This page is a link through to our Face book site – showing our most recent posts.
108
Read Apiaries
Welcome to Read Apiaries.
Like most UK beekeepers (there’s about 44,000 of us) I keep Honey Bees
2024 Honey For Sale![]()
I’m very pleased to say we are starting to see the bees processing nectar into honey after a spell of decent weather. The initial small batch has been taken off and bottled – so we have honey for sale again! Just runny at the moment. Comb and set will follow later. Same price as last year for the runny honey – £6.50 for 340g
Always a welcome sign of summer. Honeybees fanning at the entrance to generate an airflow through the hive. A sure sign they’ve got lots of nectar to reduce the water content of – part of the process of making honey.![]()
![]()
From nothing 2 weeks ago, there’s been a sudden significant nectar flow.
Spring honey crop?![]()
Unfortunately the cold and sometimes wet spring has not been helpful to the spring flowers, and there has has been no spring nectar flow of any volume (apart from Oil Seed Rape). ![]()
![]()
The colonies are doing OK, but have almost no stores of honey, using what they can collect straight away. It’s very unlikely therefore we will see an early spring crop of honey. ![]()
![]()
As the weather has warmed this week, we’ve seen alot more nectar coming in to the hives, so fingers crossed for an early summer crop. Watch this space!![]()
![]()
In the mean time I’ve been called to a number of swarms – this one was at the Crookham Park Allotments (now safely with a beekeeper in Farnborough who had lost colonies over winter)
It’s great our honey is so popular, but given the colonies don’t have any surplus yet this year that we can safely remove (we always let the bees have what they need first), we’ve now sold out I’m afraid. I’ll post on here as soon as we have some more.
How do Honey Bees clean their antenna? Probably not a question you ever thought to ask! ![]()
![]()
Answer: They have a little circular notch on their front legs that they can draw their antenna through to clean it: