Bees, Soil Fertility, Permaculture and Bees

Caring for bees needs to start with a healthy soil. Modern agriculture uses a lot of chemicals just to grow our food, let alone the processing. That harms the soil, plants, and the pollinators. There is a different way, and we need more people educated to create that healthy environment. Daniel, who is the interviewer in this podcast is currently gathering funds to learn soil microbiology from the perspective of growing any kind of plant without chemicals, and guaranteeing maximum nutrition and yield. If you have a garden, some land, a crop, and wish to see the quality of the biology under your feet, consider taking his offer of soil testing once he finishes his course. As a thank you for believing in him, the cost is much reduced from what is currently available. See the link in the description, pledge your support, and pass it on.

 

 

Daniel's Permaculture Podcast http://danieltyrkiel.co.uk/podcast/ 

Daniel's Crowdfunder http://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/know-the-true-health-of-your-soil

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My talk to the BIBBA Conference 2016

I was invited to the BIBBA Conference on the Isle of Man this year to talk about top bar hives. This is my talk, lightly edited to remove the soundtrack of a video at the end. 

My talk was introduced by Johnny Kipps, a resident of the island, who took me to see his top bar hives during one of the lunch breaks. You can see the video of his hives, complete with local black bees, here https://youtu.be/jRebDnqj-wc

 

 

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Conversation with Kate Atchley

I met up with Kate Atchley after a weekend spent teaching a group of beginners at Glenuig, in the Lochaber area on the coast south of the Isle of Skye.

Kate started beekeeping in London, later in Edinburgh and latterly on the Ardnamurchan peninsula, just north of Mull.

We had an interesting conversation about black bees (Apis mellifera mellifera) and other aspects of beekeeping in Scotland.

 

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How to Manage a Top Bar Hive

I published this book just before Christmas 2015, so it's probably about time I told you about it!

When I wrote The Barefoot Beekeeper in 2007, my main intention was to express my concerns with 'modern' beekeeping methods and chemical agriculture, while offering a possible alternative system for housing bees, more aligned to their own ways of arranging things in their hives. I went on to describe the top bar hives that I had built and populated, with some ideas about how they could be managed, using the 'tandem follow board' system that I had developed in order to make inspections quick and easy, with minimal disruption to the bees.

The Barefoot Beekeeper has sold pretty well over the intervening years, which has encouraged me to do more experiments, resulting in the 'periscope entrance' and the 'eco-floor', which have been shown to be useful and with further potential for development. At the back of my mind all the time was another book, which would go into detail about the various ways in which this versatile hive could be managed.

I coined the term 'balanced beekeeping' a couple of years ago, as it seemed that 'natural beekeeping' was becoming simultaneously (a) a term of abuse among conventional beekeepers, and (b) shading into the territory of 'do-nothing' beekeeping, which is not really bee keeping at all, but merely observation of bees. So I decided to write a two-volume book on 'balanced beekeeping; one with hive-building instructions and a discussion of the underpinning theory behind my top bar hive design, and the other having the management information. This would allow those readers who already had hives to be able to buy a smaller and cheaper book, containing only the instructions they needed.

So, after more than two years of writing and editing - in between teaching and beekeeping and life in general - the second volume is ready: Balanced Beekeeping II: Managing the Top Bar Hive is available from Lulu.com. At 385 pages, it is my biggest book yet and will probably remain so. I have done my best to pack it with useful, practical, tried and tested information that answers most of the questions that people email me and that appear most frequently on the Natural Beekeeping Forum.

You can buy this book as a print-on-demand paperback or as an ebook. You might like to look at the 'beekeeping books' page on my website for all the buying options.

I hope you enjoy reading it and find it useful. Please let me know and leave a rating and review on the Lulu page.

Willie Robson Part 2

This is Part 2 of the session with Willie Robson, which has a somewhat better sound quality as the storm had reduced in strength by the time we had finished lunch. Willie spent an hour answering questions from the audience and I think you will find this session very interesting, especially if you keep or are planning to keep black bees.

I should also mention that I have just published another book, called Balanced Beekeeping II: Managing the Top Bar Hive. It has taken me nearly two years to write and edit and it has 385 pages full of the most useful tips and techniques I know to help you set up, populate and manage a top bar hive. Take a look on my site at biobees.com under books and you will find both paperback and ebook versions.

Willie Robson has written a fascinating book, full of his accumulated wisdom, called, "Reflections on Beekeeping", published by Northern Bee Books. 

Thanks to Graham White for the use of his photo of Willie with an open hive.

 

 

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New book - Balanced Beekeeping II: Managing the Top Bar Hive

The long-awaited "top bar hive workshop manual" that I have been promising for at least two years has finally been published.

At 380 pages, this is my heaviest book to date, and unless I finish that novel I have been writing on and off for a decade, it will probably remain so.

I have tried to make it as comprehensive as possible and to cover most of the situations that the TBH beekeeper is likely to encounter.

You can buy the printed book here on Lulu.com

There is also an ebook version on Lulu, which you can find by searching on my name.

You can read a free extract, with the title An Introduction to Balanced Beekeeping

CONTENTS

THE NATURE OF HONEYBEES 17

The Honeybee Family 18

Natural History 19

The Swarm 20

The Mating Flight 27

The Seasonal Cycle 31

The Energy Cycle 33

Pollination 38

Planting For Bees 41

HONEYBEES AND HUMANS 44

Types of Bee Keeping 45

The Origins of 'Balanced Beekeeping' 50

A Mutually Beneficial Relationship 53

Protecting Biodiversity 56

Backyard Beekeeping 57

Principles of Balanced Beekeeping 59

Learning From Bees 64

Bee Watching 68

PRACTICAL BEE CARE 73

Preparations 74

Why Keep Bees? 74

Stings 76

Selecting a Site 77

Choosing a Hive 81

Vertical Top Bar Hives 85

Horizontal Top Bar Hives 89

Other Hives 94

Bees and Other People 99

Bees and the Law 101

The Beekeeping Year 103

Expansion and Growth 103

Plateau 107

Consolidation 109

Dormancy 111

Getting Started 113

Populating Your Hive 116

Bees For Free: Starting With Swarms 117

Baiting a Swarm 120

Taking a Swarm 124

Swarm Catching Kit 130

Advertising for Swarms 131

Buying Bees: Nucs and Packages 134

Bee Removals: Cut-outs and Trap-outs 138

Installing Bees In Your Hive 144

Installing a Swarm: Direct Method 144

Installing a Swarm: Indirect Method 146

Installing a Nucleus Colony 154

Crop and Chop 155

Conversion Hive 160

Shake-down 162

Hive Substitution 165

Installing a Package of Bees 173

Handling Bees 176

Moving Among Bees 177

Finding the Queen 183

Safe Handling of Queen Cells 185

Your First Season 187

Routine Inspections 189

Detailed Inspections 192

Problem Solving 200

Cross-Combing 201

Side Attachments 205

Robbing 206

Management Plans 208

Managing Space 209

Management Plan A 211

Management Plan B 213

Other Useful Layouts 216

A Two-Queen System 217

Using the TBH as a Mating Hive 218

Over-wintering Nucs 218

Managing Swarming 219

Why Bees Swarm 220

swarm triggers 227

Swarm Preparations 229

swarm calendar 231

Demaree 241

Making More Bees 245

Simple Split 246

Using Swarming to Increase Stocks 249

Post-Swarm Nucs 254

Simple Queen Rearing 255

Using The Emergency Response 255

Simplified Miller Method 258

Using the Supersedure Response 260

Grafting 262

Nicot/Cupkit, Jenter and Ezi-Queen 265

Queen Mating 270

Combining Colonies 277

Re-combining 278

Direct Combining 280

Indirect Combining 281

Combining Cast Swarms 283

Balanced Beekeeping in Conventional Hives 284

KEEPING HEALTHY BEES 291

The Natural Balance 292

Feeding Bees 297

The Sugar Problem 301

Fondant 304

Dry Sugar 305

Spring and Summer Feeding 306

Pre-Winter Feeding 307

Climate and Temperature 309

Prevention vs Cure 312

Station Feeding 313

Pests and Diseases 315

Varroa Mites 318

Agricultural Chemicals 337

The Future of Beekeeping 339

TBH FAQs 343

APPENDIX 351

Glossary 351

Recipes 365

Products of the Hive 369

Ten Things You Can Do 376

Further Reading 381