I'm taking up organic beekeeping
Posted: Friday, 01 June 2007 |
Comments
You certainly aren't one to duck a challenge, Moo! Good luck with the bees, and don't forget to keep us posted on developments.
Jill from EK
All the best with the beekeeping. There is a big problem in the States at the moment with regards to an unexplained widespread colony collapse disorder. Hopefully this is confined to the States. Good luck.
mjc from NM,USA
I found the perfect book hahaha: "Beekeeping for Dummies"
Michelle Therese from Mainland Orkney
Mmmmm .... fresh comb honey on toast at breakfast ... I can taste it already. Good luck with your venture.
Plaid from Outback
Most important before you invest in any equipment GET STUNG by a HONEY BEEto make sure you are not allergic or react very badly!! I have visited Orkney several times and did not see any bee hives. Check out if there are any bee keepers on the islands and get their advice. If there are local bee keepers try to buy a nucleus from one of them as local bees will do much better up there than imported bees. Ask a local beeekeeper to teach you as opening a hive and doing manipulations to prevent swarming and removing honey can be quite frightening for the inexperienced Personally I don't think you will have much success as honey bees hate wind and don't fly in rain (they actally get very bad tempered in this sort of weather because the can't get out for a crap, true don't laugh, so can become agressive). Also there is little to supply an early nectar flow in the spring and early summer. Although if you can move your hives onto the heather moors later in summer you should get something if the weather is dry and not too windy, but please learn the three mile rule or you will loose you bees. You may end up having to feed your bees with sugar syrup for a good part of the year to ensure they have enough supplies stored and sealed in their hive at the end of the autumn to see them through the winter Please get local advice and read as much as you can for the bees sakes, I hate to think of bee colonies dying through ignorance and bad management. Good luck.
a beekeeper from kent
There are beekeepers here!
Michelle Therese from Mainland Orkney
Beekeeper: what's the three mile rule? Thanks.
mjc from NM,USA
Pleased to hear there are beekeepers on Orkney. Do you have an association this new beekeeper can join? Do you have meetings, can you give her some practical experience before she invests in equipment and bees, can you make sure she gets stung to find out if she is going to have any bad reactions? I am sure she would be grateful for any help. The three mile rule. Bees will fly up to three miles foraging for nectar and pollen, obviously the closer they are to this the better as they do not have to waste time and energy flying long distances. So they orientate themselves to their hive position. If you want to move the hive you can move it up to three feet and they can find it, but if you need to move it further it must be over three miles or they will just return to their original site. Moving them over three miles makes them re-orietate thmselves to their new position and you should not loose any bees. Thinking about the light summer nights on Orkney does it get sufficiently dark to enable you to shut your bees in prior to moving the hive without loosing bees or do you get the odd few flying all night? However I would expect your night temperatures are probably cool enough to stop them flying. Also a comment about organic honey, as bees forage over a three mile radius all the land within this radius must be organic as you have no control over which plants your bees visit. For this reason even with the best intention it is almost immpossible to produce truely organic honey.Who knows what Joe Bloggs down the road has just sprayed on some flowers in his garden!! I would be interested to hear you comments
A Beekeeper from Kent
I can't control what Joe Bloggs is spraying on their farm but I can control what chemicals I put in the hives. I won't have 100% organic honey but it will be much more organic then the stuff I buy in the store. I'd say for about umpteen miles in every direction we have fields upon fields upon fields of flowers as well as hedges and trees and just oodles of flowering things. Add to that all of the endless miles of heather!!! I just drool to think of it.
Michelle Therese from in the farmhoose
A spoonful of non organic honey in a cup of hot milk never killed anybody. Perhaps what we should be more concerned about is whether we are overdoing the total caloric intake than whether a spoonful of honey is "all natural" (whatever that may mean). Who out there can taste the difference between so-called organic and non organic heather honey?
mjc from NM,USA
A product is either organic or not organic like something is either sterile or not sterile. Having something a percentage organic defeats the object, what on earth is in the percentage that is not organic. Try talking to the Soil Association. By the way are you going to offer any practical instruction and help to the person who is interested in starting beekeeping. It is much more important that she gets some advice from a local experienced beekeeper to help her get started than it is to start worrying about the politics of producing organic products. All the beekeepers I have known have always been very generous with their time and knowledge and taught me alot. Also many years ago I had the privilege to know a highly respected master beekeeper, he too was generous with his knowledge. Beekeeping is one of those subjects where you never stop learning and any one who says they are an expert should be believed with some caution! I firmly believe that there is no half way when keeping any livestock ( and yes bees come into that catagory) and cannot condemn enough any suffering caused by ignorance and mis-management! So please if you have any knowledge to share then share it or at least point this new bee keeper in the right dirrection to be able obtain some help, advice and practical experiece.
A Beekeeper from Kent
Oh, beekeeper from Kent, for your information, Michelle Therese from Mainland Orkney is the same as Moo (Things etc.): she is the blog owner, and would be bee keeper. Good luck, Moo, and have lots of honey.
mjc from NM,USA
I'm beginning to regret I ever mentioned anything about beekeeping.
Michelle Therese from Things Go Moo in the Night...
Just to set anyone at ease who is not at ease, I don't plan on purchasing a swarm of bees and then carelessly chucking them into a haphazardly built beehive and then leaving them to a slow and agonizing death due to ignorance and neglect. I don't even have bees yet as I'm busy reading and researching and asking questions. I've joined the British Beekeeper's Association but was informed that I won't be joined to the organization until July. Orkney is not some weird waste land where bees suffer needlesly and die horrid deaths - I see the little buggers buzzing happily all over the place, flitting from flower to endless flower. I have no intention of going about this, or anything else for that matter, in careless half measures. Hopefully this will put folks at ease!
Michelle Therese from Things Go Moo in the Night...
P.S. And as for organic beekeeping I'm going to do my very best to keep chemicals out of the hives. I know I can't guarantee 100% that my honey will be organic and if the Soil Assocition doesn't deem me worthy of their esteem that's fine by me. I'm going to do my best with what resources I have at hand and that is that. Sorry if I can't be perfectly organic - that's just life. I'm surrounded by non-organic farm land. MY goal is to be organic in the hives for health, not taste, reasons. The rest is up to God.
Michelle Therese from Things Go Moo in the Night...
No regrets should be the ib blogging mantra! Do you know the caretaker of the Stromness Kirk, MT? I think he's a beekeeper. Better not mention names. But he shares one with your HOF (Hunky etc...)
Flying Cat from knockknockknocking
Been detecting again, now, have you FC?!! # What is the name of that song which goes "Honey in the morning,honey in the evening, honey at supper time. So be my little honey and love me all the time. etc. etc" and who sang it? # All the best and may you have plenty of honey next year to sweeten the visiting farmers with.
mjc from NM,USA
... and make sure you get the bees blessed, Moo, whenever it is animals get blessed by the Padre (is it on St. Anthony's day?). I keep telling myself to bring Gus, our wild goat-footed Brittany, for blessing, but my wife (she of upright Methodist upbringing) insists that nothing else but exorcism will do with that dog. She may be right...
mjc from NM,USA
Oh dear I seem to have stirred up a hornets nest or should I say a bees nest! At least I seem to be bringing the beekeepers out of the woodwork which might gain you valuable practical experience before any costly investment in equipment and a nucleus. One book long considered very useful to the complete beginner and the more seasoned beekeeper alike is 'A Guide To Bees And Honey' by Ted Hooper, published by Blandford Press, ISBN 0 7137 1382 8. Although my copy is quite old so some of these details may have changed if the book has been republished. Another book very useful to the beekeeper who is actively interested in gardening is 'The Beekeeper's Garden' by Ted Hooper and also Mike Taylor published by Alphabooks Ltd., ISBN 0-7136-3023-X. These books may be available through your library and I can strongly recomend that you at least have a look at them. Do you have a beekeepers association on Orkney? Associations welcome new beekeepers as you are such a dying breed, also your membership fee should give you a very valauble third party insurance which unfortunately in this day and age we all need. If you are unfortunate enough to loose a swarm the places some can get to can be a nightmare! Also when someone who is anti-bee or just plain doesn't like insects gets stung and they know you have bees, then it is always your bee that has stung them, they probably don't even know the difference between a honey bee and a bumble bee. It is surprising the number of people who think honey bees are wasps! Hope this helps you and I cannot recommend the books enough they make very interesting reading. I warn you though if you get seriously interested beekeeping can almost become a way of life with your summers mapped out with swarm control, hive movement to plants in flower with good nectar flows, queen rearing and re-queening, hopefully honey removal and extraction then feeding up for winter and many other jobs. You soon become obsessed with it all and have no other topic of conversation! You rapidly find out that the more you learn the more there is to learn and that the bees themselves have not read the book and can teach you alot! Most of all enjoy what you are learning and doing, then with a good summer next year hopefully you will be rewarded. Do try to get your hands on some second hand hives as bees don't like new, they don't smell right and sometimes won't stay in them. Although I think you can rub new hives out with a handful of lemon balm to make them more acceptable but do check up on this, it is so long since I have had any new equipment that I can't remember. BUT very important all second hand equipment must be gone over with a blow lamp actually very slightly charring the wood in order to kill disease and parasites, bees don't seem to mind charred wood smell. You have a good part of a year to get set up and some long winter night to do some swotting ready for next year so good luck. While we have the summer with us before it is over I cannot recomend enough that you find a bee keeper who to give you some practical experience or at least lend you a veil and some overalls and let you observe. Hope this is of some help and good luck.
A beekeeper from Kent
Beekeeper from Kent: now I remember why I get my local/regional honey in a nice glass jar at the food store. Thank you for jogging my memory.
mjc from NM,USA
Outside the Balfour fpu saw a nurse trying to squash a honey bee with the ferrule of an old lady's walking stick, whilst helping said person into the transport. The conversation went thus - nurse "I hate wasps" Fpu "That wasp's a honey bee" nurse "I kill them whenever I see them" fpu "That wasp's a honey bee" Result? One very dead bee. I hate people who wilfully murrdur bees......ignorance is no defence in law. Good luck TGMITN, I'm with you on the doing your best bit...the only alternative would bee to keep your bees in a perfectly organic bubble and that is not possible. I don't see how the Soil Assoc can guarantee ANY honey to bee 100% organic. It's just plain nonsensical! Illogical! Fiddlesticks!
Flying Cat from remembering Erik
Blessed bees. Now there's a thought! I just found out that Orkney has 7 different kinds of bumblebees. I wish I could have a hive of native Orcadian bumblebees!
Michelle Spence from Things Go Moo in the Night...
Seven hives, Moo in the Night. We don't want any warfare in the bumblebee hive, now - or do we?! As to the honey bees: you'll have to choose between Cacausian, Italian and African (if you think I am kidding, think again). No Asian bees yet, and I am afraid the world is (theoretically at least ) the poorer for it.
mjc from NM,USA
It's a shame bumblebees don't swarm or live in hives....or make hunny....
Flying Cat from a bee-loud glade
Bumblebees: they live in holes in the ground, not in hives, do they now FC? You learn more on ib than was ever dreamt of by Iago. Any use for bumblebees apart from incidental pollination, FC? Eager to learn ...
mjc from NM,USA
They live in nests, annually not perennially, and the queens make little solitary burrows in earth banks to hibernate in. They emerge early in spring which is why you see very large bumbleeries buzzing around before any others. Incidental pollination is it and they, honey bees and hover flies are undowithoutable. Which is why their dwindling numbers are a worry to horticulturalists. Would people please stop spraying insecticides around willy-nilly! Thank you...
Flying Cat from dusting down the soapbox
If bees forage over 3 miles, the area within a circle of that radius would need to be organic. A bit of quick maths shows that that is 28.27 square miles ( I know - seems a lot doesn't it). If my calculations are correct, that is equivalent to 18,096 acres. I find that a little disappointing since I have been looking at an 85 acre smallholding with a view to making organic honey! Interestingly, if the bees normal area of operation is only 1 mile of the hive in every direction, you only need 2,011 acres. If you planted an abundant crop which kept the little treasures fat and contented over a mere quarter mile of ranging (in any direction), you could site your handful of hives in a mere 126 acres and dine on organic nectar to your hearts content. Hope this is helpful.
Wicked Wise Witch from Welford
so I could keep bees up there if I get the job I've applied for. What are the regs. on moving bees to the island? chrissie
chanson@nhs.net from dundee
well you have had your blog cross to bare, I too have been looking into working a couple of hives, but it seems that 50% of the advice your getting has been written after sundown!!! I have the space, the willingness and the taste for honey and the bees but if asking for advice gets all this bumf I might reconsider. Hope you were able to sort out what you want to do and got some practical support and are ready to gather in 2009. I think Orkney has its own rules for everything, take advise from the local bee keepers.
Missy from Stromness ORKNEY
just come across this blog . did you get any bees would love to know how your getting on thinking about it myself but will my homework first
fraggle from flotta orkney
To be organic might be made difficult because of varroa mites The two methods are frame trapping the queen and using heat. Both risk the colony by killing some brood as do methods like drone sacrifice. Possibly the mite wont have reached the island yet though The book I recommend you have is L E Snelgrove "Swarming its control and prevention" try www.abebooks.com for a hardback copy second hand
john from angus
So...I traded my quiet cabin in the Alaskan woods for the howling winds of Orkney and life on a farm. 
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