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 collected the swarm but none of this ‘shake the cluster into your skep and hey presto stuff’ – no the swarm was spread along 5 metres of privet hedge, in the next road to ours. I remembered the word ‘cavalier’ from last year and quickly discovered that if I ‘patted’ the bees which weren’t in the main cluster away from their ‘outpost’ they gravitated towards the main ‘clump’.

They are now safe at home, in a nucleus box, and it is full to busting.

Clearly our site which is in the middle of lots of ‘gardener’s gardens’ is doing incredibley well. Perhaps I will use it as a position where I can strengthen weak colonies. Do I need to say that any thoughts on this would be VERY welcome?

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 and over a bridge across his burn. Three hives were inspected and discussed during which time many questions were asked and answered covering the whole range of beekeeping ability and all were thrilled with the session. Indeed, I think it safe to say that everyone learned something from Alasdair’s vast knowledge and practical experience.

Afterwards Mary put on an excellent spread for tea-time and the raffle was drawn for five prizes.

The above does not adequately describe the fun and laughter we had not to mention the discussions that went on throughout. The only disappointing thing was that later we could not go for a ‘wee dram’ at the distillery where we parked our cars – I suppose we can’t have everything can we?

The MBA committee and membership attending offer many thanks to Mary and Alasdair for a marvellous afternoon.

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 they are accustomed and Ronnie, who works off-shore, keeps an eye on ‘the girls’ when he is at home. Ronnie being a novice beekeeper – but keen – is not quite confident – yet! – to deal with swarms and so Graham and Viv Hill are his first port of call when he needs another pairs of hands.

The clever thing about all this is that Donna’s bees always manage to swarm to within a few feet of the hive and so the three of us, armed with ‘loppers’ and a skep, collect them up and – hey presto – Donna now has three colonies. Lucky girl.

With so many folk losing colonies this past winter or two she has the great fortune to be queen-right in all three!

Queen Rearing – The Cook Method

We’ve been planning to embark on a queen rearing programme here at MBA for some time now and this weekend, at last, we’re going to start in earnest! The method we are going to use is good for small scale queen rearing but can be adapted for greater numbers. It’s called the Cook Method and was devised by a clever chap called Vince Cook and described in this book.

We have a small group set up to help with and observe the process and we’re all very keen to see it succeed and to develop into something significant for Moray’s beekeepers as the years progress.

I’ll be reporting on how we get on here so watch this space!

My bee-loud glade

Today was such a beautiful day I just had to pop over to my apiary (minus beesuit as they’re a gentle bunch!) to take a few pics of what the girls were up to.  Plenty of action in and out of the entrance and pollen of various shades from orange to pale cream.  The first probably from the whins, the latter I’m not so sure but maybe from gean or sycamore.  The last of the daffodils can be seen – shame I didn’t take a pic a couple of weeks ago.  What a display we had!

My first honey

By Allison Laws – Committee Member

Hi, just took the honey frames out of my super today. I took a short sunshine break from the rain to nip out and rob my hive, bees weren’t too impressed I can tell you I managed to get 5 full frames of honey and a couple of partially full frames. About 2 or 3 frames had some uncapped honey which I left for the bees (not that they were grateful). I cleaned everything in the kitchen got the dozens of containers (a bit ambitious I know;-) washed and dried and was raring to go. Because I didn’t have many frames I mashed half the combs and filtered through a coarse sieve. I then poured the cloudy mix into a fine sieve. The mash was not running all that well so I applied heat by putting the bowl and sieve into a cleaned plastic chick brood box with an overhead heat lamp, which seemed to do the trick quite well.

It only took me about an hour or two to do this and I got about 2 lbs of comb honey and the same in filtered honey. However the clean up is still going on, just when you think you have wiped, washed and dried every possible tool, surface and even my phone you find another sticky patch, the last one was the cat who was innocently walking along the kitchen floor looking for mice when a dollop of honey fell on her head. Not sure which was more scary bees protecting their honey or a cat trying to avoid a bath!

Moray Science Festival

Contributed by committee member Viv Hill – describes Moray Beekeepers participation in the Moray Science Festival on Saturday 5th March.


It was the most wonderful day with ENTHUSIASM high on the agenda. There must have been 3-400 people through the display (at the very least) and it was the most terrific P.R. for Moray Bee Keepers.

Donna Clark did the most amazing work towards it with the competition – colouring various age specific papers – being the biggest hit of the day, I think it would be fair to say that about 60/70 youngsters either drew a bee-hive (of their own design) or a garden suitable for bees. The very small ones could colour in bees and hives. I am hopeful that all of those youngsters (and not so young) went home no longer worried about bees that may sting them..

Our handouts were the biggest hit too and everyone was keen to either think about bee keeping or at the very least go home and create a bee-friendly garden. I am sure that the money Donna spent on crayons and pencils and the three Easter Eggs for colouring in prizes (Winnie the Pooh and a honey pot as the egg) was very well spent.

One of the Moray College girls (thanks Lani) who had listened most carefully to what I had to say about a nucleus box and three frames at differing stages of being drawn out and then capped was able to fill in when I was busy telling folk about the posters, bee friendly gardens and how to go to Lidls (you owe us Lidls!!) and buy cheap packets of seeds for that purpose.

All in all we had the most amazingly wonderful day and came away feeling that Moray Beekeepers should be very proud of us. We were all worn out at the end but agreed that it had been the most astonishing day.

Viv Hill.

A flavour of our courses 2011

Here at Moray Beekeepers we take our responsibility to share this wonderful and fascinating pastime with the wider world very seriously. In 2010 we started a comprehensive programme of introductory courses and taster sessions. We were delighted at the response to these courses and so we’re going to do the same again this year.

The programme starts on 23rd April with a taster session and carries on at regular intervals throughout the spring and summer. Those lucky people who come along on 28th May will get the pleasure of my company!

Places on the courses and on the taster sessions are in high demand so make sure to book yours soon. The detailed programme can be found on the main MBA website under the “Events” tag.

To give you a flavour of what to expect take a look at these videos of one of the practical sessions from one of last year’s introductory courses.

Our 2011 Courses

Throughout the Spring and Summer we have a number of courses running ranging from taster days to full weekend beekeeping courses. They are very reasonably priced and remember all funds raised are ploughed back into our work helping the honeybee in Moray. Full details can be found on our CALENDAR page.

Stop press!! We’re now a registered charity!

After tireless work from our beloved Secretary Tony H, MBA is now a registered charity. The objects of the charity are that:

We are a charity that exists to promote all aspects of beekeeping and honeybee conservation in and around Moray in north east Scotland.

Full details can be found on the Scottish charity register here

All donations to help us in our work are very gratefully accepted and can be made via Paypal using the button on the right.