A true love of honeybees!

Do you love honeybees enough to get a permanent tattoo of one? Well that's just what one of our customers did! After hearing about our 5 foot wall of live honeybees this bee enthusiast made his way to The Hive Honey Shop in search of his little friends.

After enjoying our observation hive he began asking questions about how to take up beekeeping. We told him about our beekeeping courses and showed him around our well stocked library of beekeeping books and DVDs on sale. He then spoke of his passion for bees and revealed his enormous honeybee tattoo on his forearm. I have never seen such a detailed bee tattoo before.

Million Dollar Question: 'Did it hurt?' He just rolled his eyes.

photo copyright 2010 ©-The Hive Honey Shop

What a great year for insects!

In this age of bee and insect doom & gloom I am happy to report a bit of good news!

My biggest surprise this year occurred recently when I was taking breakfast in my tiny back suburban garden and to my surprise I saw a lovely red admiral butterfly. A few moments later I saw a completely different butterfly floating among my potted plants. Then ten minutes later my heart leaped, yet another completely different coloured butterfly, none of them the common cabbage white. Three completely different butterfly varieties happily dancing about my city shoebox garden!

I really can't remember the last time I saw any butterflies, let alone three different varieties. It filled me with hope that butterflies and other insect could be on the increase again. After CCD losses of bees in the US and dreadful UK beekeeping for the last seven years, I for one was thrilled to see this little indicator of prospering wildlife.

Then when I was beekeeping, gather up the July crop, a lovely peacock butterfly landed on the hive I was working. I managed to grab my phone and took a quick snap. It flew around my head and kept me company for a good hour while I opened and managed the other hives on site. I felt very honoured.

If you have spotted any unusual or abundance of butterflies, bees etc email me at The Hive Honey Shop and tell me all about it.

All the best

Chris

photo copyright 2010 ©-The Hive Honey Shop