In this on‑site beekeeping vlog, the presenter evaluates the 2022 honey season in North Wales, arguing that it may become the best harvest in recent memory, comparable to the exceptional 2018 year. He explains how regional weather patterns—dry conditions in the south and Scotland versus a favorable “Goldilocks” zone in North Wales—have driven a massive nectar flow. The video walks through the apiary’s hive setup (two National Shallows, one National Deep, and a 14 × 12 super), showing fully capped, heavy frames with white cappings, and notes that the colonies are running out of space. He identifies key nectar sources (lime, sweet chestnut, bramble, blackcurrant) and predicts the flow will continue into August unless rain arrives. The bees are F1 Buckfast, described as calm and gentle, and no Apivar strips have been used, indicating good health. The presenter inspects multiple boxes, highlights the quality of the honey, and promises a slow‑motion uncapping demonstration and tasting at the end. He invites viewers to comment on their own apiaries.
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2022 was definitely the swarmiest year on season, but is it also going to be the biggest crop in North Wales? The way things are going is a definite yes. So I see reports all across the UK, Scotland is too wet, it's too rainy, it's too windy, no honey up there. Down south, low pressure, too hot, nowhere near enough rain, not so much of a good time down there. Is that Goldilocks zone, as Chris Manton likes to call it, moving over North Wales? This hive tells me yes. This hive tells me yes. In fact, all of my hives tell me yes. Why is North Wales really performing very, very well in a similar fashion to the way that it did back in 2018? What happened in 2018 is that it just did not rain. No rain whatsoever. And North Wales seems to be able to cope with no rain very well in terms of being able to produce nectar so the bees can go out and forage and bring in honey. This apiary here, the bees started off very, very small. Lots of splits. We moved things around. and they have produced so, so much honey. So on this one here, we're talking 2 National Shallows, 1 National Deep, and a 14 by 12 that's acting as a super. Every single box is full of honey. So I'll pull some of the frames out now, I'll show you what we're talking about. I need to put some new boxes on this one here because they are running out of space. And they've not just filled it with nectar, they filled it with nectar, got the humidity down, they're capping over 80, 90% of it. They are well and truly running out of space. And going on previous seasons, The flows around here will keep on going way into August. We're talking first week, second week of August. Now maybe that'll slow down a little bit if we don't get any rain. I've seen some bees on the lime today, huge amount of activity on the lime trees. I've seen some sweet chestnut, which again is coming towards the end around here. And in this apiary, we're now moving towards the bramble flow. So I don't think the bramble flow is going to be able to keep on going unless we get a little bit more rain. You can see it is getting a bit parched here, but we seem to be able to eke it out a lot further than our fellow beekeepers down south, where they really desperately need a little dash of rain just to keep that nectar going. So enough of me talking. Without a doubt, 2022 is up there as either the best year for honey in living memory for me, or a close second to 2018. The next 3 or 4 weeks will decide that for us. Let's get inside here though, show you some of these frames, show you how heavy the boxes are, And show you just how well the bees are doing in 2022. So I think you'll agree that's a pretty good start pulling out the first frame. It's not like it's kind of mostly nectar and the bees are just starting to cap it over. That is fully capped over, ready to extract honey. And again, as you can see, I do feel the need to point this out on many videos going forward because I've taken so much flak from people. New gloves, clean gloves, clean bee suit, using my smoker on a nice day. The bees are friendly. Maybe it was me, maybe I got it wrong. Not all of my bees are killer bees though. F1 Buckfast are doing the business in this apiary and they're very calm, very gentle. Well, you know it's hot in North Wales because what happened there is my camera just completely gave up and it said it is too hot. It's too hot, turn the camera off, go to another camera. So luckily that's exactly what I've done. This camera should work a lot better. So again, pulling out some frames completely at random. I'll work through a couple of the other boxes as well, but these are good to go. Perfectly capped, beautiful white cappings. Really happy with what I'm seeing this year. Okay, maybe this is getting a little bit boring for you now, but I'll keep on going through. Lots and lots of capped, beautiful white cappings, very heavy frames, no cells at all that are being missed here. I'll jump down to the next box, see if there's anything different down there. Really, really heavy box. That is a pretty much full super, 20, 25 pounds. Very happy with that. So much of the same down there, a little bit of nectar in one of the corners, but lots of good heavy capped, really nice honey. I'm definitely going to do a slow-mo of me uncapping some of this at the end of this video, so stay tuned to the end. I love to see honey being uncapped, and the bees will clean it up really quickly. I think I'm gonna have to enter some of these into a competition because These are probably the best frames I've ever seen. Perfectly capped, beautifully white cappings. I'll stop talking about them now. Let's go down to the box below. So believe it or not, this frame here and all of the frames in this box started off the year as foundation, 100% foundation. And what's really interesting here is the difference in the cappings. You don't get those beautiful white cappings when the bees don't leave an air void in between the top of the cappings and the honey underneath. Doesn't matter to me. This is still a super heavy frame that I'm definitely going to have to put down now. I'm so, so happy with the colonies here. You can see like every single frame is full, it's capped. The bees are running out of space and we've got a long time left. This isn't like at the end of the season. If you're in the south, it probably is the end of the season. I think it's game over down there, kind of first week of July, middle of July, because it's just too dry. But up here you can see The bees are well and truly on the flow. Blackcurrant over there, the bramble, and they are finding lots of stuff and bringing it in still, as you can see further down in this hive. So I won't close up all of them, but you can see they're completely capped over. Another one completely capped over both sides. You kind of get the picture, don't you? Completely capped over. Right, let's get downstairs into the brood box now. I've replaced the queen excluder about 3 or 4 days ago in this apiary. And I put it down. This was on a double brood configuration, double 14 by 12, and the top 14 by 12 box had new frames in it, so I can use them for honey extraction. They've never seen a single Apivar strip, but as you can see, the bees are doing very, very well indeed. So there we go, beautiful frame of brood, no eggs, no larva, because they've not had any queen up there laying eggs, and they will turn all of that into a honey super come the end of the year. So without a doubt, we need to add some additional boxes on. I'm going to stack everything back up now. I'm going I'm going to get my hive tool out and I'm going to show you some slow-motion honey uncapping, just because it is so much fun. Right, I'm not going to go crazy with it because that is the bees' hard work there. Just a little demo just to show you how beautiful that honey is underneath. White cappings, very light floral honey. I'm going to taste some of that as well. I can't wait. 2022 is shaping up to be the best harvest in living memory. How are your bees doing in your apiary? Stick it in the comments, let me know.
