Advertisement
If you have a new account but are having problems posting or verifying your account, please email us on hello@boards.ie for help. Thanks :)
Hello all! Please ensure that you are posting a new thread or question in the appropriate forum. The Feedback forum is overwhelmed with questions that are having to be moved elsewhere. If you need help to verify your account contact hello@boards.ie

Beekeeping chit chat

  • 20-06-2014 5:26am
    #1
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1,580 ✭✭✭Mad4simmental


    Good to see this up and running. Don't have any my self but I am thinking of getting into it. My grandad had allot of them years ago on the farm. Numbers must be looking good this year??


«13456789

Comments

  • Closed Accounts Posts: 303 ✭✭rotun


    I was listening to Darcy yesterday and he was saying a treatment for hay fever is to take the local honey..

    1. Any truth in this?
    2. Act of ye making honey around oldtown?


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 4,237 ✭✭✭Username John


    Disnt know this forum was coming, but it's a pleasant surprise :)

    We had bees at home years ago. Last year a neighbour had problems with bees, and they swarmed, so I took the swarms.
    But they didnt do over the winter, not sure why.

    I meant to put the hives out to see if I could get another swarm this year, but I never did :(

    Would like to get back into it tho.


  • Registered Users Posts: 776 ✭✭✭Fries-With-That


    Congrats to Hillybilly for suggesting this forum, and delighted to see it active.


  • Registered Users Posts: 62 ✭✭Knowall Macduff


    rotun wrote: »
    I was listening to Darcy yesterday and he was saying a treatment for hay fever is to take the local honey..

    1. Any truth in this?
    2. Act of ye making honey around oldtown?

    Some truth but it's a long process one spoonful won't cure you, it's about building up an immunity over a period of time to the pollens in your area.
    Is that Oldtown dublin


  • Registered Users Posts: 18,440 ✭✭✭✭_Brian


    Great to see the Beekeeping forum up and running !

    As for the local honey.
    All I can say is we were using local honey few times a week up till mid winter when our local beekeeper supplies ran out and he no longer keeps bees.
    One of our daughters has now developed hayfeever which she's never had in the past, maybe it's related or maybe it's just coincidence.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 22,734 ✭✭✭✭The Hill Billy


    Congrats to Hillybilly for suggesting this forum, and delighted to see it active.
    Not to be confused with me, but nice to see this too. I've been giving some consideration to setting up a hive in my garden/field. Hopefully, I will get some good pointers here in due course. :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 92 ✭✭nekuchi


    Thanks to everyone who voted!


  • Registered Users Posts: 245 ✭✭SC Kevin


    Tis great to see this up and running, well done everyone and to HillyBilly for suggesting it! :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 11,174 ✭✭✭✭Muckit


    Best of luck with this! A great idea.

    My sister keeps bees here on the farm and I have to say the honey is lovely! She has two hives on the go now this year!

    Will post some pics if I get a chance!

    Bees are essential for pollination. So if you are in the business of growing plants, bees are your friends!!


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,240 ✭✭✭MayoSalmon


    Great to see this forum. One of nature's fantastic creatures!

    Hoping to get into this soon myself.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 5,699 ✭✭✭Brian


    So who here likes Eddie Izzard? :D


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,527 ✭✭✭on the river


    Great to have this forum. Well done to everyone who got it up and running


  • Registered Users Posts: 653 ✭✭✭Cul a cnoic


    Hi - was trying to search for info etc on beekeeping in Ireland and have found several threads but they're all spread about...some in Smallholding, some in Gardening, some in Farming & Forestry, some in Nature & Birdwatching, some in Animals & Pet Issues, some in Arts & Crafts, some in Sustainability & Environmental Issues...any chance of a dedicated forum for this topic? Thanks!

    And this is how it started, well done Hillybilly4


  • Registered Users Posts: 609 ✭✭✭Hillybilly4


    Thank you to everybody who voted for this forum and to the powers that be that have put it together!


  • Registered Users Posts: 8,100 ✭✭✭Oldtree


    I have a kids fishing net that I keep in the poly-tunnel, to catch bees and help them out at the end of the day, or whenever I am in there. Some of them seem smarter than others and can find their own way out, observed while sitting on a chair at the back over the years. They get very tired in then heat banging off the plastic, sometimes it gets up to 50 degrees.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14,241 ✭✭✭✭Kovu


    Every day now we're getting a load of bees in the house, only let out 2 in the last 10 mins. Could be a hive after starting up nearby?


  • Registered Users Posts: 868 ✭✭✭brianmc


    If they're honeybees it's more likely that there is a hive nearby that is currently planning to swarm. Scout bees head out to find a suitable new site to set up for several days before the swarming starts. It's the most likely thing to lure a honeybee into a house, unless you've some interesting smells coming from home recently.

    If the hive is managed by a beekeeper, the swarm may never issue because the beekeeper would likely want to intervene to prevent it.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14,241 ✭✭✭✭Kovu


    Yes, they're honeybees! I can keep an eye out for a swarm from now on then :)


  • Registered Users Posts: 868 ✭✭✭brianmc


    Keep an eye out for a hole somewhere that they're all investigating... When a scout finds something interesting, it will go back to the hive and recruit other scouts to come and check it out, if they're interested, they'll recruit more and so on. Before a swarm moves into a place you'll see the number of scouts increasing until the day it happens.

    the number of bees you describe makes me wonder if there's something interesting about your place...


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 14,241 ✭✭✭✭Kovu


    Catnip in the garden? :D Normally wouldn't see honeybees around here though, that's why it's a little odd.


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 11,183 ✭✭✭✭Nekarsulm


    Remember as a kid, one year the Mother made about 60 pots of jam and marmalade. These were left in the "parlour" and of course not looked at for a week or so. Bee's found a slight gap around a window and gorged themselves. Thousands in the room when someone opened the door. Closed it right quick, thought!


  • Registered Users Posts: 62 ✭✭Knowall Macduff


    Nekarsulm wrote: »
    Remember as a kid, one year the Mother made about 60 pots of jam and marmalade. These were left in the "parlour" and of course not looked at for a week or so. Bee's found a slight gap around a window and gorged themselves. Thousands in the room when someone opened the door. Closed it right quick, thought!

    Most likely wasps bees don't like jam according to the books they don't read


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    rotun wrote: »
    I was listening to Darcy yesterday and he was saying a treatment for hay fever is to take the local honey..

    1. Any truth in this?
    2. Act of ye making honey around oldtown?

    If it's very local, it's said to work, as is local goat's milk; in fact, American homesteaders advise using goats to clear poison ivy (apparently they yum it), and drinking the milk they produce, if you want to have some immunity. In Ireland goat's milk was always given to kids with any kind of chest weakness ranging from TB in the family to asthma.

    I'd love to keep bees but can't because I'm allergic; the allergy seems to have worn off over the years, but when I asked the doctor he whuffled his moustache worriedly and said he'd advise against bees in the garden; he said an allergy that's disappeared can come back with a bang all at once.

    I'll enjoy it at second hand, and if anyone in the Harold's Cross/ Kenilworth/ Kimmage/ Terenure/ Rathmines/ Rathgar area has honey to sell, I'm here with the few euros in my hand, waiting.

    A few books of ancient wisdom from archive.org, which you can download for free as PDF, Kindle ebook, etc:

    1982 Peace Corps handbook on small-scale beekeeping:
    https://archive.org/details/Small_Scale_Beekeeping

    Beekeeping for All, by Warré, inventor of the easy-care Warré hive:
    https://archive.org/details/beekeeping_for_all

    Instruction in Bee-keeping for the Use of Irish Gardeners (1912), Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland:

    https://archive.org/details/cu31924018397020

    Beginnings in Beekeeping: a 1918 US government publication:
    https://archive.org/details/BeginningsInBeekeeping


  • Registered Users Posts: 2,111 ✭✭✭lucylu


    rotun wrote: »
    I was listening to Darcy yesterday and he was saying a treatment for hay fever is to take the local honey..

    1. Any truth in this?
    2. Act of ye making honey around oldtown?

    1.Ireland is a small country so any Irish honey would be considered local as the flora in our hedgerows and gardens in the country are so similar.

    2.where is Oldtown, near Newtown?


  • Registered Users Posts: 11,183 ✭✭✭✭Nekarsulm


    lucylu wrote: »
    1.Ireland is a small country so any Irish honey would be considered local as the flora in our hedgerows and gardens in the country are so similar.

    2.where is Oldtown, near Newtown?

    There is an Oldtown near Tayto Park, probably lots of others.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 6,824 ✭✭✭Qualitymark


    lucylu wrote: »
    1.Ireland is a small country so any Irish honey would be considered local as the flora in our hedgerows and gardens in the country are so similar.

    2.where is Oldtown, near Newtown?

    Even though it's small, local means really local. Your locality may be full of birch trees, for example, or grass, or rapeseed, to which you can form an allergy.


  • Closed Accounts Posts: 7,108 ✭✭✭Jellybaby1


    'Hive Alive', a programme by Chris Packham on beekeeping is on BBC2 tonight at 8pm. I think it will be repeated on Saturday. Just thought it might be of interest to ye here. Its a two part series.


  • Registered Users Posts: 1,527 ✭✭✭on the river


    Ya pretty good. Learned alot


  • Registered Users Posts: 62 ✭✭Knowall Macduff


    Didn't get much new about bees but aren't electronics fascinating


  • Advertisement
  • Registered Users Posts: 2,376 ✭✭✭stereomatic


    There's a programme on BBC2 NI now, called "Hive Alive" and it's just started it's on between 16:40 to 17:40

    Edit - The programme has just finished


Advertisement