BT41 Honey

17/06/2026

Tune in if you can folks x👍🐝

We're delighted to share that Galtee Honey Farm will feature on Nationwide on RTÉ One this Friday, 12th June, 7pm.

Join us as we explore the story of the Native Irish Honey Bee, the tradition of beekeeping in Ireland, and the special connection between bees, honey, heritage and biodiversity.

A huge thank you to the Nationwide team especially Tomás Ó Mainín for visiting us here on the farm.

We'd love if you tuned in and let us know what you think!

07/06/2026

Great day had yesterday - more learning with more pics of the day 👍🐝.

06/06/2026

Brought one of the wee girls in as she was cold and wet on the water bowl. She’s now dried out and had a wee feed and back in the hive 👍🐝

06/06/2026

Randbka Summer School 2026 at Shane’s Castle today with Jonathan Getty, 3rd generation beekeeper, sharing his knowledge with us in all things queen rearing. Here we are filling the apideas with virgin queens and a cupful of bees that will start off another beautiful wee colony that with expand into a nuc and onward to a new hive. Great day folks 👍🐝

30/05/2026

Unbelievable!

30/05/2026

Topping up the feeder in one of the apideas last night. Crucial if this tiny colony is to survive as too small to be left alone and they are still drawing comb for the queen to lay in 👍🐝

29/05/2026

So bit of a party going on at BT41 Honey this afternoon. Just found this wee fella on the deck and looks like he has been on a mating flight! The thing with honeybee mating flights is that when the drone mates with the queen he will ej*****te and at the point of extraction the p***s is ripped from his body and he falls to the ground! What more can I say other than I hope it was one of my queens he was mating! 😳🙈🤪👍

25/05/2026

Today all over NI 🤪😳🤣👍🐝

25/05/2026

Hey folks. It’s been a busy couple of weeks at BT41 Honey. I was at Galway uni 2 Saturdays ago learning about the genetic side of Apis Mellifera Mellifera (our native Irish honeybee). We prepared samples for analysis and these have been sent to beebytes in Scotland so eagerly awaiting the results of that.
Since then we have started our Queen Rearing sessions at the association where we graft the larvae at the earliest point possible. This would be day 4 when the larvae is ideally only 0.7 mm. Not as easy as you’d think but we’ve had a little success so far and been able to pop them into the incubator to emerge. Once emerged they are marked and put into a small mating hive called an apidea where the queen will go on the lay and expand her wee colony. Fingers crossed folks