Making better bees: stock improvement for the hobby beekeeper

We all want better bees – be that better tempered, more productive, improved and frugal overwintering, disease and pest resistant, more long-lived queens.

Karl Colyer has been keeping bees since 2003 and makes his living from the 80 colonies he runs from his base in Cheshire. Being a professional beekeeper having the best stock possible is of paramount importance.

Karl takes a do it yourself approach to beekeeping, building his own hives and other equipment from salvaged materials – see his many articles in BBKA News – so don’t expect him to be advocating spending cash buying in expensive queens. The bees you need will already be close to home, most likely in your own apiary here in Calderdale.

Karl will cover how he appraises his colonies, and how you too can decide on which are your best queens. He will then outline simple methods, well within the capabilities and budget of the average small-scale beekeeper or beekeeping group, for raising the excellent queens you want, based on his experience of producing well over 1800 queens in his beekeeping career.