BOTTOM-UP BEEKEEPING

I’m Ray Baxter, beekeeper & amateur scientist living in the Scottish Borders. My second favourite hobby is pottery and I’m looking forward to somehow joining the two hobbies together, one day. I live and work on our flower farm half way up a very windy Scottish hillside.

I’ve been researching the debris produced by honey bee colonies & written a book to document what I’ve learned from looking at the hive floor and exploring how this can help beekeepers. The book is called ‘Bottom-up Beekeeping’ and was published in June 2025 by Northern Bee Books.

Why am interested in bee debris?

It is through careful observation that we see the subtle changes, which in turn throws up questions and make links to connect stories from within the colony and the wider environment. I have spent many hours going through scientific papers to explain debris patterns and trends. Sometimes this is illuminating, often the search comes up blank - frequently it feels like I’m trying to tell a story of something that sits outside of scientific understanding. Much more detective work is needed to unravel many of these secrets.

Studying debris is like being a bee detective - slowly getting all your clues together to make small breakthroughs - oh that’s a mite, that’s a chalkbrood cyst, that’s a drone antennae, a stellate trichrome etc, slowly looking at debris for a year. Slowly over time it has become possible to understand more of that story and ask many more questions.

Through the research I could feel the learning becoming deeper and wider. Unexpectedly I have found through regular interaction becoming closer to the bee colony world. Reaffirming just how precious the biology of the colony is. It’s so much more than box of bees, rather a patchwork of complex relationships between many living and non living factors from the local environment. Trying to make sense of those links through the study of debris has been addictive and a hugely rewarding experience.

You can contact me by email at rbaxter.borders@gmail.com