Bees

To start with something worth saying:

**Do not feed bees honey. **If you find a tired bee, mix it up some sugar solution. One crystal of caster sugar to one drop of water should do. Honey from the shops, which is usually from a foreign country, and even honey from a more local hive can contain fungal spores which can cause serious diseases, like American Foul Brood.

Now that’s over, let’s move from feeding individual bees to the feeding of tens of thousands.

In my post on the installation of a nucleus I showed the improvised bottle contact-feeder in action.

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There are a number of ways one can acquire bees. To paraphrase Twelfth Night:

but be not afraid of bees: some are born to bees, some achieve bees, and some have bees thrust upon them.

Some people catch swarms. My great uncle Ronald had a hive thrust upon him. Although I’m the third generation of bee-keepers in my family, I wasn’t born to them (the previous two generations being predecessors but not ancestors). I went with the safer and easier option and obtained a nucleus from a local bee-keeper.

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A couple of boxes arrived for me at work. There was a gorgeous aroma coming from them.

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When I visited my parents at Christmas I re-discovered a book. It was given to me by my great-uncle Ronald.

The Golden Throng: A Book About Bees.

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