Sunday, November 13, 2016

Winter Management (?)

I've been unable to find a dry, or warm enough, day to do some winter management on my bees; anytime I've been free it seems it's been either too cold and windy or just too wet.

At long last the weather was warm enough for me to take a trip out to the apiary today.  I've been fretting over the fact I have a queen excluder on top of a deep and under a couple of (heather honey) filled supers.  I was concerned I'd been separating the queen from a food source.  I wasn't so worried for right now, it is more a concern for the new year.  If the queen can't reach the honey she and/or the bees might starve.

Anyway, it was warm enough, and even though I say so myself, I was a bit of a ninja beekeeper today; in and out before they noticed!  However, I wasn't so quick that I didn't notice there were a lot of bees in the hive and some reasonably hefty boxes.  So I'm quite happy at this stage that there's sufficient stores in the hive for the winter.

All the hives in the apiary looked busy so there's reason to be cheerful.


B3 Bars are back

It's really been quite a while but I've just managed to make a few B3 bars with the wax cappings I collected this year.

Like much of the bee-stuff I used to do in the US, I've really missed messing about with cocoa butter and coconut oil!  Anyway, the few I've made have gone down well (they always did) and I'm looking to get a couple of batches prepared in time for Christmas.

So for those of you out there who wonder why B3; well a couple of reasons...

B3 - Beeswax, Body Bars
B3 - Just three ingredients: Beeswax, Cocoa Butter & Coconut Oil
B3 - have at least 3 uses... Moisturizing hand cream, a hydrophobic barrier cream, and a luxurious massage bar

Message me if you would like to try one...

B3 Bars ready to go!

3 Ingredients, B3...