shake or drum? Transferring bees between hive types
Recently a question was raised on the OxNatBees members’ mailing list on how to transfer bees from one hive type to another where the bars are incompatible, in this case from a National deep brood box to a Warré. The … Continue reading
Posted in Group Digest, Hives, ONBG, Warré
Tagged Drumming, Grow down, Queries, Shook swarm, Transferring colonies, Warré
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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
Infrared images of hives in winter
I mentioned borrowing an FLIR (heat vision) camera from Jack in an earlier post. He blogged some pictures of his own TBH’s taken with it. Now here is what I saw on a variety of hives belonging to myself and … Continue reading
‘Inspecting’ your bees – the low-intervention way
All beekeepers naturally want their bees to be healthy and thriving, and periodically ‘inspect’ them to determine how they are doing. Responsible apicentric low-intervention beekeepers want to do this with a minimum disturbance to the integrity of the bee colony. … Continue reading
ONBG meeting, 1st April 2017 – an emergency cut-out
Ten of us gathered at Rachel’s home to rescue an endangered feral nest from the wall of a building about to be demolished, relocating it to her Warré hive. The bees had been living in a cavity behind a bricked-up … Continue reading