Dani’s bees

02/03/2026

Away for a while ✈️
Don’t miss me too much and remember to
Eat 🐝 Buzz 🐝 Repeat 🐝

01/03/2026

Happy 1st of March, honeys
HOPE that Baba Marta brings to all of you the best health, mood and good fortune !
BEE healthy
BEE happy
BEE good
BEE awesome
and may BABA MARTA bee with you and keeps you well
🤍❤️🤍❤️🤍❤️🤍❤️🤍❤️🤍❤️🤍❤️

🇧🇬⚪️🔴Честита Баба Марта🤍💚❤️

THE BULGARIAN TRADITION OF BABA MARTA AND MARTENITSA ⚪️🔴
Every year on 1st of March, Bulgarian people celebrate a centuries-old tradition called the day of Baba Marta (baba means ‘Grandma’ and Marta means ‘March’), related to sending off the winter and welcoming the approaching spring. Wearing and giving martenitsas⚪️🔴

On that day and a few days afterwards, Bulgarians exchange and wear the so-called “Martenitsas” – decorative pieces of red and white twisted threads, symbolising health and happiness and a lucky charm against evil spirits. The Martenitsas are given away to friends, family and colleagues and are worn around the wrist or on clothes. In some villages in the mountains people decorate their houses and domestic animals.

Martenitsa is made of twined red and white threads – woolen, silk, or cotton. The most typical Martenitsa represents two small dolls, known as Pizho and Penda. Pizho is the male doll, usually in white colour. Penda is the female doll, usually in red colour and distinguished by her skirt.

Martenitsas come in a variety of shapes and sizes: bracelets, necklaces, tassels, pompoms and balls.The white is a symbol of purity, innocence, beauty and joy. The red is associated with health, vitality, fertility and bravery.

According to the tradition, people wear Martenitsas for a certain period, the end of which is usually associated with the first signs of spring – seeing a stork or a fruit tree in blossom. After that people can tie them on a blossoming tree for fertility thus giving the tree health and luck, which the person wearing the Martenitsa enjoyed while wearing it.

In Bulgarian folklore, Baba Marta is a mythical figure who brings with her the end of the cold winter and the beginning of spring. Baba Marta is believed to be a grumpy old lady whose moods swing very quickly and it reflects in the changeable March weather. The belief was that when she was smiling the weather was sunny and warm, but if she got angry the cold would stay longer. By wearing the red and white colours of the Martenitsa, our predecessors asked Baba Marta for mercy. They hoped that it would make winter pass faster and bring spring.

Young and old would take care to keep Baba Marta in a good mood. Young would get up early before anybody else in order to meet the first day of March and rejoice Baba Marta with their youth and beauty. Old women would knit twisted strands of red and white threads to decorate the house. They were believed to protect people from diseases and evil forces. The housewives used to hang out red aprons, belts, rugs or twisted threads in front of their houses, hoping that when Baba Marta saw them, she would laugh and make the Sun shine bright again.

The custom of wearing Martenitsa is probably one of the most interesting Bulgarian traditions. According to one of the many legends, this tradition is associated with the founding of the Bulgarian state in 681 AD. The first martenitsa was made by Ahinora, the wife of Khan Asparuh (the founder of Bulgaria) in the second half of the seventh century, when Asparuh crossed the Danube and found the Bulgarian lands. Ahinora, while waiting for her husband, decided to send him wishes for good health and prosperity. She tied a twisted white and red thread to the leg of a swallow and send the bird to deliver the message for health and love.

We wish you all a wonderful day and hope for a joyful spring⚪️🔴🤍💚❤️

Image:
Balkanfolk

25/02/2026

Setting up for doing a BEE talk at the British Legion - let’s hope the lovely ladies understand my posh Scottish accent 🤭
Buzzzingg

23/02/2026

That’s the entries for the Great Taste 2026 done and ready for shipping 😮‍💨 🫣

Feeling nervous and hopeful at the same time 😳🤞🏻

I can rest now knowing that I’ve done my part and it’s over to the judges now so let’s see what happens 🤷🏻‍♀️🙏

If anyone has some spare good wishes and vibes - send them my way pls and here’s hoping in the summer we’ll have some positive results 🙄🍀

And now we wait …….

22/02/2026

Today I’ve been to see two separate bee buddies and help them do post mortal assessments to their winter hive loses as they have lost their colonies 😔

On both occasions combination of factors were the root causes
- the first one - too smal colony going into winter and not able to sustain enough heat and resources to keep the hive warm + too big of a hive with cold frames of bear foundation and no drawn comb + failing queen from a late swarm of the year before got re-queened and colony not build up to enough strength to draw the combs and create enough stores for the winter
- the second loss was due to similar lethal factors - and although they had plenty of stores and hive insulation to retain the cluster heat, the colony was too small to make it and cluster successfully + queen mated late during the wet part of the season which wasn’t sufficient enough so she failed gradually and despite their efforts to keep warm and cosy - they lost the battle with harsh Scottish winter ❄️

So as hard as it is to loose a colony - it’s important that we learn lessons along the way and try to do our best to help them do their thing 🫶🏽 so these are words of encouragement and support:
🐝 please don’t give up - keep going and start again, taking inspiration from the resilient bees - they need our help
🐝 please do remember what went wrong and try to avoid it the next time around as in beekeeping we always try to think 5 moves down the line and have to re-adjust plans
🐝 please do remember what worked well and try to keep doing it and improving where you can as ‘every-little-helps’
🐝 please do keep a close eye on your stocks all year round as sometimes Mother Nature has its own jokes throwing at us to always keep us on our toes no matter the season
🐝 please do not buckle it and take it as personal beekeeper’s failure - sometimes nature takes it’s course despite our best efforts (not to mention other stuff like pests and diseases 🤦🏻‍♀️) and it happens to all
🐝 please do continue to learn and share - we’re all in it together and helping each other and sharing experiences means the world and makes the difference between silent desperation and shared journey
🐝 remember bees were on this earth way before us humans and managed to survive despite our best efforts to destroy some of their habitats - so they are resilient and have their own ways to continue BEE, it feels sometimes that they’re keeping us and not the other way around so don’t worry - they’ll make it with or without us
🐝 any struggles - share them - we’re just a buzz away and always at the end of a phone
🐝 Mother Nature knows best and it’s survival of the fittest - some times things happen for a reason and even if we think it’s the worst possible outcome - things could have been much worse - aka these colonies could have had a nasty decease to spread around and affect other healthy stocks, or some animal or human or force of nature could have destroyed the whole hive and rendering it unusable or demolish all together so not all is lost - we take stock, we clean and rebuild again ⬆️

Sorry for the long post, but I felt important to share the bad times alongside the good times - beekeeping is not all glamours golden craft - it comes with hard work, grafting, worrying and unexpected turns along the way and plenty of false summits but most of all - great care for our bees, in good times and bad, so it matters we give them our best and keep on trying
Onwards & Upwards 💪
Much love to all 🐝

20/02/2026

New product alert 🔔

Honey, infused with Nettle tips! 🌱

Nothing says bring-on-spring better than this

It’s surprisingly refreshing and bursting with flavour 🍯

Come along to find me at my first markets this year and taste it - you’ll BEE amazed and might even find your new favourite flavoured honey 👅

21st Feb Banchory Farmers Market
28th Feb Blairgowrie Farmers and Producers Market

Or if you can’t make it and feel adventurous and trust me - you can always order online at https://shop.danisbees.co.uk/b/63P8M or pop along at R Doig & Sons when in Montrose

Bring on Spring 🐝 Buzz 🐝 Repeat 🐝

19/02/2026

Change in packaging alert 🔔

Please BEE aware that your favourite pollen is no longer available in the wee hex jars as they are discontinued from the manufacturer 😔

Instead the small jars are now round and take 20g which is reflected in the price

The large jars with measuring spoon remain the same so no changes there 😮‍💨

Many thanks for your understanding

https://shop.danisbees.co.uk/b/8mgb7

18/02/2026

Remember the Xmas best seller?
Well now you can buy it all year round, because HONEY is not just for Xmas 🍯

Birthdays, Mother’s/ Father’s/ all-sorts-of days, any other Sunday, visiting your friends and family or just to say ‘I care, honey’ - all sorted with this genuine, healthy, heartfelt, stylish and practical gift 💝 that will melt their hearts and earn you brownie points, but most of all - every time they tuck into their jar 🍯- they’ll think of you and how hapBEE they are to have YOU in their life 😉 as this gift was a result of million working hours by the bees, 🐝 tirelessly collecting the nature’s goodness and made with love and care🍯

So bee different this year and give the gift of care 🫶🏽

https://shop.danisbees.co.uk/b/8CItZ

17/02/2026

Aaand I’m back in 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 👋

Hope you’ve not missed me too much 😛

Going round the hives just now to check all the buzzies and so far so good - happy bees, some more hungry than others 😋but most importantly- NO winter losses so I’m really chuffed with how they overwintered 🐝

Once I check all the bees - will be making stock and re-opening the online shop + restocking the honey shelves at R Doig & Sons which are rather empty, so thank you for your patience and looking forward to catching up with all of my honeys

See ya around ✌️

15/02/2026

Didn't make it to Copenhagen last year for Apimondia, but made it to Apiculture Pleven this year yay😜

Spent a little fortune already but it's all money well spent for happy bees and even happier beekeeper 🙄

Buy new kit 🐝 Buzz 🐝 Repeat 🐝

01/01/2026

Happy New Year!

Wishing all to work hard for everything you ever want and enjoy it when achieved!

May 2026 bee your year

Dream 🐝 Buzz 🐝 Repeat 🐝