Most
of the hives are the National Hive, the most popular hive used
in this area, big enough to accommodate our bees and yet small
enough to handle.
Our Beehives are located here in The East Midlands of England,
at our main apiaries at Charnwood Forest in Leicestershire, Derby
City, South East Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and in the Peak District
in North Derbyshire.
We have up to 50 colonies, with a total of about 2,500,000 bees
supplying the best award winning local honey for our customers.
See photos
from one of our apiaries...click here
The area around the bees is good for foraging with a good spring
build up of early flowers such as Snowdrops, Crocus, Dandelion,
Willow, Hazel, Sycamore, Horse Chestnut and Tree Fruit Blossom.
When the surrounding fields turn yellow towards the end of April
there is good flow of Oil Seed Rape producing a good yield. This
honey is then extracted and the bees continue to fill the replacement
empty honey supers with the summer honey of Clover, Lime, Field
Bean, Soft Fruit Blossom, Rose Bay Willow Herb, Bramble to name
just a few of the plants surrounding the hives, followed by a
visit to the Borage Fields at the end of June.
When the main honey flow is nearly over towards the end of July,
the strong colonies with plenty of young foraging bees are cleared
down to empty honey supers again and prepared with travel screens
and straps and taken to the Peak District in Derbyshire where
they are put in an area surrounded by 100's of acres of heather
just coming out.
In August the Derbyshire hills are turned into a colourful purple
when the bees and the grouse share the Ling Heather together.
The Heather honey has to be pressed out because it will not extract
in the usual way due to its viscosity being to thick.
This takes a lot of effort but it is well worth it because of
the best quality honey appreciated by the customers at The Honey
Pot.
To
see more photos from our apiary in the Peak District... click
here
Borage is being grown by some farmers to produce a special seed
used in the medical world, it contains an essential fatty acid
called GLA (Gamma Linoleic Acid).
By taking our hives to his crops it can increase his yield by
25%, in return for our effort we get a watery clear honey that
is popular with children and adults alike. This crop comes in
to flower early July and the fields can be seen more to the East
of England
Bee gathering nectar, for more about the trip to the, Borage...click
here
And finally, when we do the large shows we often take our observation
hive along to show the public what goes on inside a normal beehive.
The bees are allowed to fly while at the shows through the tube
leading to the outside. We make sure that we bring them all home
again safely by putting a one way bee valve between the entrance
of the hive and the tube about one hour before we are to leave.
This allows all of the flying bees to return and stops any more
from leaving. Some times we stay over night and close them up
when the last bee has returned.
For
information and more photos of our observation beehive...click
here
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