Tag: beekeeper
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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…
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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…
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Ouch!
“Bee stings don’t bother me.” My jaw dropped in disbelief. These words had come out of my own mouth! I was a little impressed with myself, finally perhaps, I am a true beekeeper. I’ve seen so many of the experienced beekeepers brush off stings as a mere nuisance, for this moment I felt one of…
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A fine mess – short and sweet
The door handles are sticky. There’s a schlick, schlick, schlick sound from my shoes as I walk across the floor tiles. My hair is sticky, every spoon, uncapping fork, super, hive tool, bucket and anything at all that I’ve touched (and many places that I hadn’t touched) has a splodge of honey. This is despite…
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About time
Nearly there. Only a few weeks to the harvest. I can feel the excitement quietly mounting in the pit of my stomach as I look forward to a bountiful supply of honey but know too that I could be bitterly disappointed. All the hives could have supers(boxes) full of honey one week and if the…
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Bovine encounter
I thought it was a good idea to put two hives inside a tall hedge near a public road. You couldn’t see the hives from the road and the bees flew over the heads of any passer by without anyone noticing. I drove by one day and was shocked to see the hedge cut low…
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Privileged
Being a beekeeper is a privilege. I get to go out into nature on my solitary mission to tend to the beehives, usually in the very best of weather. After the initial flurry of preparation there is a peacefulness the descends as I approach my hives. I greet each of them, talking to the ladies…
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Win-win
I remember the gorgeous smell of the house when my mother was making jam. She would stir the sticky mix with a wooden spoon, enveloped in the sweet, smelling steam as it wafted up from her special jam-making pan. Jam jars would be sterilized and lined up like a military platoon ready for action. “Keep…
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Bees are loving the neglect
Beekeepers seem to be in a perpetual state of angst. Despite our outwardly appearance of calm and the absolute joy that beekeeping brings, worries flow with the seasons and the weather… and a myriad of other triggers. There’s this phenomenon called the June gap, a two -week period of dearth when the hives are full…