Bee Blog

Elephants & Bees

Sometime ago I saw a documentary about how bees were being used to deter elephants from destroying rural crops in Africa, this a truly wonderful story: http://bit.ly/1VMAKdD

Bee Farmers Association Apprenticeships

The Bee Farmers’ Association has developed a unique apprenticeship scheme in partnership with Rowse Honey. The scheme is open to 16 to 24-year-olds and aims to equip young people with the skills and knowledge to make a successful career in the bee farming industry. Those successfully completing the three-year programme are awarded a Diploma Towards Excellence in Bee Farming by the Worshipful Company of Wax Chandlers.  

Further details in the main blog, a wonderful opportunity for both farmers and students.

Glamorous Job

Beekeeping is not the most glamorous of jobs and it doesn't get much better when jarring.

Worth it though, just made the first Apimist mix of the year, honey, fresh Royal Jelly and propolis combined.

Royal Jelly Composition

Royal jelly is a honey bee secretion that is used in the nutrition of larvae, as well as adult queens. It is secreted from the glands in the hypopharynx of worker bees, and fed to all larvae in the colony, regardless of sex or caste.

When worker bees decide to make a new queen, because the old one is either weakening or dead, they choose several small larvae and feed them with copious amounts of royal jelly in specially constructed queen cells. This type of feeding triggers the development of queen morphology, including the fully developed ovaries needed to lay eggs.

Royal Jelly - Book by Roald Dahl

In all our years of beekeeping, making & selling Apimist and Royal Jelly, I had never realised that there was a book by Roald Dahl called Royal Jelly - fancy that!