Norfolk Honey - My bees

More about my bees

I often get asked what type of bees I keep

I have quite a diverse selection of of bees from different sources. Apart from the bees I have been keeping for the last 15 years I have also recently been buying bees from other East Anglian bee keepers and some of my bees come from the swarms that I have collected in and around Norwich over the years.

I bought a colony with a Greek Buckfast Cross queen a few years ago and still have one of her daughters in my Apiary (Tina). She is a good strong queen and I have bred several batches of queens from her in the last couple of years.

Most recently (2009) I bought a colony with a German Carniolian queen. So far I haven't raised any new queens from her eggs but I may do so in 2010.

In the last few year's I've bought a couple of hives of bees from Bill at the start of the season. I pick them from his apiary that is in a small wood hidden away in the Norfolk countryside. I have found that his bees like to get started early in the year, build up their stores quickly and then sit back and relax. It may just be me but I do think different strains of bee like making honey at different times of the year. Some just don't seem to get going until the autumn.

I bought some bees last year from Barry. They hated being moved from their site next to the oil seed rape field and once in my apiary nearly every one of the colonies re-queened. Barry said his stock was Buckfast originally.

I have some colonies that I bred last year from bees originally bought from Luke in Essex.

I have one colony that I bought from Paul last year that I hope to raise some queens from this year.

Some of the bees I bought from Norman I found built up fast but seemed prone to swarming. But maybe that was my bad management in not keeping a close enough eye on them.

The bees that I have been keeping for years that are the nicest tempered I'm told were originally Beckley bees. They are not especially easy to breed from but every year I do raise a few queens from them.

I have quite a few colonies of bees that now have ancestors unknown.They have formed my basic stock over the years and seem to be reasonably tough and survive the winter well, they are generally fairly good to handle and not too prone to swarming.

Of the older swarms that I have collected I continue to keep separate the lines from a UEA swarm and two Hellsdon swarms.

I have a couple of swarms from last year (2009) that have made it through this cold winter (2009/10) that I'm going to be keen to assess this year.

Whatever the pedigree of the stock originally all of the bees that have been mated in my Norfolk apiaries can be best described as Norfolk Mongrels.