Spring is in the air…

Posted by Jon on Mar 7, 2011 in Beekeeping, Wild bees | 0 comments

We’ve been enjoying some fantastic weather here – days full of sunshine and temperatures rising rapidly. The honey bees have been out in force, making the most of the flowering box (Buxus sempervirens) which we have in large quantities all around the garden. They’ve already been busy with the early flowering willow on warm days through January and February but the volume of pollen entering the hives now is much larger – the sunshine and the box must be to their liking!

A week in September….

Posted by Jon on Sep 21, 2010 in Asian Hornets, Beekeeping, Moths & Butterflies, Wild bees, Wildlife | 0 comments

Oops – a whole week has flown by and no update, so I thought I’d show you what’s going on in our garden as September marches to a close.
The bees are still out gathering pollen and the hives have been very busy with the current hot weather, although the days are noticeably short with all the bees tucked up by 7pm when the temperature starts to drop.

Late Summer Bees

Posted by Jon on Sep 12, 2010 in Wild bees, Wildlife | 4 comments

There’s a definite autumnal feeling to the days here as they start to draw in and there are fewer insects around.
At the end of August, we watched our red-tailed bumblebees (Bombus lapidarius) from the nest in the middle of the lawn grow up and leave home – the queens were huge, struggling to get their bulk off the ground for their maiden flight. The much smaller males sunbathed on the nearby stones living up to their French name Bourdon des pierres (stone bumblebee) before heading off into the distance.

Garden sightings

Posted by Jon on Aug 18, 2010 in Asian Hornets, Beekeeping, Wild bees | 1 comment

It feels as though autumn has arrived all of a sudden – wet grass and cool winds in the mornings with grey skies. This has definitely slowed down the beehive activity (although they are enjoying the huge plum crop this year) so my thoughts are turing to honey, but I’m hoping the sun may come back for a while and give them a final burst of activity first.

Whilst I ponder, here are a few of the sights in our garden over the past few days….

Drinking their fill on a Saturday night!

Posted by Jon on Aug 15, 2010 in Bee behaviour, Wild bees | 2 comments

Heads down at the Squash Bar – that’s where I found some of our bees when I checked out the squashes in the veg garden yesterday. They have a choice of several different types ranging from courgettes to butternut and pumpkins and last night they were at the pumpkin bar!