As is the custom at our Apiary, any swarms that we catch are called by the names of the places that we caught them in – but only for the first year. If they get through the winter, then they are given new names – which are all virtues. We started with Faith, Hope and [...]
Archive for the ‘Beekeeping’ Category
Renaming the Hives: Unity, Kindness, Melody and Liberty
Posted in Bee Law, Bee Present, Beekeeping, Beetwixt & Beetween on March 4, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The Beekeeping Prisoners’ Cache
Posted in Bee Present, Beekeeping on February 27, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
This week I was asked by a local prison to help give some advice because they want to start keeping bees. I turned up at the gate and was met by the head grounsdman who showed me around the prison’s very impressive garden. It had large poly-tunnels of cabbages and other winter vegetables, an orchard [...]
Polish Beekeeper Brought Back from the Dead!
Posted in Bee Present, Beekeeping, Beetwixt & Beetween on February 4, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
A Polish beekeeper pronounced dead after he suffered a suspected heart attack was about to be sealed up in a coffin when a funeral director miraculously discovered a faint pulse.
Jozef Guzy collapsed as he started work among his beloved hives near the southern city ofKatowice.
An ambulance was called and an experienced doctor declared that the [...]
The Bees of Myddelton Manor
Posted in 1, Bee Lore, Bee Present, Beekeeping, Beetwixt & Beetween on February 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
“Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing, my honey-making bees,
They left the musk, and the marigolds and the scented faint sweet-peas;
They gather’d in a darkening cloud, and sway’d, and rose to fly;
A blackness on the summer blue, they swept across the sky.
Gaunt and ghastly with gaping wounds—(my soldier son, alas)!
Footsore and faint, the messenger came halting through the grass.
The [...]
Leadership and Management in the Hive
Posted in Bee Law, Bee Lore, Bee Present, Bee-ology, Beekeeping, Beetwixt & Beetween on January 21, 2010 | 2 Comments »
In the work that I do, I am often asked what is the difference between leaders and managers. So here is an attempt to describe the difference:
Leaders lead people. In order to lead people they need vision of a possible future and a sense of purpose. And they need to convince others that this vision [...]
Beekeeping in Russian Forests
Posted in Bee Lore, Beekeeping, Beetwixt & Beetween on January 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
We think in this age of beekeeping as a small time pursuit for either the small business or for some form of esoteric pass-time. In the past bee-keeping was anything but that. As an industry in Eastern Europe it probably reached a climax around 1200-1400. The reason that Eastern Europe was probably much better at [...]
The Wisdom of Bees and Voting Systems
Posted in Bee Law, Bee Lore, Bee Present, Bee-ology, Beekeeping, Beetwixt & Beetween on January 7, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Honeybees have been “voting” in single winner “elections” for 20-50 million years. They’ve held far more elections than humans, for a lot longer, and to decide something that mattered to each bee voter a lot more than most election winners matter to most human voters: where should we locate our new nest?
Each [...]
Bee Vibrations: The Apidictor
Posted in Bee Law, Bee Present, Bee-ology, Beekeeping, Beetwixt & Beetween on January 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The late E.F.Woods was the inventor of the Apidictor.
“Sound engineers are familiar with a phenomenon known as the ‘cocktail party effect’. This is the ability of the human brain, in a room full of chattering people, to pick out and concentrate on one conversation, not necessarily the loudest. Eddie was blessed with this ability and [...]
Bee Vibrations: Vanishing Bees and Mobile Phone Masts
Posted in Bee Present, Bee-ology, Beekeeping, Beetwixt & Beetween on January 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
It is a mystery that has had scientists stumped. But now experts in Scotland believe they have discovered why bees have been abandoning their hives and vanishing. Scientists at the Roslin-based firm Global Bioenergetics think disturbance to bees from mobile phones, radio signals, wi-fi and microwaves is disrupting them with devastating results. They think increased [...]
Bee Vibrations
Posted in Bee Law, Bee Lore, Bee Present, Bee-ology, Beekeeping, Beetwixt & Beetween on January 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Whenever I visit my hives I come away feeling much calmer. Non-beekeepers are often amazed when I say this. They assume that I would become more stressed with the “threat of the sting”.
But the inverse is true. After my seasonal dosage of stings which occur naturally when beekeeping, any stings after them become little more [...]
