Rebel Bee
Bees + Honey
-
The perfect gift
My elderly father liked to see me go away on little adventures to visit remote corners of Ireland on weekend brakes. He wasn’t up to making the trips himself anymore but said it made him feel young again to see me head off and hear my stories when I came back. There was only one…
-
Crossing the Rubicon
Glowing with pride as I look at the total of 35 jars of honey that were gleaned from my first harvest I feel an extra tingle of excitement and audacity as a thought entered my head. “Why not?” Why not pitch my honey against the best of them? It is stunning looking, it’s the genuine…
-
Batten down the hatches
Anyone with any sense would be snuggling up on a couch in front of an open fire, not that there are too many of these anymore in the days of smokeless fuel, wood burning stoves and underfloor heating. The green mesh was nearly ripped out of my hands, flapping like a topsail in the gale…
-
Close encounters of the third kind
Druids huddle in a circle around a cauldron with smoke bellowing. The white hooded garb is emitting a luminescent glow… but something’s not quite right, it’s a bright sunny day. It’s not a midnight coven. This feels like a surreal dream, but I too am clad in a brand-new gleaming, white bee suit and join…
-
Smokin’
Beekeepers have embarrassing secrets. I too have a deep dark beekeeping secret. I am useless at using a smoker! Using a smoker is an essential skill for any beekeeper. You’ve seen them, the iconic pictures of beekeepers wielding a smoker with slow, focused Tai Chi movements gently wafting smoke to calm their bees. Their bees…
-
Oh no! I am a scavenger!
This is what beekeeping has done to me! I was never this way but now, well now, you might see me headfirst in a skip with my feet waving in the air as I rescue something that I could use for beekeeping. Recycling, that’s what I’m doing. Yeah. It started during the second year of…
-
Destructor!
It’s raining…again. My bees must be going spare. They can’t fly out and forage. Bees hate damp. Dampness in the hive will kill sooner than cold. At least my hives have open mesh floors (OMF) which I think provide good ventilation. The bees couldn’t care less about what I think though. They would rather pick…
-
Bees, bees and wasps
You can’t just shoo away bees. Waving your arms around a bee (let along hundreds of bees) is the last thing you should do. As for wasps.. they get kicked out of the nest at this time of year and are cranky…very cranky. Keep away” They gravitate towards surgery substances, so you’ll find them where…
-
Great expectations…at last…the honey harvest!
It’s impossible not to be excited and optimistic at the prospects of visiting the beehives and taking off their supers full of honey. After the year’s nurturing and monitoring the act of removing the supers and straining under the surprising weight of a full honey super is incredibly satisfying. I always feel that it is…
-
Big Brown Box
The excitement of a big cardboard box as a child and the endless possibilities were much better than the contents. A train. A house. A tunnel. A fort. A big cardboard box could become all that and more. Colouring markers (aka sharpies) or a few crayons and a scissors (preferably without supervision) and I would…