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Eleven years, 40 colonies in Mpumalanga, and October is our spring. Reading the autumn threads here is fascinating but I want to put down the other half of the year, beca…
Spring report from the other hemisphere. Six years, 30 hives across four sites around Wellington, and October is the month that decides my season. Everything is booming —…
Southern hemisphere check-in for the northern folks battening down. We're in full spring here in central Victoria — cold mornings still, but the colonies have exploded ov…
Spring in Mendoza has arrived hard — the almonds are done, the plums and peaches are out, the poplars are pushing pollen, and the phone started ringing this week: three s…
A neighbour rang yesterday about bees in her olive tree. I expected a wasp nest; it was a proper swarm, maybe two kilos of bees, calm and hanging in a tight cluster. Shoo…
Seven years, forty hives near Mendoza, Argentina, where mid-September is early spring. The poplars are giving pollen, the first Zonda came through last week — one afterno…
Spring check-in from the Lowveld. The aloes carried us through winter and now the litchi and macadamia orchards are flowering, with the first eucalyptus stands not far be…
Southern hemisphere check-in. Three weeks ago my colonies were tight clusters ignoring me; yesterday's inspection found the two strongest wall-to-wall with bees, drones o…
Southern hemisphere check-in. We finally got a calm 16°C afternoon in Wellington yesterday so I did my first proper frame-by-frame inspection since autumn, all six hives.…
Victoria, Australia — late winter turning, and the silver wattle is flowering with the willows about to break. My colonies have noticed: brood nests expanding fast on the…
First year, one hive, Yorkshire. For the past three weeks my colony has bearded every warm evening — big calm curtain of bees on the front, which I'd learned to accept as…
Second year, two hives near İzmir. Every evening around sunset both hives have a thick curtain of bees hanging off the landing board and up the front — last night it was …
Fourth year, Texas. A friend's shed had a colony in the wall cavity — maybe 8 months established, comb from top plate down about 3 feet. Took me 6 hours. Bees are in a de…
Caught a lovely prime swarm on June 6th here in Kent — big one, filled a skep. Hived it on a mix of drawn comb and foundation and it has gone like a rocket: two deep boxe…
Devon, fourth year, strongest colony I've ever run. Inspection today: little queen cups along the bottom bars and comb edges on practically every other frame — I counted …
My overwintered colony here in Vermont has become a monster: double deep, both packed, bees hanging off every frame, three mediums on and they're drawing and filling the …
Fourth season in Devon and my strongest colony has decided it's time: five capped swarm cells along the bottom bars plus two charged open ones. Queen still present (saw h…
You all know the rhyme: a swarm in May is worth a load of hay, a swarm in June is worth a silver spoon, a swarm in July isn't worth a fly. Well, it's the 29th of June so …
Perthshire, 7 years. One colony beat me to it this spring — prime swarm left around June 10 (caught it, it's fine), but the parent hive is now throwing cast after cast. T…
Devon, 4th year. We've got a tawny owl box about 3 m up an ash at the bottom of the garden, empty since the winter, and a swarm has moved in — I watched the tail end of t…
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