For the last few years during the summer I’ve seen a post or two about making bee feeders.  In response I have done a post advising that this is not a good idea for a number of reasons.  Usually this post has been seen by, at best, a few 100 of my followers. 

This year I started to see a lot of information about making bottle top feeders for bees and again I did a facebook post in response.  By the end of the first day the post had been seen by 1,500.  Within in 10 days it had been seen by 100,000, and now my original post has now been seen by more than 600,000 people to date. The text of my post has also been copied and shared and keeps popping back up in my newsfeed in the various groups I follow so I have no idea how many people have seen the post.  Messages have been coming in so thick and fast from people asking questions as a result of that post my phone has developed a stutter!!!!

Around this time of year I get a lot of telephone calls about bumble bee nests – in bird boxes, under decking, under sheds, in the rockery, in the compost bin etc.  Most people are understandably worried when they discover they have a bumble bee nest, but please,

DON’T PANIC!

The nest you have just discovered has already been there for a number of weeks and will very soon die out. 

Unlike honey bees who cluster during the colder winter months, bumble bee queens hibernate. 

The list of uses for honey and beeswax are endless but here are some: 

Honey

Cut comb and cappings are popular with hayfever sufferers as they tend to contain more pollen. If using honey for hayfever the advice is that you should take 1 teaspoon a day for a month before your symptoms usually start. Honey should be as local as possible. However, honey will not help hayfever sufferers if the allergies are grass pollen as bees do not forage on grass. 

Honey and lemon for colds is a well known remedy. A recent study showed that children’s cough mixtures were ineffective, but that a spoonful of honey provided some relief from night time coughs.