Smallholder Editor's Blog - can I call myself a bee keeper? (From Smallholder)

Smallholder Editor's Blog - can I call myself a bee keeper?

5:10pm Saturday 4th December 2010 in Bees and Honey

As regular readers will know I have struggled to begin to call myself a bee keeper, finding the complexities of when and what to feed really quite puzzling. But this year I feel I have made real progress and to complete my satisfaction at feeling I am just beginning to understand how bees function, I won the Novice Honey Cup at our local bee keepers club.

I was really thrilled about this and it has encouraged me to keep trying to improve. Meanwhile I have fed the bees since early Autumn with sugar syrup and am now on fondant. Although pleased with this, I had read that there is a shortage of food in the form of flowers in August and now I am wondering if I should have started earlier. A recent academic report which studied the “waggle dance” – the movements bees make to show other bees where and how far the nectar is situated, conclusively proved that bees have to fly further in August than in September (where there is Ivy in flower).

So we as bee keepers need to consider feeding then (and I know several who do) and in the spring we need to look at planting bee-friendly flowers. The report also concluded there was more foraging in the city than in the countryside where mono-culture crops such as oil seed rape, will flower, be plentiful and then there will be nothing to replace them for months.

So for me, some of this winter (you know, the bit where you finally get to sit exhausted before the fire) will be spent researching the best plants and shrubs for bees and planning where to plant them in the spring.

This issue is full of useful tips and wrinkles for coping with the cold and looking after livestock in winter - we’d love to hear your experiences and see your photos. Please email them to us or visit our website www.smallholder.co.uk Make your winter a warm one!