Let's BEE Friends with the Liversidge bees...

We’re delighted to be asked to be on Daisie’s Blog and to share a bit about our busy hive lives.  We are the Liversidge Bees, known as Alchebee,  and we live in two hives on a garage roof in Hanworth in West London.  The best thing about being urban bees is the amazing variety of pollen we can collect, providing a wonderful array of flavours in our honey through the year.  No recipes here, just pure honey from local gardens and we produced around 50lbs between us all last year.

Bee populations across the world have been falling at an alarming rate and many causes, mostly human-made, are being found.  From GM crops to insecticides and even certain beekeeping practices are all making the lives of bees a grave concern.  Keeping bees is becoming a more popular hobby and it is the urban, amateur beekeepers that are helping maintain numbers and raise awareness of the plight of the bee.

Daisie asked us to tell you about some things you could all do to make your local bees thrive in your area, especially with the strange weather we are having this year.  So here are our top tips to make your gardens buzz this summer:

Collecting pollen is thirsty work – please leave some water out for bees.  We will happily drink from a pond or saucer, we don’t like tap water, we like rain water.

Bee friendly! – Did you know that male bees have no sting?  Don’t be so quick to swat a bee – we won’t sting you unless we have no choice, so just let us bee J

Variety makes for great honey – we need honey for the hive to eat during the winter months and local, varied plants make for the richest honey.  Lots of one thing can make our honey very hard or crystal-like, so urban variety is best.

Support your local beekeepers – finding a local supplier for your honey helps support them and also brings great benefits to you .  Did you know that eating local honey is a great way to build your immunity to the local pollen that causes your itchy eyes and tickly throat?  

Thank you to Daisie for asking us to buzz into her blog, do say hello to us on Twitter @Alchebee 

Thanks for buzzing by and what a fab photo by John Frye photography, they're on Twitter too @Snappist.  I love your new website and I also want to share the British Bee Keepers Association who have more stuff that you might all enjoy and more details of how to help bees is available here. Let's look after the bees, we can all live in harmony, naturally.

Have a sunny and honey filled day...Yum!

Daisie x