We visited our woodland apiary this week to check on fondant levels etc and discovered a couple of hives had been attacked by a woodpecker! Some serious weaponry on those guys! Green woodpeckers normally eat ants but when the ground is frozen will attempt to find bee nests in trees (or man-made ones!), quickly knock holes in them and eat the bees and honey inside. Without a fix, surviving bees can easily freeze to death as the colony can no longer regulate hive temperature. #bees #woodpecker

Dog mid-soap-wrestle. Dog not happy. Dog sad. #dogsofmastodon

Happy Bathday to the dog! (The process of which is a bit like wrestling a shark, but with much more hair, and smelling of apple shampoo) #dogsofmastodon #bernese #bath #FIGHT!

You know, it’s not all bees, bees, bees. Sometimes I do other stuff. Why today the rest of the family went out to watch a pantomime at the theatre. I did some jobs and then found myself at a loss for anything to do so turned on my son’s Xbox and decided to have a rare gaming session. Farming Simulator 2022? Fair enough, never played it, let’s have a go. What’s this, you can manage bee colonies in it? Oh lordy… #bees #honeybees #beekeeping #farmingsimulator

The bees’ breakfast tomorrow: one prime slab of pure fondant, cut into convenient takeaway containers so the bees can access it. #bees #honeybees #honey #beekeeping #fondant

It’s that time of year… the honey warming cabinet is out, employed to melt buckets of set honey back into runny honey for jarring with a gentle but constant 38°C that prevents the important enzymes (e.g. invertase) in the honey from being destroyed. #beekeeping #honey #honeybees