The Buzzing Bee Honey Company

Today's bee inspection - in my new bee suit!

I spent an hour today setting up the woodpecker protection on the hive at the golf club. Woodpeckers peck holes in unprotected hives and eat the bees and brood - so some protection keeps the bees and hive safe.

All remaining stock of my Somerset Seaside Honey has been bought by Pullins Bakery, Clevedon! It's to be part of their 'Recommended Christmas Presents' range.

Great display of my Somerset Seaside Honey at Pullins Bakery in Clevedon!

The first steps to extract our 2015 honey crop have been taken - we added clearer boards to the hives this afternoon to keep the bees off the honey frames. Tomorrow evening we'll remove the supers with the frames and spin the honey out. We're hopeful for around 50 pounds this year.

Picture 1 - the perfect brood pattern. Picture 2 - the queen going about her business - she's the one with the blue marking.

This is the same frame as last week's photo - with the queen. As the brood grow they are capped with wax for 16 days. You can also see larvae and eggs surrounding the capped brood, with honey and pollen in an arc on the edge.

Here's a view of the 13th with my hives on the right-hand side - you can spot them just to the right of the trees.

This evening's golf club hive inspection went well - both queens laying and healthy. Here's a picture of one queen - she's got a blue marking on her thorax - note the longer abdomen than the worker bees who surround and feed her. If you look into the comb cells you'll also see eggs and larvae. At this time of year the queen lays between 2000 and 3000 eggs each day.

A busy day yesterday - I added two packages of bees to the hives at Bristol and Clifton Golf Club - and two packages at my home hives - 10,000 bees per package and I only got two stings. Nat got her first sting too - sorry Nat!

The hives are very busy now - here's a slow-motion film of the entrance to one of them.

This morning I've installed the hives at the golf club - they're to the right of the fir tree in the centre of the picture. The bees will be added at the end of the month.

I picked up two new hives this morning - in a few weeks we'll add the bees and install them at Bristol and Clifton Golf Club - our first out-apiary. We'll then be selling the honey to the members and to the restaurant.

The bees are bringing in the pollen for the new brood - you can see the pollen sacks are full on this lady

This year we've added two new hives to our collection. The bees will arrive in mid-April, boosting our planned yield to 200 pounds.

The bees are flying today like its mid-summer. If the good weather keeps up we'll be looking at an early harvest.

Today the bees have been given their next food stock - fondant - the same stuff bakers use on some of their cakes - each hive gets 2.5Kg's - which will see them through till spring. It's important to ensure they've got through the stores before the spring nectar flow otherwise unused food stocks can end up in the honey. A careful watch on the hives should prevent that happening.