As the mornings are crisper and the chill of Autumn engulfs us, the bees are preparing for winter. In the height of Summer the colony is 50,000 strong but that number needs to be reduced to ensure a winter survival. It’s quite heart wrenching to observe two female worker bees dragging a large male drone […]
Eating at Babylonstoren
I have been truly blessed with having spent some precious time in July with my husband staying in the extraordinary Hotel & Gardens of Babylonstoren in the Western Cape of South Africa. I have so much to write about this incredibly inspiring place so I shall break it down into digestible chunks; food, spa, […]
Asian Hornets
Asian hornet on lavender This month’s Bee Craft magazine has a feature on this dreaded hornet that has popped up again, this time in Fowey, Cornwall. I’m reminded based of last year’s National Honey show where I’d gone to hear Tom Seeley speak and was lucky to also catch an excellent presentation by Heather Mattila […]
Global honey tasting
It’s almost a year since I attended the Honey Sensory analysis course in Bologna, Italy, with 14 other bee people from around the globe. I’d attended with no agenda as to how it may be of interest in my world, let alone how it would have influenced my career. The trip was my first abroad […]
Bees & Blackberries
Over the weekend I enjoyed a relaxing walk with Mr C in the fields behind our home. At this time of year I always love to harvest nature’s fruits, elderberries to make into cordial and tincture for the winter months, and blackberries, to either eat as I pick or back in crumbles, mixed with […]
‘Learning from the Bees’
I am still ‘buzzing’ from a fantastic weekend in The Netherlands with over 350 other enthusiastic and inspiring ‘bee people’ from all around the world. Over 50 nations were represented, sadly minus the 12 delegates from Palestine, involved with the ‘Bees for Peace ‘programme in Israel, who were refused visas by the Dutch authorities. I […]
Wasps and bees
August is the month of wasps. As a child, and even into adult hood, I was the first to be waving my arms about in panic and fear at the sight of any wasp, and sitting outside in pub beer garden’s was always met with trepidation. Since keeping bees, my fear turned to hatred, and […]
Honey share
I’m feeling very blessed today after completing an extraction of honey from two separate hives for a client. One colony, is in its third year since swarming into their Warre hive, and the other was a swarm caught last summer and placed into a WBC ( William Broughton Carr, traditional looking hive) . […]
Bees at Babylonstoren
My time with these beautiful insects was not long enough, and after five days with them I spent a quiet few moments alone saying farewell. As an integral part of both the gardens and restaurant at the Western Cape hotel, the bees are housed in a walled bee garden and also in an apiary tucked […]
Bee stings & Histamine
I had been extremely lucky having received only 6 beestings in my 8 years of beekeeping. That was until last Wednesday when I received a whopping FOURTEEN stings on both my legs and ankles whilst trying to replace a base to a bait hive that had come away whilst we were moving it. I was […]