Bee Keeping Workshop 7th June 2015 - West Cork

Press Release: Natural Beekeeping Class

Liss Ard Estate, West Cork, Ireland, 7^th June 2015

A chemical free - Natural Beekeeping Class is being offered on Sunday 7^th June 2015 to introduce people to a gentler approach to Beekeeping at Liss Ard Estate in Skibbereen.

This is a perfect venue for the beekeeping class with plenty of space to roam around in their own natural habitat.

Max Danann & Trevor Danann both certified Beekeepers, are offering training in Natural Beekeeping (chemical free) through use of Top Bar Hives and their own hybrid mixed hives. The workshop is geared toward those with no prior experience in beekeeping but Beekeepers of any level are welcome.

April Danann will also be on hand to discuss her research project on Irish honey - The Honey Project - a microbiological review of honeys from around the world and their unique healing properties. 

Top Bar Hives are an alternative type of hive to commercial or national framed style hives currently in use. These are considered to closely resemble natural bee habitat and bees thrive in them. Many long time beekeepers are switching over to using some form of top bar hive. As well, our own mixed hive featuring framed Top Bars will be discussed.

During the class, you will be introduced to some time honoured traditions in beekeeping, learn about honey, equipment needs, initial start-up, bee health; including disease, pesticides, colony collapse disorder and how to keep a bee garden.

Students will be walked through a Top Bar Hive as well as other types – how they work, how to maintain a hive, and how to provide a family with a source of honey. There will be plenty of time for questions during this discussion style workshop.

Bees are everyone’s responsibility – at one time most back gardens had a hive or two – it’s time we came back to supporting these beautiful creatures – this class is a step forward in learning how to do just that.

Date; 7th June 2015

Place; Liss Ard Estate Skibbereen

Time; 1:30 to 4:30pm 

Cost: €55.00 (includes notes, light refreshments)
Contact: Max Danann 0873284762, email info@aprildanann.com or stop by our stall to book your place. Deposit required to hold a seat.

Various types of bee hives in our garden 

Top Bar Bee Keeping Class -- 30th March 2014 in Leap, West Cork

Top Bar Bee Keeping & Hives Introductory Class 30th March 2014

• Natural

• Sustainable

• Local

• Gentle 

Text or Ring: 0873284762

Many honey producers are placing nearly all of the current problems with the decline in local bee populations as well as some of the issues faced by agriculture today, on the way bees have been reared and kept during the past century. 

Basically, natural beekeeping involves less intervention (or none), using native species of bees, providing hives that suit bees more than humans, letting the bees do what they do best and not extracting all the honey in any one season. This system when combined with other natural practices such as organic farming becomes a conservation project and part of the solution to ensure thriving local populations of bees.

Top Bar Hives, as these have been used for well over a thousand years, are more bee friendly and are easy to maintain. They also appear to support the low intervention approach as they are sturdier, house varying populations of bees and allow the bees to produce varying types of comb. In the effort of sustainability, many honey producers believe that this low-tech approach “may mean accepting lower honey production per colony in return for healthier bees.”

Max and April Danann are Bee Keepers using only Top Bar Hives and a natural approach to apiary. 

o Top Bar Hives building courses available

o Custom made to fit frames

o Nucs can be ordered

o Courses and Training 

1:00 to 5:30 pm

€45 (adult), €25 children with adult attending

To book your place text or ring 087 328 4762

Please email, text or ring to order your Top Bar Bee Hives

Mob:  087 328 4762       email:  maxdanann@gmail.com

Top Bar Bee Keeping 30th March 2014, Leap

Aggression in Normally Docile Irish Honey Bees

These past few weeks we have watched our little herb garden bee hive become more and more active….to the point of a little aggressive. Of course, being this time of year our minds went to a few different explanations as we kept our distance to allow them to do their thing.

There are several reasons a normally docile bee hive might suddenly become more assertive – one occurs when they are stressed at this time of year such as a lack of winter stores of food (probably sounds like us all, trying to gather winter food and fuel LOL). However, with the summer we just had, a lack of food stores would hardly be the case. 

Unless – they were being robbed of their resources by another bee hive or wasps. One way to try to ascertain if this is happening is to watch the bees coming and going into the hive to see if there is anyone leaving with pollen or if something looks amiss etc.

Another reason for aggression in a hive is when a queen dies and the bees are busy growing another one. Of course, there are also very simple reasons for aggression such as running out of space – and everyone crowded in on top of each other - making them a little testy.

As ever, we were observing and standing at the ready to assist or help in any way….bees would rarely require our help, but because they are in an unnatural environment of the hive, it is our duty to at least keep a watchful eye on things.

So, this past week we noticed with the warm sunny days a bit of a population explosion around the hive…..there were bees everywhere over a day or so. Upon closer inspection this is what we found.

They were building comb on the outside of the hive in an attempt to create more space for their growing population. They were already a good sized hive when they moved in last July (wild swarm), however, we did not anticipate this exponential growth at this time of the year!

So….the only thing to do was take a chance…..we grabbed a larger Top Bar Hive that was complete except for the roof – and working quickly so as not to stress them further, we moved the entire old hive into the bigger box. 

In the meantime, Max went to work finishing a temporary solid roof for the new hive – the old box was placed underneath the new one for the bees to clean out and as ever….we just stood back to allow them to get on with sorting themselves out in their new expanded space.

For us it was a learning curve…we have had bad weather and terrible summers for so long we had forgotten that bee populations will actually expand – at any time when food is plentiful and the conditions are right.

Even at this time in mid October, the conditions are still fairly pleasant for the bees with decent weather, warmish days and lots of vegetation close by. So, when the rain holds off for a few days at a time – watch out!  

They seem to have settled down again now - and the are back to being their normal docile, happy selves - going into winter in very good shape by the amount of honey we saw in the comb....

April

New Top Bar Hive with temporary roof - old hive underneath - bees coming in and out at the front