Hem Coppice Honey Bees
Hem Coppice is a 10 acre ancient woodland in Telford that I have been managing since 2011.
I have recently become interested in beekeeping and this is the story of my journey with the bees.
30/03/2024
After loosing a couple of bee hives over winter, today is a good day to remove the old comb render it down, so I cam use it at a later date.
17/03/2024
Quick look under the lid of one of the hives, not only had a mouse set up home but a queen hornet has been over wintering...the cheek of it. 😄
Looks like a Queen Hornet looking for a place to hibernate
02/10/2023
Checking the hives this morning I came across a nest of Wood mice. They seem to like the Hello fresh padding.
22/05/2023
Busy few days collecting swarms from Bridgenorth Golf club, Shifnal and Stafford Park. Each one in a diffrent situation requiring various methods used to collect the bees.
10/05/2023
They must be able to read 🐝🙂
Bit of a tricky one, hiding behind the sign having to scoop them out a handfull at a time.
07/05/2023
First swarm of the season collected and taken to a new home at Ricoh Telford.
20/04/2023
Things are ramping up, first sighting of this years Drones.(red dot next to them)
05/04/2023
Bees, trees and cups of teas...it doesn't get much better
29/01/2023
Checked on all the hives today and glad to report all bar one are active in someway in todays warmish weather. The hive in the picture(No 4) the bees were particularly active with lots of orientating flights going on.
11/12/2022
Hope the bees have got their thermals on 🙂
It's good to see lots of activity around the hives today, the bees are still bringing in lots of nectar and their numbers are looking good which is a positive going into Winter for them.
07/08/2022
I rendered down two buckets of old comb today and quite please with the wax disc I ended up with.
12/07/2022
Nice size swarm collected from Lilleshall, I'll take them over to Eccelshall tomorrow morning to install into One of Perrys of Eccleshall hives. Thanks to Alison's Bee Class for the info on the hive.
05/07/2022
Checking out the hives when this Giant woodwasp landed by me, one impressive insect.
20/06/2022
Nice swarm collected from the one of the gardens in Benthall Hall NT, once all the bees were in the box I took them over to Eccelshall to be rehomed in one of the hives belonging to Perrys of Eccleshall.
17/06/2022
I've got a love hate relationship with the Brambles in my wood, how ever I'm loving them at the mo and so are the bees who are going ape on them.
Look like the new Ash log hive is now occupied, the bees have moved in by themselves possibly a swarm from one of my hives. An additional bit of interest is the nettle stalk in front of the hive, it looks like it's releasing smoke every now and then, but it is it releasing pollen.
01/06/2022
Its going to be bee suit time shortly, sounds like one of the hive is ready to swarm.
15/05/2022
I find faces in trees all the time, but I've never seen a bee Cowboy log hive before, just shows you how many bees are in a hive. I'm guessing that these bees fancy moving into my new log hive and are just waiting for the rain to stop and the sun to come out.
09/05/2022
One of my hives swarmed yesterday around 3pm, I collected them into my swarm box and returned this morning to house them in their new hive. All went well and they are now settling in to their new home.
08/05/2022
I collected yesterday's swarm from Benthall Hall NT this morning and set up a ramp for them to walk into their new hive, they are busily marching in at the mo, but it shouldn't take them to long.
07/05/2022
Today's swarm from Benthall Hall NT was a bit of a strange one. The bees has swarmed behind some vines which made them a little difficult to get to, luckily I had my trusty goose feather with me so I was able to use it to swish them out. The bit that was strange was that the bees were balling around at least 3 other queens to kill them, making this swarm one made up of multiple queen's, something I had not seen before.
01/05/2022
It's all go down here on the coppice, second swarm installed, I collected this one from Leegomery last night.
30/04/2022
It was a week later than planned(would have been ideal for last weeks Balanced beekeeping course) but I got the call from Benthall Hall NT that they had a swarm. It was quite a large prime swarm that was virtually on the ground. After cutting some of the branches and putting them ,complete with most of the bees into my box, the rest were not far behind. I've just installed them into a hive in a new location in my wood so hopefully they will enjoy it there.
29/04/2022
Starting to hit the Bluebells now that they have opened up a bit more.
24/04/2022
What a fantastic weekend spent in the woods hosting Phil Chandler who was running one of his https://biobees.com Balanced Beekeeping courses. People had came from as far as Scotland, Devon and inbetween. The weather was a bit chilly Saturday but today was just fine for looking in the Top bar hives and nadiring the Warre. Emma from The Barn at Lees Farm provided the food for both days which went down a treat.
The general consensus was that the course was very informative and Inspiring.
Just tapped one of my Silver Birch trees to collect the sap, I'll use this to mix with sugar on a 1 to 1 basis and give it to the bees to help with their spring build up.
14/03/2022
Joy of joys, the bees have found the Marsh Marigold that has just come into flower.
15/02/2022
Interesting to see the bees collecting either water or something else from the moss today.
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