Risbridge Honey

Risbridge Honey Risbridge Apiary Local Suffolk

First inspection of the year. Pleased to say both hives have come through the winter and looking strong.
06/04/2026

First inspection of the year. Pleased to say both hives have come through the winter and looking strong.

21/02/2026

Haven't visited the hive much over the winter so it was nice to see the bees well and active in both hives.
It's also a nice sign that spring is on the way. (I hope).

A nice way to sit back and reflect on the end of the bee keeping year. The years had its ups and down and many challenge...
27/09/2025

A nice way to sit back and reflect on the end of the bee keeping year. The years had its ups and down and many challenges but it look like we have 2 hives doing well going into the winter.

Today was probably our last full inspection. Winter brood and stores are building well. All that remains for us is to keep and eye on the stores of the bees and hope they do the rest.

We have honey available for sale so please message if anyone would like some.

23/08/2025

The wasp battle continues. Whilst the reduced entrance blocks have done the trick, wasps have found a way into the supers on number 1 hive. 2 weeks ago the supers were really heavy and close to being harvested, today when we went to remove at least 50% of the honey has been robbed.
Thankfully the bees themselves are OK and signs the queen is still present.

Hive 2 is doing fine.

We have now taken all the supers off and started our winter preparations with the 1st varoa mite treatment. This will hopefully help the bees as well from wasps as only the one small entrance to now protect.

We will also shortly start to feed hive 1 as its own stores look to be running low.

With the wasps and the dry conditions it's really being a challenge.

Part of of the inspections of the bees isn't just about the health of the bees but also the health of the hive. One of t...
09/08/2025

Part of of the inspections of the bees isn't just about the health of the bees but also the health of the hive.
One of the things most bee keepers come across is wax moth. Wax moth if left unchecked can build quickly and cause a hive to fail as they bury through the wax and can kill brood in the process.
In these 2 images one shows the sign of wax moth. (White line), and 2nd is us removing the wax moth lavae from that area.

Extracted the honey from the 4 supers today. We extracted about about 80 to 90lb of honey. It's very clear so would imag...
27/07/2025

Extracted the honey from the 4 supers today. We extracted about about 80 to 90lb of honey. It's very clear so would imagine it's borrage honey again.

Hive 1 is really strong and coping with the wasps They are being mischievous though. The queen managed to squeeze hersel...
26/07/2025

Hive 1 is really strong and coping with the wasps

They are being mischievous though. The queen managed to squeeze herself through the queen excluder into the supers which are to store honey.

As a result we had to inspect every super frame and coax all the bees back into the brood box where the queen should be.

Hopefully she'll play catch up now and lay plenty of eggs in preparation for the winter.

Hive 3 was more straightforward. We have 4 supers to spin honey from tomorrow then take them back.

The wasps were a challenge but no stings today.

20/07/2025

Unfortunately one of our colonies has failed to survive the summer due to wasp attack. The hive was weak and despite taking action to minimise the effect of wasps it wasn't enough for them to survive.

We now have 2 strong colony which are coping OK with the wasps.

The weather this year has been a real challenge. Food sources appear to be very low for the bees so the honey harvest will be alot smaller than previous years.

Wasp numbers do appear to be alot larger and a number of bee keepers are reporting loss of colonies as a result of wasp attacks.

We can only hope the remaining 2 continue to cope.
At the end of the day this is nature and a real survival of the fittest.

08/06/2025

A nice little inspection today. Was alittle windy to be doing the bees but they were calm considering.

Hive 1 and 3 have new 2025 queen's and as you can see from the short video are laying well.
The video shows sealed brood which has new worker bees within the cells. We can tell this by the type of cell which is showing.
The empty sections on the frame were full of eggs and very young larvae.
Hive 1 which is in the video was our very 1st hive. We're really pleased they have developed a new queen and they are still very calm bees.

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Sudbury
Suffolk
CO102

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