If we lost the bee's many of our dinners would look dramatically different 

Do you think you could go a week without eating any of the item's from the list below ? 

Never mind how much the bee is worth in monetary value to the food industry - the point I'm conveying is what would your dinner plate look like if we did not have the bee's working for us and pollinating so much of the food we eat 

#savethebees

Hopefully the weather will be favourable over the next few weeks and we will have some local  honey for sale 
Fingers crossed and It won't be long - another 5 or 6 weeks before Declan and myself begin to harvest our local honey . 
Seeing as I got the memory of a gnat - if you would like to reserve some of our local raw honey please fill out the form below - so we can keep track of who wants how many jars . 

Currently we can not deliver jars of honey via An Post or courier , one wont take glass , the other wont take food stuff's , 
Local arrangement to meet you half way can be made upon requesting large quantities 

If you would like to find out more about where our local honey comes from and our journey so far this year click here to follow our month by month updates 

Update to yesterdays apairy visit . 

We called into the apairy to see how the swarm trap we noticed yesterday was doing and if we could get the girls into a nuc . 

Lo and behold as we walked into the apairy Declan noticed a second swarm on the ground under one of the apple tree's . 

Another Prime swarm . 

We covered it with a improvised skep ( the basket in the photo ) to let the girls get some cover and to help capture them so we could transfer them into another nuc . 

Off we went and left them to their own devices and had a look around the rest of the apairy . 


We spotted a cast swarm ( much smaller ) and quickly found the Queen bee and caught her in a Queen cage - and inserted her into a apidea ( baby bee hive ) leaving the floor open so her few followers could attend her. 

Off we went to see the original swarm we had called to inspect - it was still in one of our swarm traps . Delighted !! So we set about to transfer that swarm to a polly nuc . 

We were amazed at how much comb the girls had drawn in the swarm trap . 

It was wonderful to see that the girls were happy - a lot of nectar had being foraged and they were also bringing in pollen ( the darker spots in the honeycomb in the photo above ) 

With the girls from the first prime swam transferred into a better home , we turned our attention to the cast swarm . 
This was much smaller , only about 200 bees and a Queen in a Queen cage . By this time most of the bee's of this cast had settled in and around the apidea. 
Taking the Queen cage out of the apidea we placed her on the top of a brood box that we knew had no queen in a beehive . Wondering would she be accepted or balled . 

If the bees in the colony that had no queen accepted this new queen she could turn it around to a sucessful colony quite quickly - we had quite a lot of bees in the colony we are adding her to - they just had to know she was coming and accept her. So we left her trapped in the Queen cage for about 10 minutes , waiting to confirm that the colony was queenless and her pheromones got through the hive.

The result was success -it looked like the colony accepted her when we released the Queen from the Queen cage - she was not "Balled" and after a minute and a puff of smoke from the smoker , she dispersed down the frame's and into the colony 

Now we turned our attention back to the second prime swarm , where we had prepared a nuc with 6 frames and brought it over to where the improvised skep was still covering the swarm . 
Lifting the skep with about 80% of the bees we shook them into the nuc - added the balance of the frames and put the lid on it . We placed the nuc on the ground where the skep had being and left the door open for the girls who had not taken refuge under the skep to walk in . By this stage it was getting late in the day and we decided to let nature take its course , hoping that the rest of bees outside of the nuc would be signaled by the swarm that a new home has being found and follow the main body of the swarm into the nuc . Time will tell as we plan to call back to the apairy later today and move both polly nucs to a second apairy location and let them get on with being bee's . 

Today's visit to the bee yard could be a case of 2 steps backwards , one step forward . 

With such bad weather for the last few days , we've not being able to get a inspection of the bee hives done and when we inspected today we think that we might of had 2 hives (at least ) swarm on us . 

Boo hoo , now its a waiting game for new queen's to hatch , mate and begin laying again . 

But on the plus side , one the the swarm traps we have dotted around our apairy had some great activity , so we reckon that one swarm made it only as far as a swarm trap / bait hive 

30 Japanese Hornets against 30,000 honey bees 

Credits The Oatmeal and Youtube

Beelighted with today's visit and inspection of the apairy . Happy to say all hives are doing well , the polly hives are really taking off , now with 3 super's on board a single brood box . A super is the part of the hive where the bee's would store honey , that later in the year we will extract from the beehives. Not that all three super's on each beehive are full , we are putting them on the bee hives so that the bees will have enough room to store honey as the clover continues to bloom and the bees forage. 

Earlier in the year I mentioned that we were preparing some apedia's for some queen rearing . 
An apedia is a very small hive to start off a new colony of bee's . Into which you would put about 300ml of bee's ( about a cup full ) and a queen cell. 
We'd inspect our hives every 5 to 7 days keeping an eye out for Queen cell's - and recently we took a few and put one into each apidea. 

Today we saw that one of those queen cell's had hatched a queen , who has gone off and being mated and is now laying eggs in the apidea. 

Clicking on the picture below will make a larger picture 

I'd guess the eggs laid in the comb above are 1 or 2 days old and should be "born" as bee's some time in 21 days , around the 7th of July - all things going well . 

So on Tuesday as I pulled into the men's shed , I hardly arrived and the lads were coming over to me before I had the car parked fully " Ger , Ger , there is a swarm of bees up the town " . 

Needless to say I got directions from the guys and drove off up to the centre of town . 

When I arrived at the town square , on top of Winkles I saw the swarm , a nice swarm and it would of being a lovely addition to my apairy . 

One problem !! 
They were on the chimney of the shop - actually it turned out they were on the chimney of Sherry Fitzgerald's next door to the newsagents and I had no ladder with me long enough to reach them . 

When bees swarm they are looking for a new home - its a bit ironic that they landed on Sherry Fitzgeralds - and were also looking for a new home  

So I packed up my stuff and had to settle for only being able to take a few photos of the swarm , not being able to reach it . 

Wednesday morning and my phone began to ring and get text messages at about 10am . The swarm (I'm guessing it was the same one ) had come down from the chimney and settled on the Vodafone shop . 

So it was back into the car and off up the town again ( I'm glad I always keep some basic beekeeping equipment in the car and in this case a nuc and a bee suit and a water sprayer are ample ) 

When I got there , the bees had decided to move and only a few were left behind. 

Video credit Cllr Thomas Redmond 

So where ever they have settled I hope they are happy . 

If by chance you notice a swarm of bees and your not happy with them - do contact me , and if I can I'll do my best to remove them . 
You should not be too worried about the swarm - leave it alone and it will leave you alone . 
When bees have swarmed they are looking for a new home. They have left the old home and brought some of their store's with them ( honey ) in their honey stomachs . Which is why ( in general ) they should not sting you. 
With a full tummy - its too hard to bend and jab you with their tail when they are full of honey . They also don't have a hive to defend - they are out looking for one . So leave them alone and they will leave you alone 

So your out and about in the garden , drive way or street and notice a bee in trouble , limp lifeless and not flying around . 
If your able to , make a small mixture of water and sugar , or get a small drop of honey into some water and diffuse it well. Bring a teaspoon of the mixture and place some of it in front of the bee in trouble . 

Nature will do the rest 

Video credit Philip H Clarkson