Natural Beekeeping in West Wales

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Natural Beekeeping in West Wales
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hedgerow.crafts

Joined: 21 Jun 2010
Posts: 22

Posted: Wed Mar 23, 11 8:09 pm Post subject: Natural Beekeeping in West Wales

Hi. We are planning on getting our first bees this year and want to use Warre hives. The only beekeepers I have had contact with locally so far are using National hives. Lots of offers of help, but not with top bar hives! I had a fantastic day today looking in a hive with a local keeper, but I really want to try Natural Beekeeping.

Is there anyone keeping bees in Warre hives near Drefach Felindre / Newcastle Emlyn who might be up for offering a bit of moral support to a complete beginner?

mochasidamo

Joined: 22 Sep 2005
Posts: 615
Location: Montgomery

Posted: Thu Mar 24, 11 4:43 pm Post subject:

Hmm...there's a well-respected very experienced Warre beekeeper on the N Wales coast...not sure if he does courses, a Warre hive (maybe 2?) in the Montgomery Beekeepers' training apiary near us.

...You'd be very welcome to join my network (see my sig) and ask there although most have horizontal top bar hives not Warre. Be interesting to hear why you want to go that route.

Also there's the Biobees forum..worth a post or two in there.

It's proving to be an odd season so far, I've so far had a request from an Irish beginner wanting bees for a Warre (we're in mid-Wales!) and for 100 Caucasian queens....um, right, maybe a few blacks later in the season, but...

Good luck

hedgerow.crafts

Joined: 21 Jun 2010
Posts: 22

Posted: Thu Mar 24, 11 8:00 pm Post subject:

I was inspired by reading the Bee-friendly Beekeeper by David Heaf, which I think is the beekeeper in N wales you were refering to. I have since read the translation of Warre's The People Hive, as well as several books on beekeeping with framed hives. The Warre ideas seem to fit in with our general philosophy and the way we run other aspects of our small holding.

So I would like to give it a try, but as I said, so far I have only spoken to beekeepers using National hives, some of whom are very skeptical about Warres to say the least! I would like to have a chat with someone succesfully using Warre hives to get a bit of confidence, especially with setting up. I will try some of the other forums. By the way, I can't see the link to your forum - maybe because I am using a Blackberry?

Thanks for your help!

gil
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 18415

Posted: Thu Mar 24, 11 11:25 pm Post subject:
Doesn;t Tavascarow have Warres ? He's in Cornwall, though. ETA : have you had a look at the Sticky at the top of the Apiary forum, 'videos on top-bar beekeeping' ? Or are you really wanting a real-life bee-keeping 'mentor' in your area ?

Tavascarow

Joined: 06 Aug 2006
Posts: 8407
Location: South Cornwall

Posted: Fri Mar 25, 11 4:08 am Post subject:

gil wrote:

Doesn;t Tavascarow have Warres ? He's in Cornwall, though.

ETA : have you had a look at the Sticky at the top of the Apiary forum, 'videos on top-bar beekeeping' ?

Or are you really wanting a real-life bee-keeping 'mentor' in your area ?

No.
I'm in the process of converting to horizontal top bar hives & experimenting with running conventional national & commercial hives with top bars instead of frames (in a Warre style/method) but no Warres.
There is a dedicated Warre beekeeping
Yahoo group besides the Natural Beekeeping forum.
Finding a mentor is the hardest part, but will hopefully get easier, as these alternative beekeeping methods become more popular.

My advice would be to go it alone or recruit others to the cause & learn together, & not be afraid to ask questions online.

hedgerow.crafts

Joined: 21 Jun 2010
Posts: 22

Posted: Fri Mar 25, 11 6:38 am Post subject:
I was ideally looking for a real-life mentor. Given the amount of low impact happenings in this bit of Wales, I thought there was a chance there might be someone using Warre or similar around here! I have joined the yahoo group and will look at the other forum - then probably just go for it!

mochasidamo

Joined: 22 Sep 2005
Posts: 615
Location: Montgomery

Posted: Sat Mar 26, 11 10:49 am Post subject:

https://beekeeper.webs.com is our small-but-growing forum. You don't see sigs if you view as a guest.

I'm not sure about philosophy when it comes to beekeeping...eg. Steiner's beekeeping theories are so off from the reality of how a colony naturally works as to be embarrassing. If you get low-swarming non-aggressive locally-adapted bees to start with and your local drones are similar then you are off to a very lucky start.

The issue that seems to worry many about leave-alone Warre systems is the monitoring for brood diseases, varroa and no doubt small hive beetle soon. And who knows what after that

htbh can be operated similarly "hands off" and with an inspection window you could monitor quite well without even lifting the lid. There are also quite a lot of beekeepers who can offer some help on these hives (including Tavarascow and me). There are also loads of videos around and when you do look inside a tbh especially if you use inspection cloths the bees need hardly know you are there. Any system that uses vertical boxes is less manageable in that respect and squashing bees does upset them.

The bees like the htbh system. We have commercials too which we are moving to foundationless (yes, bees do take time to learn this), the bees are the same but those in the tbh more laid back in general and a puff of sugar or peppermint water depending on the time of year is all that's usually needed.

Mary-Jane

Joined: 13 Jan 2005
Posts: 18397
Location: The Fishing Strumpet is from Ceredigion in West Wales

Posted: Sat Mar 26, 11 12:32 pm Post subject:
There is a group locally to you/me/us h.c but I can't find the details of it at the mo. If you can give me a few days I'll try and dig them out. I don't think they do on-line stuff. I went on one of their basic day-long courses ages ago - it wasn't that far away. Now our scaffolding has finally been taken down, I'm hoping to get bees myself this year. Perhaps we could start our own group?

Cathryn

Joined: 16 Jul 2005
Posts: 19856
Location: Ceredigion

Posted: Sat Mar 26, 11 12:48 pm Post subject:
I'd be up for this. Trouble is you are not that local though.

earthsoul

Joined: 10 Feb 2011
Posts: 320
Location: Ceredigion West Wales

Posted: Sat Mar 26, 11 7:06 pm Post subject:
I am also interested and I am very local.......will pm you

georginasj

Joined: 09 Oct 2017
Posts: 3

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 17 2:05 pm Post subject:
I know this is a very old post but its the closest to what I am looking for. I have just done a warre bee keeping course and am hoping to start keeping bees in this way next year. And I would love to have a local mentor. I am on the west coast of Wales, between Aberaeron and Aberystwyth. Is there anyone nearby who can help me? Thank you!

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 46247
Location: yes

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 17 6:22 pm Post subject:
hi and welcome , i cant help with the bee stuff but i think we still have beeks out west.

sean
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 28 Oct 2004
Posts: 42219
Location: North Devon

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 17 9:25 pm Post subject:
I've got jamanda to prod Cathryn who lives round there. Apparently she'll drop in on Friday and enlighten you. Welcome aboard.

georginasj

Joined: 09 Oct 2017
Posts: 3

Posted: Thu Oct 12, 17 11:59 am Post subject:

sean wrote:

I've got jamanda to prod Cathryn who lives round there. Apparently she'll drop in on Friday and enlighten you.

Welcome aboard.

Thank you! That is great

Cathryn

Joined: 16 Jul 2005
Posts: 19856
Location: Ceredigion

Posted: Tue Oct 24, 17 4:41 am Post subject:

Sorry, I was poked about this when I was away so it slipped my mind. There is a local Beekeeping Association that meets regularly in Aberystwyth. A very friendly and informed group of people who are always happy to mentor and help people get going. I haven't been for a year (Bees died this Spring.

) but there was someone with Warre's and some with topbars including me.

https://aberbees.co.uk/cms/

I will probably rejoin soon, see you there!

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