Hello everyone
How are you doing?
Marta and I hoe you are well and keeping busy through those difficult times. It has been very challenging period for us as well.
With the shop closed we have started doing free Edinburgh deliveries and your support and patience was awe inspiring. It was fun to reach out to our local customers and kept us moving and busy.
Our online community was very sportive as well. With all the delays and missing parcels, we could not ask for better and more understanding customers.
We hope that despite of those wee slip ups you will continue supporting our beekeeping efforts 😀
With that in mind here is a long awaited beekeeping update
After very fruitful rapeseed season in Longniddry we have moved our girls to 3 different sites for that amazing blossom honey.
First group went back to Haddington to continue our breeding program and to harvest Linden honey if weather will allow. The conditions so far were very nice and bees kept on bringing the honey from Colstoun Walled garden which is full of amazing flowers for them to forage on.
Alan who is the main gardener was working for the whole spring planting herbs, mint, lavender and many more for girls to munch on.
He is also responsible for veg garden at the estate as well so there is plenty carrots, potatoes, and tomatoes for them to pollinate.
We have not been wasting time either during the lock-down and saw wildflower seed bombs at the adjacent meadow , near the apiary
The results are spectacular and there more to come.
2nd group went to Falkland Stewardship to pollinate apples and local organic farm Pillars of Hercules. By far this is our best spot. The micro climate of this beautiful wee valley is just perfect. Compare to Haddington on average there 3-5C warmer weather here which allows for better nectar flow and more flying day for our girls. The Bio diversity is amazing as well. There is plenty of butter cups and clover allover the estate, plus the near by farm has an amazing veg garden and a nursery so bees thrive there to the point that we got a call out the swarm. Thanks to Robin, our host, who is keep an eye out for our girls we got there in time to collect them and move them to Haddington so their swarming “craving” will be satisfied.
Here is a picture of the swarm.
And here is a wee clip showing the Falkland apiary
If we are on a subject of the swarms we had another reason to celebrate.
We had our first ever swarm call out in Edinburgh. We have been contacted by Tollcross Shoping center in Edinburgh and asked to remove a swarm from their delivery bay. Not two weeks have passed and same happened again. The bees must like shoping as well 😀
Anyways now they are in Longniddry at our quarantine site as those are not our bees and we need to observe them for signs of any health problems such as mites and nosema.
After a month we will move them to Haddington to get them ready for winter as a swarmed colony will not make much more honey that season.
Here is a video showing first swarm collection.
The 3rd new site is in Eassie near Glamis Castle. We have been invited by Evan who has been our supporter for long time and hosted our bees at his heather moors last year. This year we are working with him at his farm pollinating peas, beans and potatoes but also hoping for some amazing linden and buckwheat honey. Evan, being star that he is, sew wildflower mix all spring long and soon enough all his biodiversity patches will bloom with amazing flowers.
Right now girls are munching on peas and beans, which if conditions are right, can give enough honey to extract but usually it is just a we trick for beekeepers to avoid foraging gap and not feed sugar to the bees.
Thank you for your time and support during this difficult times. We hope that you have found our wee bee updates informative and a bit helpful.
All the best
Andrew, Marta
Scary Terry & the bees
