Beekeeping Course

Just a quick update to say that Gary actully starts his course on 31st, he is now the proud owner of a beesuit which he got for Christmas and we have been collecting cedar wood in preperation of making our first hive. Hopefully there will be more updates soon!

Hx

Lack of Progress!

We haven't seemed to get any closer to getting our bee's since my last post, in fact we may be further away, we had in our heads that we would get a swamp between Spring and Summer next year, but have since found out that this maybe a little presumptuous as there will be 15 newbees' (sorry) on the list next year and this year the IWBKA only produced 12 swarms. I am trying to be positive about this, by thinking we will be more prepared and have longer to save for the equipment, but I am not a very patient kinda girl!

I am still reading and the debate Rose v Nationals continues. Father Christmas may be bringing the children bee suits (at their request believe it or not), so we are investigating were to get them from as well.

For anyone who is on or is visiting the island there is going to be a honey show at Arreton Community Centre on Friday 26th and Saturday 27th October hosted by the IWBKA, we are hoping to go along and have a taste and maybe meet some experts, but until then thanks for stopping by.

The Hobbs'

Book Review - The Rose Hive Method by Tim Rowe

Ok you need to remember I am reviewing this book as someone with no practical bee keeping experience at all, everything I have learnt so far has been through books and you tube! This book makes so much sense to me (the novice). I am not sure if a more experienced bee keeper (as in someone who actually has bees!) would disagree, but one of the first confusing things you have to learn about is the different hive set up's, there are so many different ones and I am not going to pretend I know the difference between them all, but before I read this book we thought we had made the decision to go with nationals. Most people seem to use them and they seem to be the most universal, but I was struggling at first with why the boxes were different sizes, then I grew to understand that the larger ones were for the brood and the smaller for the honey with a queen excluder in between. I had just started to get my head round it all when I read the Rose Hive method, which just seems so much simpler!! I could understand the simpler principles of using this new method, the same size boxes throughout, no excluder as it is not needed, easier to manager as all the frames are interchangable and for somone setting up it is certainly a more cost effective way to increase your colonies i.e being able to easily divide a colony before it swarms. I even understood the whole thing about only using a strip of foundation on some frames to let the bees choose whether to make worker or drone cells, although drone cells are sometimes considered useless, what you are actually allowing the bees to do is act naturally and increase the gene pool, which then helps the population evolve and be able to defend itself better from some of the pests and deseases that have been taking such a devastating hold over honey bees in the past 5 years.

At the back of the book there is also really quite good plans for building your own Rose Hives it also explores all of the advantages and disadvantages to this system and from my naive eyes it certainly appears that the pros out way the con's. I am soooo pleased I came across this book before we started purchasing any hive equipment and I would certainly recommend anyone using conventional bee keeping methods to read and possibly reassess. 

From everything I have read so far I think the only thing that has been established about the decreasing numbers of bees is that there are hundreds of factors potentially leading to their demise, doing what has been done for centuries doesn't seem to be helping, so why not look outside of the box, I think Tim Rowe has done that and in his mind has made some progress with his colonies and we are tempted to  give it a go as well! No doubt I will cover more of this debate on the blog in the coming months.

Tim Rowe also has a very useful website here if you would like to read more about the Rose Hive Method  (please do not take my word for it!).

Happy Reading!

The Hobbs'

Book Review - The Bad Beekeepers Club by Bill Turnbullrnbil

If you like Bill Turnbull, as I do, then I recommend you read this book. I have always enjoyed watching Bill on the news and as a strictly fan I loved seeing him dancing. He often talks about his bee keeping on breakfast and so when I saw this book at the library it was a must borrow.

Bill clearly writes that this is no technical manual, there are plenty of other books out there covering that aspect of bee keeping. This is more what not to do or at least what to try and avoid doing. He also talks about how bee keeping has crept into other aspects of his life such as being able to make vast amounts of money for charity just by auctioning single jars of honey and how his hives have suffered over busy periods of his life such as when he was on strictly come dancing.

My favorite thing about this book is how he talks about bee keeping fitting into what is already a busy family home. It is interesting to hear that he makes a mess of the kitchen when he process's the honey or that the extractor turn's into a piece of the furniture, when it is left in the corner of the room for so many months. Even though we are yet to get our hives I can already imagine us getting into some of the same pickles that he did when he started out. Hopefuly by reading this book we will avoid "The Bad Bee Keepers Club', but I do not doubt that at some point we will be reinacting some of Bill's faux pas, I just hope it is not the one where he has the bee in the bee suit with him!!!

It is a really light hearted book and Bill's character really shines through, I like the fact that although he name drops a little and mentions national institutions like Breakfast, Strictly and Mastermind, he comes across as a really lovely down to earth bee keeper! Can you really become a better person through keeping bees, I hope so!

Happy Reading
Hayley

The Bee-ginning

July 2012

We are the Hobbs' and we live on the outskirts of Newport on the Isle of Wight. We are lucky enough to rent an allotment at the very end of our garden, which over the last 6 years has become an extension of our living space. My children literally are cabbage patch kids as they have grown up amongst the veggies! As well as the veggies we are interested in other aspects of self sufficiency, Gary fishes and occasional shoots, he also has a source of chickens which he kills and preps and I like jam making and preserving. However we are far, far, far away from being self sufficient! We would love to get some livestock, but are not allowed to keep it on the plot and do not have enough room in the garden. Several months ago Gary mentioned Bee's and straight away I loved the idea. I remember watching one of the first documentaries several years ago about the issues bees were facing and was shocked at how endangered they were. But it didn't enter my head that we would end up thinking we could actually keep them.

Anyway, anyone who knows me, knows once I get an idea in my head that is it, so I started researching and my first resource was the IOW beekeepers Association. I also emailed my council to see if they would allow us hives on the plot, which they agreed in princable as they have been trailling it, at another site in Newport. We managed to get a contact for the association and she kindly agreed to show us around VERA an allotment site in Cowes where they have been sharing several colonies for some years. Here are a few pictures of our visit.

For our first encouter with real hives I was surprised that if the fences and the posters had not been there you would be none the wiser. Whilst stood a couple of metres away I did not have 1 bee approach me and I think this is the first misconception of bees, I had visions of them swarming around my head. If we were not totally inspired before we went to VERA then we were now! The fruit trees down there were laden and the veggies were visibly more productive then those on our own site. So Gary decided to sign up for the bee keeping course next Spring, which here on the island is based at the beautiful Quarr Abbey, where the IOWBKA have their training apiary.

In the meantime I was reading as many bee keeping books as I could, it was more practical for Gary to go on the course, but I was gutted I couldn't do it myself and so swatting was the only alternative. We had started thinking about the best location for the hives and had started toying with the idea of making them ourselves, but there wasn't much more we could do until Gary had completed the course in Spring. How surprised were we when I received an email in August saying that they were having taster days at Quarr Abbey as the waiting list for the spring was too big!!

So Gary got to go on a 2 hour taster session consisting of 1 hour theory and 1 hour practical. I was so releived when he said he had enjoyed it and hadn't been freaked by the bees as some of the others had.

The next day we visited The Bee Garden a new shop in Godshill on the island who stock all the necessary equipment. We came home with 2 essential purchases.

A smoker, which the boy's couldn't wait to get their hands on (with no bees the slug population got the brunt, apparently they don't like it very much). And a beautiful honey pot.

It was so cute it had to be done, however I think there is a little wishful thinking here! But it is done; our first purchases made, there is not turning back!!!!

And this bring's you to where we are today patiently waiting for Spring. But please pop back soon to follow our progress, I am going to be reveiwing some of the books I have read so far and Gary is still on a mission to find some hive plans that make sense and if he does we may go into production, not to mention the great hive debate, WBC v Nationals v Rose?
Fell free to leave comments and visit us again soon.

The Hobbs'
(Bee Keeping Novices)