2001 Summary
2001 will be remembered as a year of great expansion.
As with 2000 we started the year with three hives. Two in our apiary at the bottom of the garden and one nearer the house under the honeysuckle.
After finding that our current apiary was not high enough to stop the bees flying around at low level and therefore crash into folk with the resulting stings. We decided to increase its height with the use of windbreak netting.
Raising the height of our apiary
We gradually moved hive 3 slowly to the newly finished apiary 3feet at a time so that the returning flying bees did not get lost.
Hive 3 (In the foreground) is moved slowly to the new
enclosure
Our peace was short lived however as during May to July we hived no less than five swarms from either our garden, our neighbours or even far away across York. One swarm even returned to the spot where we had removed hive 3!
Hiving one of the many swarms
All this additional work had prompted dad to start beekeeping classes so our team was now three members. John, Paul & Dad.
The team is now three
By the end of the year we had six colonies in our back garden. Our three
main hives and three swarm boxes. Quite an increase.