The birds and the bees

[Ascender]

Fantastic stuff

I was wondering about getting a beehive here when we're done with the building work as we're planning a load of wildflowers for the boundaries and we already seem to have a decent mix of stuff growing wild which the bees like.

[Alex88]

Absolutely fantastic stuff. Would love to do similar if space allowed!

[Mito Man]

Think it’s time for an update.
I finished the chicken coop.

For the nest boxes I ended up doing an external unit. It has sloped floors and baffles so the idea is the chickens will lay their eggs which will roll down the slope to an out of reach area so they don’t damage them. Then you just collect them from outside.

My hours of careful planning, designing and building have been rendered useless thus far as the hens refuse to use them.

On to the much better behaved bees.
So I had one harvest and thought that would be it, what with the drought, the landscape looking very barren etc.
But I was wrong.

And there was another 8kg which I have stored to give back to them over winter.
At this point my other beehive remembered that they are honeybees and should perhaps make some honey too.

Sweet diabetes this is already getting out of hand and it’s only the first year.

The third beehive I left for honeycomb but it didn’t really work out. I may still get something usable in a few weeks but I will try something else next year.

The fourth beehive which is for insurance has doubled in size so it is in effect 2 beehives stacked on each other. It is difficult to plan ahead. You don’t know what winter losses will be like up to early spring and beehives go on sale during the winter. I may buy 2 more and cross my fingers.

[mik]

Very

[KiwiDave]

Living the fucking dream.

[Gavster]

Very cool! Great honey harvest too. Are you going to sell it or keep it for personal use? Are the hives all in the same location or different places and was there any difference in the honey between them?

I did a honey tasting of about 15 different honeys earlier in the year and the breadth of flavours depending on what plants the bees had been feasting on was crazy.

Very impressive chicken coop too! How big is it and how many birds are you keeping in there?

[Mito Man]

They’re all in the same location, next year I will move one to the woods. The honey from the 2 hives is very different. The most surprising thing was that one batch was far sweeter. I checked the moisture content and both were at 18% but apparently it’s down to more fructose rather than glucose.
They’re both extremely floral, something I haven’t experienced with store bought honey. It’s like regular honey with added rose water, and whatever other flower extracts you can think of. My honey is raw, unfiltered, unheated, straight from the hive so it should keep hold of more aromatic compounds.

I’ve given almost half away, and will give the rest away for Christmas. To sell it I would need custom labels with specific information. I didn’t really plan for any harvest this year as everyone says not to expect anything for your first year.

The chicken coop + run was about 6 x 4 metres. Houses 13 chickens of which 4 are roosters but so far they’re getting on well. I think I’ll leave it as is and maybe in a few years add in some more as the current lot get older.
My chickens are heritage breeds, so unlike modern hybrid ones they take 6-18 months to fully grow, irregularly lay small eggs despite their big size and live a lot longer because of it.

[John]

Perhaps you're too young...

Great effort

[dinny_g]

Prime Felicity Kendal - yes please...

[16vCento]

Honey is amazing stuff, id love to have a beehive, might look into it next year as I'm guessing it's a bit late now to start?

[Mito Man]

It's too late to keep bees now but if you're interested you should sign up with your local beekeepers association and then enrol for a course next year or find a mentor to teach you. It's quite complicated at first.

[dinny_g]

A guy at work bought a Flowhive when he got into Bee Keeping - are they any good vs a traditional set-up ?

[Mito Man]

I have 2 flowhives. The convenience of turning a tap and getting the finished product is great but that's about it. Cons are the all wooden construction. Like any wood structure it's fine when dry but after it rains everything is a pain to fit as it swells up. The pitched roof design looks nice but it's annoying as a regular flat roof gives you a work surface. It also doesn't have sufficient space to fit a winter feeder inside the roof so you have to build an extension. And it doesn't lock together so whenever there is windy weather you need to strap it down. I also don't like how the entrance for the bees isn't adjustable. |Because it's not insulated the bees had a hard job of regulating the temperature during the heatwave and just slept outside the hive too. I imagine they will have a tougher time keeping warm in winter too.

So for my next beehive I found this which solved all the problems
https://www.beekeepingsuppliesuk.com/be ... ers-yellow
It's the bollocks and only 1/4 of the price. But no easy honey harvest system, however I think it's ok and left this for purely comb honey.

[16vCento]

It's too late to keep bees now but if you're interested you should sign up with your local beekeepers association and then enrol for a course next year or find a mentor to teach you. It's quite complicated at first.

I'll have a look, there's a few local places I'm aware of, sounds like a fun summer thing for next year.

[dinny_g]

https://www.beekeepingsuppliesuk.com/be ... ers-yellow

I stumbled across those while googling for the product name for my post.

Seems like a good choice…

[Gavster]

They’re all in the same location, next year I will move one to the woods. The honey from the 2 hives is very different. The most surprising thing was that one batch was far sweeter. I checked the moisture content and both were at 18% but apparently it’s down to more fructose rather than glucose.
They’re both extremely floral, something I haven’t experienced with store bought honey. It’s like regular honey with added rose water, and whatever other flower extracts you can think of. My honey is raw, unfiltered, unheated, straight from the hive so it should keep hold of more aromatic compounds.

I’ve given almost half away, and will give the rest away for Christmas. To sell it I would need custom labels with specific information. I didn’t really plan for any harvest this year as everyone says not to expect anything for your first year.

The chicken coop + run was about 6 x 4 metres. Houses 13 chickens of which 4 are roosters but so far they’re getting on well. I think I’ll leave it as is and maybe in a few years add in some more as the current lot get older.
My chickens are heritage breeds, so unlike modern hybrid ones they take 6-18 months to fully grow, irregularly lay small eggs despite their big size and live a lot longer because of it.

It's all really cool to see, you're living the dream as far as I'm concerned

I tried some honey which came from bees that had been feeding on buckwheat, it was dark brown like treacle and tasted like sweet manure, it was almost surreal to acknowledge it was just 'honey', it was something else completely.

[Mito Man]

Sweet manure is an interesting taste profile
Occasionally the bees will add a bit of comb in places they’re not meant to. If there’s honey in it I’ll save it to have a taste but you do get some weird flavours. Most recent one was sweet and sour and that got returned back to them

[Swervin_Mervin]

They’re all in the same location, next year I will move one to the woods. The honey from the 2 hives is very different. The most surprising thing was that one batch was far sweeter. I checked the moisture content and both were at 18% but apparently it’s down to more fructose rather than glucose.
They’re both extremely floral, something I haven’t experienced with store bought honey. It’s like regular honey with added rose water, and whatever other flower extracts you can think of. My honey is raw, unfiltered, unheated, straight from the hive so it should keep hold of more aromatic compounds.

I’ve given almost half away, and will give the rest away for Christmas. To sell it I would need custom labels with specific information. I didn’t really plan for any harvest this year as everyone says not to expect anything for your first year.

The chicken coop + run was about 6 x 4 metres. Houses 13 chickens of which 4 are roosters but so far they’re getting on well. I think I’ll leave it as is and maybe in a few years add in some more as the current lot get older.
My chickens are heritage breeds, so unlike modern hybrid ones they take 6-18 months to fully grow, irregularly lay small eggs despite their big size and live a lot longer because of it.

It's all really cool to see, you're living the dream as far as I'm concerned

I tried some honey which came from bees that had been feeding on buckwheat, it was dark brown like treacle and tasted like sweet manure, it was almost surreal to acknowledge it was just 'honey', it was something else completely.

I've got hugely into honey in the last few years, and the difference between small producer stuff and the shop bought is night and day - they're 2 completely different things really. Not being pasteurised makes the biggest difference ime.

Most recently the wife saw someone advertising some for sale from a house about 2mi away. £5 a jar which works out quite cheap as similar sized small producer honey from the local delis etc is £8+ a jar. This is from 2 hives in a back garden in Sale, S. Manchester. And the flavour is incredible - I could only really liken it to like how I imagine eating wildflowers would taste.

I'd love a hive myself truth be told, especially as we have a "wildflower" patch at the bottom of the garden. Maybe a future project though.