Bee keeping/ hives/ production etc...

[Pearson]

So....

When i were a lad, my Grandad use to produce honey for the National trust for Scotland and when i was younger i would help him out quite a bit. Mostly involved driving round various 'Heather' based locations looking after and tending to the hives etc..

Now that he has passed and i live down Saff ;-) i really fancy giving it ago. A sort of urban bee keeping on a tiny scale, back yard bee keeping if you will. Enough to feed the family annually and some spare for friends.

Ie, i don't want a million Bees in my garden!

So, question to you lot: is there anyone else at it already? Got any tips etc....

(I remember most of the process but am also i bit grey on some of the more important aspects.....)

Help and advice sought!

[benjaminty]

I, too, love honey and use it often in cooking. It works well with dessert cheese, ice-cream or perfectly ripe, seasonal fruit. Unlike sugar, which has a much more one-dimensional flavour, honey is complex and lends subtle flavour-notes to dishes. We often use a honey called Brockwell Park Honey made by bee keeper Orlando Clarke, in Brixton

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/features/theres-a-buzz-in-the-air-about-uk-honey-446473.html

[Chick]

I keep bees. Its my first year and am waiting for the weather to improve and hoping they survived the winter. Give me a ring, will PM my number.

[Bellenden Belle]

The WalworthGarden Farm holds free courses in all aspects of beekeeping.

http://www.walworthgardenfarm.org.uk/taste-honey-beekeeping-course-details

[SteveT]

There is an apiarist in Ondine rd I tasted some of his produce and it is basically lime honey as you might expect, as most of the trees are limes.

I knew a guy in west London who kept a hive in his 10 foot by 20 foot garden and his neighbours all loathed him and what they felt was his selfish behaviour.

They believed he was inflicting something potentially more dangerous than a pitbull on them as they could not just lie in the sun in their own gardens.

[Michael Palaeologus]

To be fair, if my neighbours did something that stopped me using my back garden as I wished, I would be pretty pissed off.

That said, I suspect that many people would not know what the impact of next-door's bee hive would be likely to bee.

[PeckhamRose]

I went on the Walworth Garden Bee Keeping Course as mentioned above, last year. It was wonderful! And free!

Do google it and see if you can go along. City Bee Keepers are being actively encouraged as the city bees are doing better than their country cousins.

I live in a 3rd floor flat with too small a back balcony and I don't think my neighbours would approve if I kept bees, but if you applied for a Cleaner Greener Safer award you might be able to set up somewhere and make a professional go of it. I wish you well!

[Pearson]

Thanks for all your pointers above, all good and interesting.

Thanks also for PM's i will definitely get back to you on those.

Cheers.

As i mentioned earlier, i have some experience but it was a long time ago!

Need to brush up on my knowledge so I'll definitely give it a go.

I was researching smaller hives rather than the std as initially, i have no ambition to make kilos of honey.

Simply just to follow a season through test the water and of course taste the Dulwich Honey :)

Im not really sure how large a colony one could expect to get in an urban environment/concrete jungle?.

I shall keep you posted!

Thanks again for tips so far.

P/

[PeckhamRose]

There are plenty of city hives. One on a tower block in Brixton!

They don't have to be big at all.

[jimmy two times]

I got stung by a Bee yesterday.

?20 for a jar of Honey !

[Burbage]

Pearson Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> So, question to you lot: is there anyone else at

> it already? Got any tips etc....

> (I remember most of the process but am also i bit

> grey on some of the more important aspects.....)

>

> Help and advice sought!

There's fair number of beekeepers in and about ED. More soon, I'd reckon, given the co-ops' launched Plan Bee.

A good rule of thumb is a 20 foot clearance between the hive and places where neighbours are/might be, though this depends on neighbours. Levels of paranoia have subsided a little over the past decade, but there are still pockets of the community which foster astroturf lawns and the fond belief that gardens shouldn't have anything in them that the owner hasn't bought. It's also remarkably common for beekeepers to get blamed for everything from mosquito-bites to wasp-stings.

Walworth Garden Farm is a good place, and the London Beekeepers meet there (second Sunday of every month at 11am). Some of them are relatively outgoing and can be tempted to talk to outsiders, so it's worth going along if you're interested. Alternatively, the Kent Beekeepers Bromley Branch meet in Sydenham (see here).

Bees are kept at Brockwell Community Greenhouses (at the top of Brockwell Park between the tennis courts and the walled garden). In theory, the bees get demonstrated/inspected in the Presence of the Public every Sunday afternoon, but that's weather-dependent, so I they've not been up to much so far this year. But it might be a usefully commitment-free way of getting to see how a season works, and isn't too far away. There's also an observation hive at the Horniman, and, I think, hives at the Devonshire Road Nature Reserve in/near Forest Hill. I think they do talks and demonstrations from time to time, but I doubt they'll have got into gear yet, either.

A small hive may be suitable for temporarily housing swarms or raising queens, but wouldn't be sufficient for honeybees in this part of the world. A healthy colony will easily fill, and likely outgrow, a National Standard brood box during the season, and many of us have to run double-box hives, or bigger hives altogether. For that reason (and for swarm control, which is an important task in a built-up area) you'll probably need a full size hive plus at least one spare (which can be a smaller box), together with room to operate both. Although some keepers do house bees on balconies, they're usually temporary and more of a whimsical adjuncts to a proper apiary elsewhere. It depends on the balcony though. Flat roofs and terraces can be ideal in their own right, but they obviously need to be strong enough to bear the weight and, ideally, have some way of sheltering or securing the hive from the wind.

[ceribee]

Well I would love to buy some local honey if any of you guys are willing to sell the fruits of your labours?!

Not just that I love the stuff but my hayfever is so bad already and I've been told local honey help builds a tolerance.. I live in crystal palace so the nearer the better in terms of the pollens- or is Brixton the nearest that's commercially available?

Thanks!

PS I've just joined this forum so I hope this is the correct place to post this message (!)

[Andystar]

We got a honey sample at work on friday, to test out, the outer packaging proclaimed in broken english that this type of honey will give you super sexual powers, we had to refer it out to a specialist but, just in case the bold claims are true, i've asked for the pot back :)-D

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

Just noticed this on the Peckham Residents' Network:

Bee Keeping & Organic Gardening

Calling all amateur gardeners who want to grow food organically

MONDAY 19th APRIL at 7.30pm

Herne Tavern

2, Forest Hill Road, SE22

LOCAL BEES AND ORGANIC GARDENING

* a talk by a local beekeeper, and discussion of local bees!

* discussion about the future of the group.

So if you want to meet and share with other local organic gardeners this is a good chance to do so.

Arranged by South London Garden Organic, an off shoot of the organisation Garden Organic (aka Henry Doubleday Association)

Further information contact:

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk