Good morning, it’s a fine Saturday morning here in Oxfordshire UK. I am having breakfast. It’s 10.30, I have done Parkrun, and just to keep it relevant, I saw a runner rescue a bee before it was trampled on by 300 of Bicester’s best.
My breakfast is, as I haven’t finished yet, white bread, homemade of course, with my honey on it, whilst the toaster did it’s bit on 2 slices and the egg poacher bubbled away cooking 2 eggs (soft centred, firm white), brown, layed by our chickens. The chickens are relevant because they have often been cohabiting part of the garden that I also keep my swarms in. You may think that’s not ideal but the swarms seem to love it, that why I leave a hive there.
I don’t have any problems with the neighbours, I have told them that my bees are individually numbered so if they have a problem just bring one to me and I will see if it’s mine. But my swarm girls are good and they don’t bother anyone. That’s because they will have swarmed from a chimney in the village so my hive complete will filled feeder will be luxury for them. After a few days they are relocated.
The particular honey I am eating this breakfast time is that which came from the decapping process that took place last weekend. It was very gently heated to separate wax and honey. I was delighted to get 6 jars. I think I get extra taste off the wax, can’t be sure as very little difference in colour but I think taste is stronger. My total take from 3.5 national supers was just under 60 x1lb jars.I add this because whilst I am going to be a flow man, it’s not happened in time for this year. But I am not a barbarian and I look forward to total conversion next year. I am modernity at its best and was disappointed to read about Martha and Facebook.
After breakfast it’s beehive visit time. Take off the now cleaned supers, put back the rapid feeders and fill with sugar syrup. I am only a 2 hives man now but next year it’s back to six. So I hope to justify volume discount on 5 national flow supers. All my kit is national. I think my hopes are optimistic. But our UK flow ambassador is a very pleasant guy.
So what are you guys having for breakfast and what will you do afterwards.
Your description of breakfast and your hive/chicken setup both sound idyllic. You may be interested to know that quite a number of beekeepers on this forum keep chickens and bees, including @Eva, @Webclan and I think @Anon, among many others. Chickens are excellent at cleaning up dead and dying bees, which has to be a plus.
Just a cup of tea (PG Tips) followed by a glass of orange juice (freshly squeezed from our tree of navel oranges) for breakfast here. Later today I am labeling up jars of honey and boxes of comb honey for sale at our local Community Garden next weekend. Got about 20lb from one 8-frame Langstroth super on a traditional hive - much the same as you. Unfortunately our Flow hive got poisoned with insecticide, and they hadn’t finished capping the honey, so we are going to have to discard it rather than eat poisoned unripe honey.
Then I am going to reclaim my kitchen from the sticky mess that traditional honey extraction involves!
We have around 35 bantams. Locked up at night and free range during the day. They will get into everything. Examples: smashed jar of tiny screws on shed floor when checking places to lay. Nest in a spare brood box sitting on shelf in the “Bee house”. Havoc in the shade house looking for bugs. But wouldn’t have it any other way.
They clean up dead bees, control pests around fruit trees provide eggs a plenty for the neighbourhood, recycle food waste and give us enjoyment.
You have missed nothing. Honey from cappings in a honey hive pot complete with stick. Chicken eggs unless you are a restaurateur then it’s hens eggs, Dawns home grown oranges squished freshly for breakfast on a 30 year old Sainsbury’s juicer and busso who with good humour and much delight was disappointed that Dawn was not 30 years old.
Unfortunately no Flow harvest @Martha. Some basket case in our neighborhood sprayed insecticide before the Flow super could get capped. Most of the hive is dead, and I am discarding the uncapped honey because of likely contamination with the chemicals.
My harvest was from a couple of Traditional Langstroths. Very sticky and not as civilized as a Flow harvest.
