Beekeepers love swarms. Well, that’s to say, as long as they come from somewhere else. Waving goodbye to half of a strong colony of bees isn’t a good way to start the day. Mystery swarms though offer two ways to increase your hives, and for free. There’s the more energetic method, of course, where you […]

Last weekend we inspected our hives at beautiful Penlan Farm and found them bustling with activity. There appears to be a Spring nectar-flow on and honey being capped in many hives. It’s enough to warm any Beekeeper’s heart. ––––#localbusiness#welshbusiness#beefacts#bees#beeswax#beekeeping#beekeeper#localhoney#honeyfacts#rawhoney#rawhoneybenefits#honeybees#nature#farmlife#carmarthenshire#Wales#welshhoney#beehealth#climatecrisis#pollinator#savethebees#sustainable#natural

A lot of things about bees are ‘believed’ despite the evidence being weak. But, received wisdom can be a poor teacher. Does it matter that nobody in the know really thinks that bees “shouldn’t be able to fly” or that you really can not charm swarms to land by striking pots and pans or that

There’s a disturbance in the force! With thunderstorms on the Met Office’s predictions for Sunday, sensible Beekeepers leave their charges well alone. It’s not clear why exactly – and there a several credible theories – but there’s considerable anocdotal evidence to affirm that a honeybee’s mood can change, unfavourably, when the mercury falls. It’s something

You may have noticed the bluebells on our honey logo. Possibly, you’ve wondered why we like Bluebells? It’s not a flower with a strong bee association. Well, it goes back to the name we chose for our honey, Gwenyn Maes Chwarel, the Quarry Field Bees. The Quarry Field, Maes Chwarel, is a beautiful little apiary

Some like it hot? In our rapidly heating world, larger bees, like Bumbles or wax making cavity dwellers (like Honeybees) are suffering because they are more temperature intolerant. Scientists in the US trapped and studied more than 20,000 bees in the Rocky Mountains, over an eight years period, and found changes in species type over

Yes they do. Although, the honey you buy is made by honeybees, their Bumble cousins do make small caches of their own. In the 19th Century, children raiding bumblebee nests for a honey fix was a cultural norm in some places and frequently recorded, sometimes in poetic form: “Rig a jig, you bumble-bee,Make some honey

Found in Indonesia, Wallace’s Giant Bee, Megachile pluto, is by far the largest surviving member of the bee family. Megachile has a wingspan of around 63.5 mm (or 2.5″ in old money). Tangentally interesting though is the source of the name, “Wallace’s Giant Bee” which hints at a local connection, or at least to South

Robotics researcher Chris Roh of the California Institute of Technology has discovered a fascinating ability that bees have in water that is informing his engineering. Bees can not swim, but they can, according to Roh, “surf”. Since bees have a need to collect and transport water for hive cooling, some occasionally fall in. Their strategy

Some people erroneously believe that bees do not sleep. The truth is that they nap several times during the 24hr cycle. Like teenage humans, young bees actually sleep more than older ones. This extra snoozing could be needed to accommodate the changes going on within their bodies as they take on new roles? * Napping

Banana may be full of potassium and good for your health but there’s a problem if you’re a banana loving Beekeeper. As bananas ripen, their skins give off a chemical called Isopentyl Acetate (C7H14O2), a chemical also produced in the sting glands of the honeybee. It’s their ‘Alarm Pheromone’! In the event that a guard

An interesting snippet as this week’s Have I got news for you reported on research by the University of Guelph, (in Ontario, Canada,) who accidentally submerged a bumblebee for a week, and surprised to find it still alive, dunked a few dozen more for good measure! Many also survived. Of course, members of the bee family don’t