BT41 Honey

23/09/2026

Busy evening with the extraction at BT41 Honey last night 👍🐝

17/09/2026

Secret life of bees on channel 5+1 at 8pm. Excited muchly folks xx👍🤪🥰🐝.

11/09/2026

People in Northern Ireland are being urged to remain vigilant for Asian hornets.

The Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) has issued the appeal despite no fresh, confirmed sightings this year.

It follows the completion of a two-month Asian hornet Spring Queen Monitoring Programme in the Dundonald area.

The Asian hornet, also known as the yellow-legged hornet, is an invasive non-native species originating from East Asia.

It is a highly effective predator of insects including honeybees, wasps and other important pollinators and could have a serious impact on native insect biodiversity and crop pollination.

DAERA Minister Andrew Muir said: “In October 2025, the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA) removed Northern Ireland’s first confirmed Asian hornet nest following its discovery in Dundonald.

“Although the monitoring did not detect any Asian hornets, there is always a risk that some may have evaded the monitoring exercise.

“For that reason, we would still urge the public to be vigilant and report any suspect sightings and please check out all the ID Guides on our website and avoid killing or catching other valuable pollinators unnecessarily.”

A total of 34 traps were monitored and checked twice weekly between April and May 2026 as a precautionary measure when Queen hornets usually emerge prior to the building of secondary nests.

Initially, monitoring was planned over a three-month period, but the low temperatures and poor weather delayed the start. Queen hornets will not come out of hibernation until there are consistent days of 12 – 13 deg C. and above.

The traps used were designed to selectively trap Asian hornet queens while excluding by-catch of other insects, but none were detected.

10/09/2026

Spot the Queen! Shes a Supercedure queen creating havoc. It turns out this wee beauty is a drone layer of all things and that can happen if a queen is poorly mated or if she’s coming to the end of her life. In this case it’s probably due to all of the rain in June when she was mated so not mated properly. Look at the state of this comb compared to a normal comb of brood in the last pic😩 The girls clearly knew something wasn’t right as there were several emergency queen cells in the hive also. Unfortunately there’s nothing to be done other than euthanising her as if she’s left the colony will die out very quickly. Finally found her last night after shaking all of the bees through a queen excluder. A long process but guaranteed to get her. I’ll come back next week and unite this hive with a queen right hive. Fingers crossed folks x 🐝🐝

28/08/2026

It’s taken too long to get the labelling laws for this but now they’re in place you can see exactly what you’re getting and it’s not honey!

22/08/2026

This mornings crafting. 100% Beeswax candles prepared for individual sale and the next round of gift boxes. £3 each. Honey and pollen also available.
There’s about 2 1/2 hours burn time in these wee candles and wonderful to have in the home.

🐝They are non-toxic
🐝They are Hypoallergenic
🐝 Offer a brighter flame
🐝Purify the air
🐝Contain a mild natural honey scent

03/08/2026

Not sure and will have to check back records but think this is the lowest yet!! 😀👍🐝

01/08/2026

01/08/2026

Up at my out apiary on Thursday evening to check the apideas had enough stores to last the week and decided to inspect the hives whilst there. So glad I did as was lucky to see one of our BT41 Honey queens actively laying. If you look closely you’ll see the egg she is going to deposit into an empty cell. This wee pet is a 2024 queen. Her green mark is starting to wear off but she’s still going rightly 👍🐝