Urban Bees – hive space page might help!

More Than Honey [DVD] – £9.83 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery

More Than Honey [DVD]

SYNOPSIS Einstein once said: "If bees ever die out, mankind will have only
four years left to live". In the past five years, billions of honeybees simply
vanished for reasons still obscure. If the bees keep dying, it will have drastic
effects for humans as well: more than one third of our food production depends
on pollination by honeybees and their life and death are linked to ours.

Life without the bee is unthinkable. But, between pesticides, antibiotics and
monoculture, the queens and their workers are losing their power.

MORE THAN HONEY, a new documentary by the Swiss filmmaker Marcus Imhoof, is
looking into the fascinating world of bees, showing small family beekeepers
(including the beekeeper of ERSTE Foundation beehive, Heidrun Singer) and industrialized
honey farms. MORE THAN HONEY is a film about the relationship between mankind
and honeybees, about nature and about our future. Honeybees show us that stability
is just as unhealthy as unlimited growth, that crises and disasters are triggering
evolution

EXTRAS
Interview with Director Markus Imhoof
Deleted Scenes
Making of Featurette
Original Theatrical Trailer
UK Theatrical Trailer
Two versions of the film (one in the original language and one featuring a narration
by John Hurt)
Booklet (featuring an interview with Markus Imhoof & the Friends of the
Earth ’20 things you need to know about bees’)

Finally had some success with nasturtians – must have been that old packet of seed that just didn’t germinate last year.

If you need to know when you should have a queen laying you need this calculator

– Alter the numbers in the url.

The url given is for Queen Rearing Calendar for 5/17/2013

A lovely blog by a beekeeper called Notes from a small apiary

Swarm Traps and Bait Hives: The easy way to get bees for free.

Swarm Traps and Bait Hives: The easy way to get bees for free.

The author has a great youtube channel

Build Your Own Beekeeping Equipment by Tony Pisano – Build Your Own Beekeeping Equipment offers 35 building projects for everything from hive components to frames to swarm catchers

Build Your Own Beekeeping Equipment

A fun wordsearch for Bee related words!

Find the following words

BEE
HONEY
FRAME
BROOD
COMB
FOUNDATION
POLLINATOR
HIVE
QUEEN
WORKER
DRONE
WAX

Help bumblebees with these fantastic ideas from Crocus.
Bees have had a horrible year last year and the cold late spring this year isn’t going to help matters.

Bee and insect house £12.99
This bee and insect house can be free-standing or can be hung from a wall in full view from your garden. This powder-coated green combined bee design of the roof makes it an attractive addition to any garden. Dimensions: Height: 17cm

Bee nesting box with zinc roof £9.99
Encouraging Red Mason bees into the garden with a nesting box should help you get bumper crops of fruit and vegetables. This novel nesting box has a galvanized metal pitched roof and is packed with pieces of bamboo that provide the ideal nesting site. Made from FSC wood. The ‘solitary’ bee species that use these nests won’t swarm and the females will only sting if very roughly handled – the males cannot sting at all. Try to position your nesting box so that it gets lots of sun and angle it slightly so the water will not soak into the nesting holes every time it rains. You can attach it to a tree, fence or post (it is shown with an optional shepherds hook, which is available separately) close to a flowerbed or anywhere you think a bee might like to forage. Size: 15cm wide x 12cm deep x 20.5cm high

Beepol bumblebee lodge including the hive of Bees £129.99
The Beepol Bumblebee Lodge provides an attractive, long lasting, safe and secure home for the Beepol Bumblebee Garden hive. Based on traditional bee hive designs, the Beepol Lodge has been hand crafted in the UK from durable timber grown on FSC plantations. Bumblebee colonies do not continue through the winter in the same way as honeybees do, so each year a fresh new Beepol garden hive can be purchased and placed within the lodge, ensuring every summer you can enjoy the sight and sounds of British Bumblebees hard at work in your garden. The Beepol Lodge contains one Beepol garden hive, which can be replaced with a new one when the hive comes to the end of its life and the new queen bumblebees have dispersed. The Beepol Lodge has a hinged roof for access and for viewing the Bumblebee colony within. The Beepol Lodge has exit and entrance holes designed for the particular size and shape of Bumblebees and even a landing landing ledge for them to rest on, as they come back to to the hive with heavy loads of pollen. The Beepol Lodge incorporates wooden legs to keep the hive off the ground. The Beepol Lodge also has an option for attaching a mini wildlife camera, so you can see your bees at work from the comfort of your home! The Beepol Lodge is the ultimate wildlife feature for your garden, providing a fascinating permanent place of residence for your very own Bumblebee colony every summer. Information on the Beepol Garden Hive of Bees that is included with this Bumblebee Lodge

Beepol garden hive of bees £69.99
Enjoy the sight and sound of native bumblebees at work in your garden with the Beepol garden hive. Pollination is as important to gardeners as it is to farmers and growers, without it fruit and pod vegetables do not set and yields are reduced. Bees are probably the most important pollinating insect and their recent decline in numbers has been widely reported. Planting bee friendly plants will help attract many different bee species to your garden but now gardeners can introduce their own bumblebee colonies with Beepol! Beepol is a live colony of bumblebees Housed and supplied in a maintenance free hive Each hive contains a queen bumblebee, 30-40 workers (the workers will breed to give a few hundred workers) and bee food to get them started Beepol bumblebees are a native UK species Reared in disease free, hygienic conditions for release into British gardens and wildlife areas Each colony has a viewing panel under the lid for observation of the bees Bumblebees are released by an easy to use trap door system Beepol hives incorporate a “bee home” system that allows bees back into the hive and holds them for later release if needed Beepol bumblebees will pollinate a wide variety of plants outdoors including fruit and some vegetable plants. They also help maximise yields from greenhouse grown plants like tomatoes, peppers and aubergines. The Beepol hive has been designed to educate as well as pollinate! A clear viewing panel in the lid allows observation of the colony it develops, whilst the exit and entrance system enable you to watch the bees at work, as they bring pollen back to the hive. Bumblebee colonies do not continue like honeybee hives, so Beepol hives have a limited lifespan and will need replacing. However before the queen bee dies; she produces young queens that will leave the hive to hibernate before establishing fresh new colonies in the spring. Introducing BEEPOL bees to your garden will help reward the fruits of your labour through pollination and add a fascinating new area of interest to be enjoyed by all.

Keeping Honey Bees and Swarm Trapping

Keeping Honey Bees and Swarm Trapping

Swarm trapping is another aspect to free bees that entails catching that runaway swarm even when I’m not around and in places I can’t always be. I’ve had my share of experiences where the swarm departed for some unknown destination, and then I’ve wondered about the swarms that come out of bee trees in remote areas where no human being was able to discover them and call me. And what about the swarms that people find but they don’t know who to call? Eventually those swarms will leave for a hollow tree or somebody’s garden shed. How can I get those swarms I don’t even know about?