Rentahive honey page

Rentahive honey page I will try and upload photos and give a diary of my bee exploits here.

I'm hoping to share this with my rentahive clients so that we can swop observations, experiences and recipes, plus of course anyone else who shows an interest.

I always love to see a chart this suggests the colour of honey depending on the forage gathered. Of course the honey ext...
18/06/2026

I always love to see a chart this suggests the colour of honey depending on the forage gathered. Of course the honey extracted is mixed so it is like looking at pure pigments before mixing which is what would happen.

Finally we visited Beckley, which for those that follow is a bit of a conundrum. One hive has the superseder cells that ...
10/06/2026

Finally we visited Beckley, which for those that follow is a bit of a conundrum. One hive has the superseder cells that I showed in a previous post, well all those cells have been torn down...does that mean she has hatched and they have cleared the rest away, theoretically, yes, but my bees don't read beekeeping books! Anyway I so hope so xx Meanwhile the other hive has a laying worker, I think, which means drone brood, it sort of looks like worker brood though...foof I'm not sure here either, they've got me here! Oh well next visit armed with a mated Queen should bring some clarity, ha ha

The next hive to be placed and re-housed was at Brenchley..as I took the frames out of the brood there were beautiful sl...
10/06/2026

The next hive to be placed and re-housed was at Brenchley..as I took the frames out of the brood there were beautiful slabs of capped brood..all ready to hatch out in their new home. I include a pic of the poly hive that we took them over in to show you how we close the entrance, may not look professional but it works. The Poly hives have a mesh bottom so the bees can still breathe this colony was transferred into a clean wooden hive. It was a blustery day so they weren't too lively which helped. The old hive was put in the car to take home and freeze and clean. That in itself is a big job.

So with a nucleus of bees and two poly brood boxes of bees we set off early. I had to block them inside last night as th...
10/06/2026

So with a nucleus of bees and two poly brood boxes of bees we set off early. I had to block them inside last night as they would have started to come out in the car! Plus wrap a couple of bungees around the box! First stop was T.Wells, removed the bees from nucleus and slid them into a clean new hive with a "wet" super ontop (has remains of honey from spinning it off last year) so they have food. Saw the Queen as they went in, always re-assuring and put the roof on whereupon they came out and started orienteering so they knew where their new home is.

08/06/2026

EVERYONE...please if you see my Rentahive posts and enjoy them could you possibly tick the like box as then I know all this effort of posting is worth it?!?! thanks to all clients and lookers ###

Our final visit was to Hadlow Down where we were eager to meet our new clients, and they were in!!! Anyway we looked in ...
08/06/2026

Our final visit was to Hadlow Down where we were eager to meet our new clients, and they were in!!! Anyway we looked in the supers up top and found busy bees in them not so packed they needed more supers though. We inspected both floors and cleaned them off, they both showed signs of recent scoffing...ie all the clean new cappings on the floors reflecting the lines of the frames as you can see in the photo and most unusually we took time out and had a cup of tea with our new clients giving them a small insight into beekeeping.

Crowborough was next, we had taken a nucleus of bees to put in an empty hive we had there and found that a swarm had mov...
08/06/2026

Crowborough was next, we had taken a nucleus of bees to put in an empty hive we had there and found that a swarm had moved in...thankyou very much...bees attract bees! BUT...Hive no 1 was empty, eh~??? oh well we can put the new colony in there so now their apiary is up to speed and has 4 working colonies.

The next day was still gloomy and soggy but off we went, first stop the Wadhurst Apiary...We could see that someone had ...
08/06/2026

The next day was still gloomy and soggy but off we went, first stop the Wadhurst Apiary...We could see that someone had swarmed from hive 3 as the floor when taken out was full of cappings. The bees scoff a load of honey before swarming as it keeps them going once they are out and the state of the floor reflects this. We have developed plasticated easy clean floors at Rentahive so we can clean every time and see what they have been up to! see the pic below..

Chick Hill was next..No1 was inspected a small colony but BIAS..(Brood In All Stages) so it has recovered and has a new ...
08/06/2026

Chick Hill was next..No1 was inspected a small colony but BIAS..(Brood In All Stages) so it has recovered and has a new queen inside..good. No 2 loads of drones and few workers SO..a new Queen here will be put inside in a few weeks after a final check to see whether there is a new laying Queen.

It was still a rainy day when we got to Winchelsea Beach where we could see they were still filling out their supers. We...
08/06/2026

It was still a rainy day when we got to Winchelsea Beach where we could see they were still filling out their supers. We cleaned their floors and left them to it.

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