Evacuation
The bees are evacuated to the country.
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Autumn Activities
My bees and I make plans.
Read MoreBack with a Vengeance
The Disc Hive returns.
Read MoreMeadow Mown
The August bank holiday weekend is a good time to do the annual cut of the wildflower meadow, as it has mostly by now gone to seed, with just the feverfew, marigolds and a few borage still flowering. Cutting it was complicated by it containing a forest of raspberry canes that weren't intended to be there but which I'd quite like to keep, as well as by it being in the flight path of a large number of honey bees. Nevertheless I have now cut it and it looks like this:
A French Approach to Beekeeping
The French famously have the month of August off as holiday - Les Grandes Vacances. As an English office worker I scowl enviously across the Channel.
Beekeeping tea towel
But in the apiary I am taking the French approach and leaving the colonies undisturbed for the month.
As much as I can, anyway. There are a few things I didn't get round to in July. But in general there is no need to open beehives in August. The bees can be let be. Now, where's my deckchair?
Refugees
Beekeeping - a source of so much GUILT. Today, shaking out laying workers.
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