FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

I get asked a few questions about beekeeping and the blog so I thought I'd post a Frequently Asked Questions page on here.

Beekeeping questions

Q. Can I learn to keep bees by reading your blog?
A. Not if you're hoping to keep living ones for much more than a week. If you're thinking of keeping bees and my blog hasn't put you off yet then I suggest you contact your local beekeeping association and see if they do some kind of taster/introductory courses. The BBKA has a list of contacts to help you find your local association here: http://www.bbka.org.uk/about/local_associations/find_an_association.php. I'd also suggest you read a couple of books specifically Get Started In Beekeeping and Bees at the Bottom of the Garden.

Q. Do you ever get stung?
A. Yup. Been stung in the head, been stung in the foot, been stung most places between.

Q. Doesn't that hurt?
A. Yup, but the itching that follows is worse.

Q. Why do you keep bees?
A. Same reason I do most things really. Because I like a challenge, and it's interesting to learn new things. If you never venture out of your comfort zone you're missing out on whole worlds of experience and scope for acheivement.

Q. Is it actually legal to keep bees in a city?
A. It's certainly legal to keep bees on your own property in England. A bigger concern is probably the smoker as, I believe, a lot the nation's urban areas are designated 'smoke free' zones, however lots of people, my neighbours and myself included, breach that with impunity by using BBQs and chimineas. Just a case of using your head and not firing up the smoker when next door just hung out their washing.
In allotments there's different rules depending on your individual association.

Q. Why do you use Commercial sized brood boxes instead of National?
A. It was an accident really. Got my first hive hardware via fleabay I'd thought I was buying nationals and the seller apparently didn't know much about what he was selling either. What I got was a hive with a commercial brood box and two national brood boxes being used as supers. Once I realised I decided to stick with commercials anyway as Nationals seem to be a bit on the small side hence some beekeepers using brood and a half or the deeper 12x14 brood boxes. Eventually I sold the nationals I'd got and most of the framesides they'ed contained.

Q. Why don't you use top bar hives?
A. Because my local association initially showed me beekeeping with National Hives, also these modular box type hive have a smaller footprint than top bar hives making them better suited for the space I have available.

Q. Why don't you use Warré hives?
A. As above, also I gather the Warré protocol includes removeable frames now anyway. Whilst I've heard various pros and cons for the smaller boxes used by Warré one of the cons seems to be swarmier bees which may be fine out in the countryside but in a populated urban environment would be rather unwise.

Q. Where do you sell your honey?
A. Well the first harvest I just gave away. The second harvest was relatively small so I just told people I had honey for sale, based on that half of it was snapped up by friends, colleagues and relatives the other half I sold via a local shop.

The Blog

Q. There's typing errors in your blog. Don't you proof read your posts?
A. Nope. Too busy. People to do and things to see. A few errors slip through, sometimes I go back and correct them but on the whole I don't lose much sleep over them -and neither should you :)

Q. What camera do you use?
A. I just use the camera on my phone. I started the blog with an LG Arena KM900 which actually had a pretty sweet camera, then upgraded to an HTC Wildfire and currently use an HTC Desire S.

Q. Do you edit your images?
A. I often crop and scale photos, with drawings I usually edit the colours, brightness, contrast and whatever. I do all that with the same software I've used for label design, GIMP for Windows. It's a an excellent piece of free software.

Q. I hear Beekeepers call themselves 'Beeks'. Why don't you use the term?
A. Because it sounds stupid and more like the thing you'd find at the sharp end of a sparrow.

Me

Q. Do you do anything other than beekeeping?
A. No. Beekeepers are all too far busy beekeeping and blogging to do anything else at all ever..
Actually that may not be entirely true. Aside from having a proper job and a rather hectic social life I'm also a keen martial artist, swimmer, and runner, I listen to music (mostly punk and psychobilly), play a ukulele, keep chickens, I occassionally draw, paint, sculpt, I'm a passable cook, I have been known to mess about with fire and computers too -not at the same time tho! I also find time for a day job.

Q. Have you thought about writing a book?
A. Are you thinking of making me an offer..?