My Beekeeping Diary
by Connie Rogers

27 December 2017
Here I helped my dad apply the winter varroa mite treatments to 3 of our hives. After we had
treated them, I gave each a packet of fondant to make sure they had enough food until the
flowers appeared.

17 February 2018
Disaster struck! One of our hives was knocked over. Daddy thought it was a badger. He put it
back together, but it was too cold to look inside.

18 March 2018
The snow was very pretty on our hives but dad said we need to keep the entrances free so the
bees can come and go. We used sticks to brush the snow out of the way.

25 March 18
The snow had now gone so me and daddy had a quick look at the tops of the frames. One hive we
put a feeder. We also checked to see if the bees were eating the fondant we had given them. I
also took a photo of a bee that was sat on the chicken wire – you can see the pollen she had
collected.

13 April 2018
This was our first proper inspections. The bees were coming on very well in this hive. There was
lots of brood. Hopefully we will get lots of honey!

22 April 2018
The small nuc box that the badger knocked over had lost her queen L Daddy said we could unite
them with one of the other hives to save the bees.

29 May 2018
The really strong hive had become very aggressive and its bees were stinging anyone who came
near. Daddy removed the queen, but they would not accept a new queen so he had to get rid of
them L . We did get 2 full supers of spring honey from them.

9 June 2018
In half term we extracted the spring honey. Here I am holding a frame from the super of lovely
capped honey. Daddy cut the wax cappings off and I spun the frames in the extractor.

9 June 2018
Later that day the phone rang and daddy said there was a swarm of bees! We went to a house
near the zoo and there was a big swarm of bees hanging in a tree. We shook it out into a box and
took it home. At home we placed a board in front of a hive and shook the bees out and watched
them walk into the hive. It took ages for all the bees to go in!

6 July & 3 August 2018
We gave a talk to the old people at St Monica’s care home where me and daddy keep 3 of our
hives. I wore my beesuit and the residents asked lots of questions. We also sold them some of
our jars of honey.

Link to My beekeeping diary by Connie Rogers