Heathfield Honey

20/05/2026

Today is International Bee Day! Here is one of my queens who was nice and easy to find 😀.

15/05/2026

This is what happens when a skinny queen gets up through the excluder and you have drone size cells in the honey suppers. It is a nuisance because the hatched out drones can’t get down through the queen excluder and I will have to shake them out every week until they have all have hatched.

17/04/2026

This is the queen from one of my overwintered nucs that I created from my non swarming colonies last year.

11/04/2026

11/04/2026

All the colonies are now set up for the year ahead. You can see 4 new frames of foundation added for them to move there expanding brood nest up into.

03/04/2026

It will not be long now till the big spring inspections. We just need some decent days to open the hives up. My plan here is to produce some comb directly into jars. We will see what happens.

21/02/2026

Today’s little project. This is an Asian Hornet “Muzzle”. It is supposed to give the bees a fighting chance to get out of the hive. They may not be necessary this year but there will not be time to make them in the summer if they are needed!

07/02/2026

Ongoing preparations for the buisy time ahead.