Graig.wales

Graig.wales We have a smallholding nestled at the top of a hill in the Cambrian Mountains. Highlands, Pigs, Sheep

She is a 2025 queen with a blue spot. The health of the queen directly impacts the colony so it is good to see her on a ...
23/06/2026

She is a 2025 queen with a blue spot.

The health of the queen directly impacts the colony so it is good to see her on a frame looking well during the weekly inspection. If you don't see the queen but see eggs and brood in all stages that is a good second.

After a lot of clean up activity overnight order (as good as it gets without a queen) is restored
23/06/2026

After a lot of clean up activity overnight order (as good as it gets without a queen) is restored

We split our colony of bees into two hives last Sunday, ensuring the queen was in the original orange brood box in the n...
22/06/2026

We split our colony of bees into two hives last Sunday, ensuring the queen was in the original orange brood box in the new location with 60%ish of the bees (there is a natural drift of foragers back to original location when doing splits in same apiary). Today (day 8 ) we went into the green brood box and took down any queen cells. When a colony loses their queen they make new queens by feeding selected larvae royal jelly. When the young queens emerge they must fight to the death - there can be only one! Unfortunately, the victorious virgin queen needs to mate with several drones but with no other apiary near by this is unlikely to be successful and the colony would fail.

So today we had the unpleasant task of checking each frame of the green brood box (12) for queen cells and squishing them. A new mated queen will be added to the colony on Friday but in the meantime the green brood box colony will be hopelessly queen-less. This means they have no queen and do not have the resources to make a new queen. They are clearly not impressed with what we have done and in the absence of a queen will be disorganised and a lot less chilled.

You are probably wondering at this point why we split the colony. We have been taught that apart from caring for your bees by providing suitable accommodation, a beekeeper should ensure a colony has enough room for brood and enough stores. If they fill 80% of brood box they need more space and adding shallow boxes or supers gives them room for stores. If there is no room for expansion, the colony will swarm. Beekeeping is primarily about stopping swarming as far as possible.

Today we split our bee colony into two hives. Its a bit of a gamble as weather has been a bit wet/windy but we had 12 f...
14/06/2026

Today we split our bee colony into two hives. Its a bit of a gamble as weather has been a bit wet/windy but we had 12 frames of brood and stores and with the promise of drier/warmer weather ahead gone for it. We have 6 of those frames in a colony with our original 2025 (blue spot) queen in the orange deep box and the other 6 frames in a queen-less colony in the green deep box. In 8 days we will go into green box and take down all the emergency cells and at the end of that week install a 2026 (white spot) mated queen. *fingers crossed* the flow is good this week and both colonies forage and store. 🐝💐🌹🌸🌻

We can't rely on a walk away split as nearest apiary to us is over 6 miles away. So no guarantee any queens raised by the colony would be mated

🍯 What is “The Flow”?When the right flowers are blooming and the weather plays ball, something magical happens in the hi...
27/04/2026

🍯 What is “The Flow”?
When the right flowers are blooming and the weather plays ball, something magical happens in the hive. The bees kick into overdrive the hive's foragers coming and going in a frenzy, returning heavy with pollen and nectar, and drawing out fresh white wax foundation to store it all in. This is what beekeepers call the flow - nature’s window for honey production, and the moment the whole season builds towards.

Spring is here, the valley is waking up, and our first colony is in the flow 🐝 🌼

19/04/2026

Most activity we've seen this morning

Finally managed to move the bees Saturday afternoon and they seem happy in their new space (and now wind has died down a...
19/04/2026

Finally managed to move the bees Saturday afternoon and they seem happy in their new space (and now wind has died down and sun is out)

We have been waiting since Tuesday to move our bees from their winter nucleus hive to their summer hive (12 frame nation...
17/04/2026

We have been waiting since Tuesday to move our bees from their winter nucleus hive to their summer hive (12 frame national poly) but either the wind or the rain has stopped play. We need a calm dry day at least 15C, but the weather is not playing ball. We got as far as lighting the smoker and then a black cloud blew over

Address

Llanddewi-Brefi

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Graig.wales posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Graig.wales:

Shortcuts

Share

Category