General

Strange and curious visitors

Posted by James on June 7, 2021.

Over the past month we were curious to understand who or what had been visiting the Apiary. There had been a number of clues, some less obvious than others and one that only really became clear when looking at it from a different perspective.

Planting the wild flower meadow and hive update

Posted by James on April 22, 2021.

While the sustainability project plans were temporarily put on hold during the spring and summer of 2020 our Optix apiary thrived. Each colony was strong in numbers, healthy and produced a rather impressive crop of honey.

Our short and long term plans for the current sustainability project

Posted by James Dawkins on March 5, 2020.

The long term goal is to create a lively feeding and nesting ground for insects, birds and small animals. This will be achieved by creating a large area of wildflower meadow, planting trees and setting up bee colonies that help pollinate the surrounding...

Putting together the Beehive frames

Posted by James Dawkins on March 2, 2020.

I am picking up a Nuc* in the first week of April so decided to start getting the new Beehive ready ahead of time. The main component of a Beehive is the Brood chamber, this is where the queen lays eggs and the workers tend to and raise the young Bees...

Establishing New Hives

Posted by James Dawkins on February 10, 2020.

Part of this project was to expand the number of hives located at the apiary. Currently there are two established hives but we wanted to add a third. Setting up a colony of bees is relatively straight forward; All youou need is a Beehive and some Bees....

Moving the Hives to Their New Home

Posted by James Dawkins on January 18, 2020.

Once the Apiary had been cleared and the new stands had been built I needed to start thinking about moving my current hives to the new location*. Currently they are located in my garden and weigh around 35kg each. Transporting them is relatively straight...

How I Built the Apiary

Posted by James Dawkins on November 8, 2019.

Having found and secured the Apiary location, it was time to start building a number of platforms upon which the hives would be situated. I have done this quite a few times before, so it should be easy right? It is very important to have a solid base...

Introduction

Posted by James Dawkins on November 1, 2019.

The Optix Solutions sustainability program is based around the idea of encouraging local businesses to think about how they can have a positive ecological impact in the South West. We are privileged to live in a globally recognised area of outstanding...

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