Greetings from me and the bees

Morning, lovely people!

*waves across the Atlantic from England*

I'm an absolute beginner to all aspects of homebrewing -- the reason I'm interested is that I'm a beekeeper. Bees = honey (if you're lucky ;D), and as a beekeeper it isn't long before you start to think of mead. I've been keeping bees for a while now, but this year I'm determined to try meadmaking!

So here I am, hoping to learn from scratch how to make some of this marvellous stuff for myself. I am overwhelmed by the number and variety of recipes on the mead page here, but perhaps some kind soul will suggest something good but straightforward for me to begin with.
I have no brewing kit at all, so any help on that would be most appreciated too.

The only thing I can offer in return is any knowledge about honey that may be useful to folks here.

Good health!
Newbee

Welcome.

Any problems with bee colony collapse?

Mead is rather simple, you just mix honey & water and add yeast. A ratio of one volume of honey to four of water will give you a dry mead that will ferment out fairly quickly. That's about 1.5 kg for 4L. A half kg in 4L will give you a refreshing, low alcohol level honey "beer" in just a week.

Welcome! There's lots of good info here as well; http://www.gotmead.com/

olllllo said:

Welcome.

Any problems with bee colony collapse?

Click to expand...

Hello there. I don't know whether you mean me personally, or England (or the UK) generally.

Certainly, last winter it seemed as if there were more losses among beekeepers I know than one'd expect. Many of these are extremely experienced keepers so it's not likely to be because of errors on their part.
My own feeling (shared by all the beekeepers I've spoken to here) is that our bee losses are probably due to the effects of the varroa mite and the viruses that it vectors, rather than to Colony Collapse Disorder. Among other things, we haven't seen the phenomenon of the queen being left behind which seems to be a characteristic of CCD.

Personally... Well, my bees did well last year and produced some gorgeous honey. Right now, though, I'm at the hoping-and-praying-they've-got-through-winter-stage. Can't check yet, cause they're still in winter mode, huddled up in their hives (I hope).
I'll let you know how they're going over the next few weeks, as the weather warms and days get longer.

And Evets and David -- thank you for the info! I'll have a look at the gotmead link once I get off the forum. David: do you recommend a strong-flavoured or mild-flavoured honey for that dry mead recipe?