Welwyn news by Peter Mathews

Honey Prices
Checking honey prices in the West Country, I found £4 to £4.50 / lb to be fairly typical as a shop price. Prices were higher on the coast and tourist areas, as one might expect. I only found one shop at £3.50.... this was a post office / general store in the middle of nowhere. Best price was the Maritime Museum in Falmouth at £4.50 for 12oz, or £6 / lb.
Sainsbury’s English Honey is £3.50 / lb
Waitrose are selling 12oz jars of Rowse's 'English
Honey' at an equivalent price of £4.50 / lb.
This year English honey is virtually unobtainable below £3.50 / lb. except from beekeepers with minimal marketing skills. Or, are they saying their honey is second rate?
Thymol
Peter Folge can supply Thymol crystals from a bulk order at £13 / 500g plus p&p. The following method has been found effective to treat the colonies:
A plastic screw-top lid (from a small plastic container approx. 5cm diameter – honey jar lid will do) on top of the brood chamber/frames and kept this topped up on a weekly basis for 4 weeks adding 8g per week as necessary. This should be carried out in August as soon as extracting has finished as this treatment is temperature reliant – the lower the temperature, the less effective.