I've been keeping bees for 4 years now. I started off with 2 'nucs' (starter colonies of bees, typically 4-6 frames) in 2021 when we moved into the Donegal countryside. They say that you don't know if you'll like beekeeping until you open a hive on your own for the first time and suddenly all that separates you and 50,000 stinging insects is a bit of thin cotton and some rubber gloves! I was hooked straight away. I think I was interested in picking up some new skills after we completed the build of our house. I needed something to occupy my mind. And occupy my mind they have done. I am sure if you ask anyone who knows me, we have had at least one, if not more, conversations about bees over the last number of years.
Despite the early drafts of this post, the idea is to be short and sweet so I won't bore you with the details other than to say, the last 4 years have been an education. Not only in beekeeping but in a lot of other unexpected areas as well. Be it budgeting for new equipment, food hygiene, European labelling laws, building this website and store, sales or design and marketing. A little bit of everything that it takes to set up and run a small business.
I don't expect the blog to be a regular thing - I'm not working on my creative writing skills for now - but rather to act as a personal journal of the goings on throughout the beekeeping season and how they might change from year to year as we expand our knowledge. Hopefully it'll provide some useful insights and prevent us from repeating the same mistakes and for anyone out there reading, please do provide your two cents if you see something we could improve on be it beekeeping or shop related.
chat soon.
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