You know how we all go on about how there’s a law out there that says farmers should remove ragwort from their land or face the consequences?
Well beekeepers, read this and weep – the full list of ‘Noxious Weeds’ as specified by the Department of Agriculture is as follows: Continue reading Noxious Weeds!
February 1st is the Feast Day of St Brigid (AD450-525) female patron saint of Ireland.
For us Celts it is also the first day of Spring but you Saxon Dogs will have to wait till March 20th!
For the bees though – read on: Continue reading Bee Flowers – February
Sorry – sold out for 2017
Selected for sweet nature, low-swarming, productivity and Varroa resistance.
Contact info@beespoke.info Continue reading Native Irish Queen Bees
The picture above is by Vincent Van Gogh (obviously says you), it lives in the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam and is called ‘Wheatfield with Crows’. It was painted in 1890 – possibly his last picture. Vincent didn’t know about climate change or intensive agriculture; if he had, he would probably have cut the other ear off and left the crows out. Continue reading Ireland Pollinator Plan 2015-2020
So, why are honey bees such important pollinators?
From an ecological point of view there are at least 3 reasons:
These features obviously make the honey bee important from an agricultural/commercial point of view. In addition, hives of bees are mobile and can be moved from crop to crop – an arrangement which can suit bees, farmers and beekeepers so long as everyone has a bit of respect. Wouldn’t that be great?
But some detail: Continue reading Pollination and Honey Bees
White eyed drones are victims of a their genes. As we know, drones come from unfertilised eggs and as such they have only one set of chromosomes so all their genetic defects or mutations are expressed and some of them are out there for all to see – like white eyes. Continue reading White Eyed Worker Bee
Installing a remote hive monitoring system should give the armchair beekeeper some measure of comfort – especially in a cold spring when opening hives is out of the question. However, it ain’t necessarily so! Continue reading Remote hive monitoring in action
Are you the sort of person that stares out at the sheeting rain and thinks ‘Global warming – ha!’
Well the globe is certainly heating up, but not here at the wet end of Europe so forget long sunny days and a grape vine in the garden; for us, climate change means the same old stuff – wind and rain – but more of it.
But how will climate change affect our bees? Continue reading Honey Bees and Climate Change
Skep beehives of increasing complexity were in common use all the way up until the beginning of the 20th century when wooden hives, designed around the bee-space discoveries of Rev. Langstroth in 1851 and with all the advantages of removable frames finally tipped the balance in favour of new technology.
Click here for more on Rev. Langstroth and the discovery of the beespace
However, the skep was reluctant to go and the records of the Cumberland and Westmorland Beekeepers’ Association for 1906 show that 25% of colonies were still housed in skep hives.
