Still working

Can't believe my bees are still working at the end of October. Starting to worry about if they have enough food to keep going through the Winter as they might be using it all now!!

Interesting bee fact of the week

Did you know that out of 20,000 type of bee only 4 make honey!!!

Facebook

hilltop honey is up and running on facebook. I think. Setting up a page was a lot harder than I anticipated for some reason especially setting up a like box I still don't think I have done it. Anyway please have a look and click like and post any comments you may have. http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hilltop-honey/238188782901504

Social Media Marketing Course

Good god alive I never knew there were so many ways to market your company my brain is well and truly fried after that course. I would never keep up with them all so I think I'm just going to stick with facebook, twitter and linkedin and of course my blog and website. I haven't yet created facebook, twitter or a website but they are on the horizon. So look out facebook hilltop honey is coming to town you better have enough members ha ha ha.

Still working

I went for a walk to see my hives the other day for no particular reason other than to see if they were still there and to my surprise there was hundreds of them working still. I couldn't believe that were getting to the end of October and they were still going like mad. I won't be paying them any extra for that overtime. Already missing looking into my hives so bring on March next year.

Pont Farm

If you get your fresh veg delivered to your door by Pont Farm then ask for some honey cause we are now their honey suppliers. Also keep a keen eye out at any of the deli's around mid Wales for hilltop honey and if you go somewhere that hasn't got hilltop honey stocked their ask them why.

Road trip

I've been on a couple of selling road trips this week which have gone quite well. Sold just over a hundred jars to local deli's, butchers and cafes. Facing fierce competition from local producers especially one big local producer from Brecon. Never mind I will continue to persevere and hopefully sell the rest of my stock in the next couple of weeks.

Finally my labels have arrived!!!!!

After a good 2 months of waiting my labels have finally arrived. I spent the best part of 4 hours looking out my window anticipating the delivery today. The wait was agonizingly painful. As soon as they got through the door I slapped them onto their respective jars and delivered them straight to charlies to fulfill the big order I received off them a few weeks ago. So.......... this is the start of my business and it feels like I have been trying for years and now it's finally here, exciting times. Look out Monday I will be selling like a man who has a lot of honey to sell ha ha.

Interesting bee fact of the week

The honeybee's wings stroke 11,400 times per minute, thus making their distinctive buzz.

last check before winter

Finished my final check on my bees today and they are looking really good with plenty of stores. Just two hives need one more feed and they are done. Even inspecting them now i'm still anxious about them coming through the winter alive! But i cant do anymore so hopefully they will be fine. At the moment though they show no sign of letting up because their working like mad. I their working on the ivy. Cant believe were coming into the middle of October and the weather is still tidy for the nees to work on. Hope this post is ok im doing it off my new phone which im struggling to get used to ha ha.

Sniffer Bees!!!!!!!

I have just caught wind of the most interesting thing to do with bees ever!! People are now training bees to sniff out drugs and explosives instead of dogs. There are a couple of good reasons why to replace the dogs with bees because bees only take 10 minutes to be trained unlike 3-4 months for dogs. But the biggest reason is bees have a far superior sense of smell - they can sniff out the equivalent of a grain of sand in a swimming pool! The way it works is 3 or 4 bees are strapped into these little pods with a fan blowing air from in front of them. When someone walks past at say the airport with what the bees have been trained to smell, say cannabis, then they will stick out their proboscis. When they stick out their proboscis a camera/sensor will pick it up and sound the alarm. They are trained by pumping in the smell of sugar with the smell they want to train them for at the same time. Then they just pump in the smell they want them to pick up on its own and they stick out their proboscis in anticipation of food because they relate it to the sugar. I think it is a genius idea. What do you think??? It's going to change the way they find terrorists, IED's and drug dealers/smugglers etc but not only that, the medical sector too!!!

FINALLY!!!

Finally I have finished feeding the hungryest bees in the world. Yet still I'm really anxious about them making it through the winter with enough stores. But they are all looking really healthy and well fed so there is no reason why they won't make it through. It's sad that I have nothing to do with them now till March so I will have to keep myself busy and start flogging my honey at food fairs and farmers markets which should be fun as I have never sold anything behind a stall before.

Sales Training

I have an hour and a half sales training booked in for today. I've never had sales training before so this should be interesting. Don't know what to expect but hopefully I will have the gift of the gab after it :-). I'm just dying to get my product off the ground now which has felt like forever to achieve at the moment. Not long now though hopefully then I can put my sales training to good use.

Labels

The bees have still been busy even though the weather has turned much colder - good girls!! They should have enough supplies for winter soon. On the hilltop honey front, am waiting for the labels to be printed - was a little more long winded than I bargained for getting these sorted. They are in the pipeline now so that's good. They will be on the shelves soon!! Hoorah!!

Interesting bee fact of the week

To make a pound of honey bee's have to visit 2 million flowers!!

Carpet or queen excluder????

Finally found the queen i have been looking for for months this morning hooray! It has given me some peace of mind before I shut them down for winter. She is a gorgeous black queen and I mean proper black 100% pure British strain of bee. Attached the mouse guards to all the hives today as well seeing as there is snow forecast. I just can't imagine snow coming as it's so hot now, who knows they have been wrong plenty of times before. Just got a couple of finishing touches before they go into winter now like putting the queen excluder on top of the crown board or I have heard of people putting carpet on top. What do you do with your hives? Maybe the carpet would be a good idea as it would keep them warm. Any suggestions or comments welcome.

Indian summer

I can't believe it's 30 degrees at the beginning of October. The girls are really putting in the overtime. I love watching the different varieties of coloured pollen being lugged in. I've actually had to open up the beehive entrances because they are so busy. Word is there is snow due this month so not long left until we go into our first winter - anxious times.....