Links
links to useful sites
https://secure.fera.defra.gov.uk/beebase/index.cfm
BeeBase is the National Bee Unit website. It is designed for beekeepers and supports Defra, WAG and Scotland’s Bee Health Programmes and the Healthy Bees Plan, which set out to protect and sustain our valuable national bee stocks.
This website provides a wide range of free information for beekeepers, to help keep their honey bees healthy.
Both new and experienced beekeepers will find this an extremely useful resource and sign up to BeeBase. Knowing the distribution of beekeepers and their apiaries across the country helps to effectively monitor and control the spread of serious honey bee pests and diseases, as well as provide up-to-date information in keeping bees healthy and productive. By telling us who you are you’ll be playing a very important part in helping to maintain and sustain honey bees for the future.
Britain’s leading beekeeping equipment supplier, you can order on line or browse through their full colour catalogue. Some of there popular items are available at The Honey Pot in the cash and carry beekeeping section.
The web site of the Derbyshire Beekeepers Association including the Burton on Trent branch, a thriving local beekeeping group with regular summer apiary meetings and monthly indoor meetings (home of The Bee Musketeers) with videos, talks, buffet and real ale. £1 will let you in, with a membership of more than 300.
This web site suffered a malfunction early this year, but thanks to the web master its come back to life even better than before.
http://www.beefarmers.co.uk/
Run by bee farmers for bee farmers. The only association to represent the interests of the commercial and semi-commercial bee keepers of the U.K. The Honey Pot is also member, it has proved to be well worth joining for the 40 plus hive beekeeper.
The Chesterfield and District Beekeepers Association is in North Derbyshire and borders our peak district here, this group of friendly beekeepers have a full and active programme and welcome people along to the various events throughout the year.
The Honey Pot continues to supply many of the members with equipment and the new and improved web site is well worth a visit
http://www.regallygracefulteleseminars.com/podcasts/80-bees-honey-and-the-sweetness-of-life.html
This web site has a podcast section where I was interviewed and asked questions about the bees, honey and beekeeping. The questions are interesting from a none beekeeper prospective. There is a short clip or the full article lasting for about an hour. So I hope you have time to listen to it.
The official monthly journal of the British Beekeepers Association and winners of Four Gold medals for journals on bees and beekeeping at Apimondia 2007.
Full of colourful articles and topical tips.
BIBBA is trying to find native and near native honeybees around the UK and Republic of Ireland. This is Project Discovery which is a survey of the location of honeybees that are close in racial characteristics to the native bee Apis mellifera mellifera. It is difficult to tell if your dark bees are the ones we are looking for as the colour can vary from brown to black, but physically the indigenous bees are generally large in body size with long abdominal overhairs. Their main noticeable behavioural characteristics are that they are thrifty, non-prolific and fly at low temperatures and in high winds. (Other characteristics come from selective breeding).
The web site of the British Beekeepers Association, this is full of beekeeping tips, news and articles. An active support board with lots of ideas. Most beekeeping matters answered quickly by its members. Also a complete list of all of the local beekeeping associations here in England.
http://www.sysonby.com/beecam
Bee Cam at Sysonby Knoll Hotel, Melton Mowbary in Leicestershire.
The owner is also a very keen beekeeper and has put an Observation Beehive in the Hotel and taken it one step further. He has a live web cam running 24 hours a day and has two cameras running, one at the entrance and the other showing the inside of the hive.
Click on the link above to see it working, you might have to wait a few moments for it to down load. It is also a very good hotel to stay at too.
Gavin at Sysonby Knoll Hotel also keeps about 10 hives near by and his local honey is for sale at The Hotel and also at “Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe” at Melton Mowbary Town centre.
Packed full of information about bees, beekeeping and honey, aimed at the just interesting, beginner and the more experienced beekeeper. Produced by Graham Law, a Leicestershire Beekeeper
I do hope you find this website useful, a book just doesn’t keep up to date compared to an information website so I chose not to publish a book and wrote this for you instead.
I wanted to answer all the things that I wanted to know about when I started keeping bees many years ago, and I hope it helps you with your first steps in the craft.
If you feel it has been of good benefit a small donation would be very gratefully received…
Hint: a half pint of beer cost me £1.65 
cheers !
Best wishes & happy beekeeping.
Graham
It is with great sadness that Dave passed away on the 21st February 2011, my self and all who knew him pass our deepest sympathy to his family.
His web site will continue thanks to the help of Roger Patterson
This web site is the encyclopedia of beekeeping with information, data and lots of links to beekeeping related web sites.
Also lots of DIY plans and designs for the beekeeper who prefers to make their own equipment.
http://www.honeyrecipes.org.uk/index.html
This web site is the idea of Roger Patterson, one of Britain’s leading beekeepers. It has a lot of pages to provide a source of recipes using honey that will appeal to both beekeepers and non-beekeepers worldwide. The site has been designed with simplicity in mind, and has been sought with guidance from a number of people on what format they would like. This site will be changing and developing frequently and the visitor is advised to check on a regular basis. Our policy is one of continuous improvement.
http://www.insectpix.net/index.htm
There are over 250 different species of Solitary Bees and the Shropshire Invertebrates Group have an interesting web site that has lots of photos and useful information about some of these bees.
http://www.bristolbeekeepers.org.uk/
There are many beekeeping web sites out there but few are as good is this one from The Bristol Beekeepers Association, its fresh new look and easy to navigate pages make it fun to use. but there’s lots of little gems in it such as an easy to use pollen guide, just click on the pollen logo on the right hand side of the main page index to open it up. Its even got sound effects.
LINKS to OTHER WEB SITES NOT ABOUT BEEKEEPING
http://lensweb.wordpress.com/
Long Eaton Natural History Society. Is my local Natural History group that I belong to and get to as many meetings as my beekeeping permits. This web site has had a total revamp by David Gell with lots of local information about anything natural history. There are lots of links to other local groups too
http://www.markeaton.info/index.html
The Honey Pot is in Derby’s number one park and this web site is packed full of interesting information about Markeaton Park and other parks and places in Derby, it combines Google Maps with other links such as You tube, there are some good videos of Markeaton Lady, Markeaton Parks narrow track steam train. Allow a few moments for the maps to fully down load to get the best information.
And what else is there to see and do at Markeaton Park while your there? (It will keep the family busy while your getting your beekeeping equipment) … click on the link below.