Mrs Hare & Son's Beekeeping Adventures

Mrs Hare & Son's Beekeeping Adventures We started Beekeeping in 2023 when a swarm settled in our school grounds. I called Mr C to come and collect them. Follow our adventures keeping Honey Bees

Since then he has been our Mentor Beek and we keep all our Bees together.

30/05/2026

The bees dont read the book!! This swarm moved into my bait hive at school at some point over the last 2 weeks. I have been waiting for the weather to cool down enough to move them, so at 5am I was down there closing up their entrance to move them to the Apiary before the kids come back to school next week. Got there at 8.30 to find they could squeeze under the entrance!!! We have had to leave a few behind and we taped the up to move them. The video is from Thursday as they were rushing in before the rain shower hit!! Cleaver and daft at the same time!

We were called out to some bees this afternoon in an unusual spot, to find it was actually just a couple of dozen bees i...
26/05/2026

We were called out to some bees this afternoon in an unusual spot, to find it was actually just a couple of dozen bees in desperate search of a drink! Please leave a shallow dish of water out if you can (maybe with some pebbles in as they dont wear life jackets!) It can make a really big difference to the little guys out there 🐝 🐛 🪲 🐞

We would just like to say Thank You to our swarm spotters! We do get calls from people who find us through the Swarm Col...
23/05/2026

We would just like to say Thank You to our swarm spotters! We do get calls from people who find us through the Swarm Collectors List on both and , but you wonderful lot who tag away on Facebook have meant that we get to collect bees that we would hear about other wise!
I think tonight's collection takes us up to 15 hives, we started spring with 4 and 2 of those were questionable! You have really helped get our numbers back up 🙂🐝❤️

Note to self: pack thicker gloves incase the swarm is in a very spikey holly bush!! A nice large swarm collected from W...
23/05/2026

Note to self: pack thicker gloves incase the swarm is in a very spikey holly bush!! A nice large swarm collected from West End this evening. Quite grateful it wasnt at lunch time as the temp has dropped to a lovely 24°c at 8pm lol

Not the best picture, but these girls were waiting patiently for their turn in the bee vac thus evening. They were on a ...
21/05/2026

Not the best picture, but these girls were waiting patiently for their turn in the bee vac thus evening. They were on a bench in a local park. Apparently some of the secondary school kids were throwing stuff at them before we got there. There was another newer beekeeper there when we arrived and he kindly let us collect them with the Vac as there was no way to shake them off the bench! It would have involved a lot of scooping and taken quite a while. We shall check on them along with the other girls tomorrow.
Big One and Little One came too but played in the park and got a late night out of it 🤷🏻‍♀️🤣

Today we celebrate all bees!! The boys are always the first to get involved with a spot of bee rescue, or come and find ...
20/05/2026

Today we celebrate all bees!! The boys are always the first to get involved with a spot of bee rescue, or come and find me if there is a bumble in trouble! We dont seem to have seen as many about yet so far, I assume that winter was hard on them all.

We get a few calls each year about bumble nests so here is a little information about them from , they have lots of lovely things to look at and some solid advice.
https://www.bumblebeeconservation.org/learn-about-bumblebees/beginners/bumblebee-nests/

Anyway, here's to the Bees! The fuzzy ones, the buzzy ones, the sweet ones and the spicey one- we love you all 🐝❤️🐝❤️🐝

Why do we mark our Queens?There are two reasons we mark a Queen:1- It makes her easier to spot when doing an inspection!...
15/05/2026

Why do we mark our Queens?

There are two reasons we mark a Queen:
1- It makes her easier to spot when doing an inspection! Having a bright colour on her makes her easier to see. We are always looking in the comb for eggs, larve and capped brood, but its always nice to see her going about her business.
2- Its an easy way to determine how old she is. There is a different colour used to mark the Queen depending on what year it is. This year all the new Queens a white dot.

The one that has been marked in the video is one we didn't get to mark at the end of last season so she got her dot today. (She is wearing a fetching shade of green because I couldn't lay my hands on the blue one! ). This means we will want to Re-Queen the hive this year as she isnt a young lady. She may have another year or two with us but we want to ensure we can continue her line of bee's into next year as they will inherit her calm productive colony and good egg laying.

P.S. obviously not and Ad but are fab for marking. You get a nice blob of colour without having to put much pressure on which is fab as we dont want to squish Her ladyship! Other keepers use other things but they dry quickly and far less faffing than sticking a tiny numbered disk on her!

We had a call this afternoon for a swarm which had come in and landed at a reasonable height for collection! Mr C is aw...
09/05/2026

We had a call this afternoon for a swarm which had come in and landed at a reasonable height for collection! Mr C is away this weekend so I pack Big and Little with me and off we went. The Girls are now in a hive over at orchards, hopefully they like their new house!

01/05/2026

Managed to capture this short video of a drone emerging today. You can see the nurse bees giving him some food before he has fully emerged!

26/04/2026

Always something magical about welcoming a babeee into the world. 😍

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