Tony Harris
Author's posts
how many queens in a hive?
Last summer I found myself on the way to a house at Moss of Barmuckity where I was reliably informed there was an abandoned hive in the garden, still occupied by bees. Upon arrival I spoke to the owner, Jimmy, who told me his father had been an avid beekeeper but had now moved into …
A topped up swarm
So we got a message at the weekend that a swarm had arrived and taken up residence in someone’s loft near Elgin. Bees had been there before and this swarm had discovered the old combs left behind by the previous owners. All perfectly accessible we were assured. I should have known at that point that …
Queen Rearing – the Cook method part 4
Last Wednesday we carried out the last stage of the process – dividing the sealed queen cells up amongst mating nucs. We didn’t get as many pictures this time as everything got a bit hectic whilst we were filling the nucs and all hands were needed. First we got all the mininucs ready for filling …
Queen rearing – the Cook method part 3
Today and yesterday saw the critical parts of our queen rearing procedure taking place. Or to my mind the scariest parts. For the morning session we had myself, Tony, John, Dianna and Ian in attendance. The plan was to rearrange the colony to make the bottom brood box (full of young bees after last week’s …
Queen rearing – the Cook method part 2
A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that we were about to embark at long last on a foray into rearing our own queens. Unfortunately the superb weather of April has been replaced by a somewhat more familiar icy blast and we had to delay our plans. However this week it was decided that if …
Mayfayre 2011
On Saturday last Allison Laws and Viv Hill went to the ‘Mayfayre’ to represent Moray Beekeepers at the Steiner School. It was an extremely blustery day with several of the tents blowing over – many tent pegs used thereafter! The Steiner school is privately owned and their MayFayre represented the school’s enjoyment of the Spring …
An Elgin Swarm – again!
The Weather in Elgin, this morning, is +16C and blowing a hooley from the north-west with intermittent blustery showers too. Graham went to our apiary to walk the dogs with a view to my meeting him there at 10.30 to remove the nucleus bees (from yesterday) into a brood box. Arriving on time there was …
An Elgin Swarm
Having come through the winter successfully with our 4 colonies, guess what – we are now 8!! The hive, in the middle of Elgin, which had swarmed two weeks ago now has again. After our experience last year we have been super vigilant re signs of swarming but, quite clearly, not vigilant enough. Anyway, we …
MBA monthly meeting May 2011
Alasdair Joyce’s Apiary at Dallas Dhu 15th May After a morning of poor weather more than 40 people arrived at Alasdair and Mary’s delightful home and garden to find that the weather was kind and the rainy drizzle had stopped. The bees are situated about 100 yards away from his house through a woodland garden …
High Jinks in Lhanbryde
For the second time in almost as many weeks it has been necessary to drive – ‘lickety spit’ – to Donna and Ronnie Clark’s home in Lhanbryde. Why? Her bees are swarming!! Donna, who is the Treasurer of Moray Beekeepers Association has to go to work to keep her bees in the manner to which …
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