Planbee Homepage
Welcome to our little piece of local honey bee heaven.
Our attempt to help the humble but amazing honey bee.
A day doesn’t go past where we don’t hear gloom and doom stories about the negative influence that humans are having on the planet, from global warming to plastics, pollution, overpopulation, and so on. It can be overwhelming and it’s easy to think the problem is too big for individual efforts to make any difference.
Well along with others cutting and recycling the plastic waste we are taking a hobby of beekeeping to the next level by helping to house honey bee swarms that can frighten some people and not knowing what to do they panic and call a pest control company. The result is often a massive loss to the bee population. A population us as human beings are totally reliable on the pollinate our flowers but more importantly our food crops.
We hope this small effort will help the bees which amaze us and are such a vital cog in the wheel of life on planet earth.
Interested in helping our honey bees?
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For those who love facts or who just like bees, here's one to think about when you are putting honey on your toast in the morning. It takes about 55 - 60 worker bees to produce 1 teaspoon of honey over their entire lifetime!! That's not to say don't enjoy honey - it is so good for you but just value it and don't waste it!!
So that means it takes nearly 30,000 to produce 1 standard jar of honey!
Its been nice to get people asking questions about our bees. Little facts which aren't common knowledge. This time of year is another surprising event. As the weather changes the bees (mainly female) are planning for their winter hibernation. Part of the planning is to get rid of the larger/ un productive/ large eaters - namely the male drone bees. So the much smaller females drag the much larger drones out of the hive and kill everyone!!! Real life Game Of Thrones!!!!
Our website is www.planbee.uk
Honey bees frantically collecting all the resources they can over the last few fine days before the weather changes and winter draws closer.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9k0-ByNs-E
I have been asked recently about controlling wasps, particularly at this time of year. So here is what I use in my garden and near our bee hives.
I particularly like this design not just because it is quick, cheap and easy but its also effective and attracts wasps and not BEES.
Apologies to any wasp lovers
#Wasps, #wasptrap, #bees
The National Geographic was interviewing a "Bee expert" and was asked how high can bees fly??
“They’re capable of flying very, very high.”
Dillon and his team of researchers found that the bees they collected could fly at air pressure equivalents exceeding 24,275 feet (7,400 meters) above sea level, equivalent to some of the lower peaks in Nepal’s Annapurna mountain range. Two bumble bees were able to fly at more than 29,525 feet (9,000 meters)—higher than Mount Everest.
“We were shocked at how high they could fly,” Dillon from NG😮🐝 said.
So the other day I was checking our hives and noticed they were running really low on food supplies so we made a massive batch of sugar syrup to gives their stores a boost. During normal times we only get pestered by wasps after free food, the bees aren't usually interested. On this ocassion the bees were all over us obviously VERY hungry. We filled all our feeding jars and left them alone. I got out of my suit and went back to get the empty containers and noticed a few bees had got stuck in the scraps of sugar syrup. There were loads of wasps but I didn't just want to leave the sugar coated bees or they would have died. I got a scrapper which we sometimes use and gently put each bee at the entrance of a nearby hive. (Now usually every bee goes to their own hive, even though the hives look similar and close together they can tell which is their hive and the other bees know who their hive partners are) It was very unlikely I was putting the right bee on the edge of the right hivebut had to try. I was amazed to see other bees from the hive I put the sugar coated bees on coming out and cleaning up their fellow workers. They stoped what they were doing to help a fellow bee. Fabulous.
Sorry YES a wasp was injured during the rushed making of this clip
Bees returning every day for water.
Some people have bird tables to help nature and to sit and watch the birds come to feed. Well we have a "bee bowl"! It was left over from some fundraising "Fathers Day Gift Idea". Its a dish filled with stones that collects rainwater. (The rainwater part is important, bees don't like tap water - they would choose swamy water rather than our tap water) The stones are higher than the water level so the bees can land and not drownd. We have also added some small holes near the top of the dish so the water level doesn't get too deep. Also slightly OCD I have other containers around collecting rain water I can use to top up the dish.
Nice to sit nearby and watch them come and go all day, they may buzz close by but they aren't interested in stinging. They come back day after day time after time now they know that there is a regular supply of water even flying past nearer leaves with water droplets on. Its getting a little late in the season but give it a try and help our bees. Thanks Carl