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Bishops Bees

We are UK honeybee queen breeders based in North Devon and offer UK bred honey bee queens and nucs

22/08/2026

Sometimes helping pollinators means removing a good nectar source.

A couple of weeks ago I was cutting back Himalayan balsam for a customer as part of a meadow restoration project.

There was roughly an acre that I could reach with the Kramer and flail, but the balsam has also spread into the woodland and along the stream, where it will need to be controlled by hand.

As a beekeeper, cutting down a plant that bees readily forage on can feel slightly contradictory. Himalayan balsam can provide a substantial late-season nectar source, but it is also a highly invasive plant that can dominate damp ground and outcompete a much wider range of native vegetation.

The aim here is not simply to remove a flowering plant. It is to restore a more diverse habitat.

Over time, controlling the balsam should give species such as knapweed and other late-flowering plants more opportunity to establish. That means a broader range of food for bees and other pollinators, rather than relying heavily on one invasive species.

Timing matters too. The balsam needs to be cut before the seed pods mature, which means carrying out the work while much of it is still in flower.

We are deliberately avoiding herbicides on this project, so the control is being done mechanically where machinery can reach, followed by hand work in the more difficult areas.

Good pollinator habitat is about diversity and resilience, not simply the quantity of nectar available from a single species.

19/08/2026

When you assess stores, look at where the food is — not just how much honey is somewhere in the hive. 🐝

This frame is a useful example of what I like to see as we begin moving out of the most active part of the season.

There is still a good solid area of sealed brood, but around it the colony is already organising its food. Above the brood is the familiar arch of stores, with sealed honey and open stores positioned close to where the bees are raising brood.

That relationship becomes increasingly important as the brood nest contracts.

It is easy to look at a colony with a super of honey above a queen excluder and conclude that it has plenty of food. But the more useful question is: what stores will actually remain with the colony when our management is finished?

Some colonies will readily move honey down through a queen excluder, while others can be reluctant to do so. The difficulty is that you often don't discover which sort you have until the colony is already short of usable stores. If the supers are removed and there is very little food around the brood nest, we can suddenly leave a colony much shorter of stores than it first appeared.

For me, this is one of the problems with treating everything outside a single brood box as automatically belonging to the beekeeper. During the active season the brood nest can occupy much of that box. The colony's need for food doesn't disappear simply because it has been stored in a super.

Before taking a crop, look at the colony as a whole: the amount of brood, the stores surrounding it, colony strength, the forage still available and the time of year.

Honey is absolutely there to be harvested — but first we need to decide what is genuinely surplus.

15/08/2026

A new beekeeper in the making. 🐝

Evelyn has wanted to come out into the apiary with me properly for quite a while.

Until now, she has often come along and watched from the car or the Kramer while I worked, but she has been very keen to get more involved. I finally relented and bought her a bee suit of her own.

To say she was proud of it would be an understatement. As soon as it arrived, she wanted to show everyone, finding any excuse to put it on and come along with me — even on quick trips to the apiary to collect nucs for customers.

Now she can actually come into the bees with me, start seeing what is happening in the colonies and learn a little bit as we go.

It was lovely to see how pleased she was to finally be properly involved.

12/08/2026

A good sign of colony defence. 🐝

This photograph was taken in the grass just outside one of the nucs containing a young queen that will be overwintered.

There are several dead wasps among the bees, along with clear signs that there has been quite a bit of activity around the entrance. While I was checking the colony, another wasp attempted to enter the nuc and the guard bees responded immediately.

That is exactly the sort of behaviour I want to see. Wasps can repeatedly test a colony’s entrance, looking for opportunities to steal food or prey on bees. A colony that guards its entrance effectively and responds quickly is better able to resist that pressure.

This queen is still young, so one observation is not enough to judge the colony as a whole. I’ll continue watching its temperament, productivity, health and overwintering performance. However, effective defence against wasps is a useful trait to record.

Selective breeding is not only about encouraging desirable characteristics. It is also important to avoid accidentally weakening valuable natural behaviours that help colonies protect themselves.

08/08/2026

This is what success looks like. 🐝

A few weeks ago, this queen was instrumentally inseminated as part of my queen breeding programme. Today, she's producing a strong, corner-to-corner brood pattern like this.

Instrumental insemination isn't the end goal—it's simply one tool used to make carefully planned breeding decisions. The real measure of a queen is how she performs once she's back in a colony.

A brood pattern like this shows that the queen is laying consistently, the workers are caring for the brood well, and the colony is developing into a strong, productive unit.

This is why every queen is evaluated after mating or insemination. Good genetics are important, but they still have to be proven in the hive.

05/08/2026

Instrumental insemination is about selection, not replacing nature. 🐝

This queen is being instrumentally inseminated as part of one of my queen breeding programmes. She now heads one of my production colonies.

The purpose of instrumental insemination is to control which drones contribute to the next generation. By carefully selecting both the queen and the drones, it's possible to preserve desirable characteristics such as temperament, productivity, brood pattern and overwintering ability.

Without controlled mating, a queen mates naturally with many drones from the surrounding area. That's important for maintaining genetic diversity, but it also means the beekeeper has very little control over which traits are passed on.

Instrumental insemination is another breeding tool. It allows specific breeding lines to be developed, evaluated and improved over successive generations while still maintaining healthy, vigorous colonies.

Every queen still has to prove herself in the hive. Good breeding starts with careful selection, but it's the colony's performance that ultimately determines whether those genetics are worth carrying forward.

01/08/2026

A frame full of sealed brood. 🐝

This is the sort of frame that shows just how quickly a colony can build its population.

Most of the cells are capped, with developing worker bees completing the final stages of growth beneath the wax. Over the coming days, they will begin to emerge and add a substantial number of young bees to the colony.

Frames like this are especially valuable when assessing colony strength, preparing colonies for queen rearing, or deciding whether brood can be used to support a weaker colony.

The pattern is never expected to be completely solid. Some open cells may contain younger brood, stores, or may already have produced an emerging bee. What matters is looking at the frame as a whole and understanding what it tells us about the colony’s development.

A great deal of the future workforce is contained within this one frame.

29/07/2026

An unexpected discovery beneath a hive stand. 🐝

I went to move this empty hive stand so I could put a hive on it, only to find it was already occupied.

A small colony had established itself underneath the stand, building fresh white comb directly onto the timber.

Honey bees will readily use almost any sheltered space if they need somewhere to start building comb. While this certainly isn't where I'd expect to find a colony, it provided enough protection for the bees to get started.

It's a good reminder to check equipment carefully before moving it—you never know what might have made a home there.

Finding colonies in unusual places is just one of the many surprises that comes with spending time around bees.

13/07/2026

Spaces are available on our Practical Beekeeping – The Basics course.

This is a hands-on day for beginners and newer beekeepers who want to build confidence around bees and understand the foundations of good hive management.

We will look at inspections, equipment, colony behaviour, what to look for on the frames, and how to start making sense of what the bees are telling you.

📅 Thursday 16th July
📍 Bishops Bees, North Devon

Book here:
https://bishopsbees.co.uk/product/beekeeping-for-beginners-practical-course

11/07/2026

A slightly unexpected start to the beekeeping day. 🐦🐝

I opened up the Kramer to let it air out in the hot weather, then came back later to get started with the day’s jobs.

Only to find this little visitor inside.

The bird was flying around trying to get out through the closed window, so after a bit of gentle encouragement, I managed to guide it safely back outside.

Beekeeping days are never just about bees. When you’re working in apiaries, fields and sheds, you end up sharing the space with all sorts of wildlife.

Most days have some little surprise in them — this one just happened to be sitting in the Kramer waiting for me.

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Opening Hours

Monday	09:00 - 17:00
Tuesday	09:00 - 17:00
Wednesday	09:00 - 17:00
Thursday	09:00 - 17:00
Friday	09:00 - 17:00
Saturday	10:00 - 16:00

Telephone

+447908563545

Website

https://bishopsbees.co.uk/

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