Newsletter : December 2010
Newsletter : December 2010
1. Editor's Notes
Things should have quietened down now in the apiary. The extended cold spell that is here as I write means that the bees should be clustering together tightly (see item 6 below) and, if you have frames of drawn foundation stored in the open, the cold will be helping to kill off any surviving waxmoths and their eggs or larvae. You may want to take advantage of this quieter time to do some of the jobs that have been building up over the active season, or staying indoors and reading a good beekeeping book. Since some tasks are always with us, new beekeepers may find the notes below (reprinted from last December) a useful reminder of two jobs that are ideally done this month.
One is the winter treatment of the colony with oxalic acid to kill off any wandering varroa mites. The point of doing this in the winter is that sealed brood as at its lowest level, so most surviving varroa will be clinging to the adult bees instead of out of harm’s way in a sealed cell. They are therefore at their most vulnerable to oxalic acid treatment. The two recommended methods are vapourisation of the crystals by heating them in a special device placed in the top of the hive (effective but needing great care to avoid accidental inhalation of the vapour); or by trickling about 5cc of a 3% solution of the crystals dissolved in sugar syrup over each seam of bees in the brood chamber (again care is needed when handling the acid solution since it can be absorbed through the skin – protective clothing is a must). The former method requires the use of a special vapouriser while the latter uses a relatively inexpensive syringe – but does involve accessing the bees. If you were not able to attend last Saturday’s apiary demonstration but would be interested to know more, the BBKA produces an excellent leaflet available by post or downloaded here.
The other job is the preparation of an emergency winter feed. This should not be of sugar syrup, since bees cannot deal with a liquid feed at this time of year. The recommendation is for ‘fondant’, which may mean two different things. True bakers’ fondant is a mixture of sugar, glucose solids and water, heated and stirred together and then cooled to a soft paste. It can be bought from some wholesale bakery outlets. The alternative, which can be made at home, is to make a solution of 5lbs/sugar per pint of water and boil it vigorously for about 3 minutes or until the temperature reaches 234°F (soft-ball on a jam thermometer). Now cool it in a water bath while stirring frequently and, as soon as the liquid starts to turn milky, pour it out into clean margarine tubs or foil freezer containers and leave to solidify. One of these inverted over the open hole in a crownboard will ensure that the bees have food to keep them going in an emergency. (If you prefer metric measures, use 4kg sugar to 1 litre water and boil till the temperature reaches 112°C, then continue as before.)
2. Last Meeting
The November meeting was a talk by John Goodwin called “How I Keep My Bees”. His first slide had the subtitle of Basic Beekeeping and the first reaction of a number of our new beekeepers was that it seemed anything but! However, John’s message was that we should be very clear about what we are trying to do in our beekeeping and work consistently to achieve that end. In his case, he has to deal with the demands of work that may take him abroad for lengthy periods and has limited time for his beekeeping. He has therefore laid great emphasis on siting his apiaries so that they can all be inspected efficiently with least time wasted. All his hives are the same and he tries to keep them equally balanced in terms of strength. To this end he feeds and requeens weak colonies early in the season or splits the most vigorous ones.
Given that his work often keeps him away during the summer, John’s efforts are particularly directed to minimising swarming, both by the techniques above and also by fitting all his hives with small hole entrances that can be controlled by discs (see left). These enable him to prevent queens from absconding (these are clipped anyway) and also make it easy to protect the entrances once the supers have been removed, without the need for entrance blocks.
John’s other interest is in breeding good queens, both for himself and to make up nuclei to sell (more practical for him than honey). After experimenting with grafting he has recently had greater success using a Jenter kit to produce eggs ready for developing into queens and recommended them for anyone interested in trying this out. John’s slides, together with the equipment he brought along for everyone to see, enhanced an excellent talk that gave food for thought to beginners and our more experienced members alike.
3. December Meeting
The next meeting is on the 8th December at Shirehall (7.30 p.m.) Brian Goodwin will be entertaining us with a look at some of the lesser-known byways of both bees and beekeeping. Afterwards, as usual, we will enjoy some social time together. Please bring along something to contribute (food or drink) to the party.
4. The Usefulness Of Internet Information Dave Cushman
Many beginning beekeepers use the internet as their first port of call when looking for information, but all beekeepers use the internet at some time or other. This can give some misleading information to the unwary as, indeed, can many books and research papers which can sometimes give a narrowly focused view.
Let me explain that bee research is carried out in many different parts of the world, mainly using the bees that are locally available to the researchers. Bees are not all the same, all races have different characteristics and behaviour and exist in various degrees of racial purity, so information gathered and conclusions drawn in any particular study cannot be applied universally to all other bees and circumstances. The UK and Ireland have a population that contains a large proportion of Dark European Honey Bee genes and as such are very different in behaviour to the majority of bees commonly studied by scientists, so we have to be particularly careful about interpreting and applying information that we read in books and gather from the internet.
When reading papers and books you should try to fix in your mind where the bees concerned were and what racial type they may have been. For instance, in USA the bees are generally a mixture of Italian and Carniolan types, with less than three percent Dark European Honey Bee genes; parts of Germany can be Carniolan or Dark European; Slovenia and Czech Republic are almost exclusively Carniolan – and many parts of South America are Africanised.
There is another problem with online information, in that the internet is not policed, so Joe beekeeper can promote his favourite theory just as easily as a university researcher can publish genuine research. There are no checks as to whether the information is right or wrong so that someone who is a glib writer may easily promote misinformation just as easily as accurate data.
Books pose other, additional problems in interpretation... During the period either side of year 1900, many of the beekeeping authors were members of the clergy, some of whom imparted a religious or moral 'spin' to their information. However the main problem with books is the propagation of inaccurate information, which in turn is repeated in subsequent books written by others that have done their learning from the earlier books.
The fact that said piece of inaccurate information occurs in several books then lends weight for such information to be believed. There is another tendency with belief of printed texts and that is that 'it must be true because it has been published'.
I cannot give you any method of sorting the wheat from the chaff other than by improving your own education on bee matters. The best way of achieving this is by attending, meetings, lectures and conferences and getting to know the researchers and lecturers themselves, so that you can ask them direct questions. Over a few years you will gain enough knowledge to make sensible judgment on what you are reading.
(Leicestershire & Rutland BKA Nov/Dec 2010; Courtesy eBEES)
5. Feral Bees Invade Bat Roost Andrew Perry
I was recently faced with a problem that I thought you may find interesting. As well as being a bee-keeper and member of the HRBKA, I am a Natural England Volunteer Bat Warden. I was called out to a house with a long standing and much loved bat roost in a porch immediately above the front door. The bats had vacated the roost in late August (perfectly normal) and a colony of feral honeybees had moved into the roost in early September. The bees not only pose a risk to the bat roost (by potentially filling it with comb), but are an unwelcome nuisance to the home owner and a potential safety hazard (the postman has refused to deliver letters). My initial thought was simply to advice insecticide application in October, when bats are not present, using an insecticide recommended by NE for use in bat roosts. However, an association member advised me that the dead colony may be robbed by a managed colony, who would in turn take the poison back to their hive, killing them.
Therefore thinking that the eradication of feral bee colonies, where the use of chemical insecticides was undesirable, would be a pretty common activity I sought some advice and got far more than I bargained for.
The National Bee Unit advised me that the eradicated feral colony is likely to be robbed but knew of no other way to guarantee eradication other than the application of insecticides (NBU use C02 but this takes considerable expertise and is not usually available to the general public). Their view is:
Next I spoke to a prominent member of the HRBKA who, although in agreement with NBU, was somewhat more sympathetic to the bats and suggested the following possible solutions:
On the advice of the bee-keeper, I then called a pest control officer (PCO), and member of HRBKA. He informed me that the insecticide typically used is Ficam D (authorised by NE for use in bat roosts). However, application would cause a legal conflict of interest for any PCO because:
(From Harrogate & Ripon Newsletter; Courtesy eBEES)
6. Winter in the Hive.
Once temperatures have dropped consistently below 55°F, the bees will enter a dormant state. Flying will cease and they will group together in a ball, occupying cells in the centre of the nest, left empty of stores for the purpose. This is known as the winter cluster. The bees are not hibernating, in the way queen wasps and bumblebees do and there is always some activity.
The temperature in the cluster bears little correlation to the outside temperature, and ranges from about 45°F in the dense, insulating outside layer of bees, to 75°F in the centre of the cluster. The bees here are more loosely packed and are more active, thus generating the heat. (When brood rearing starts early in the new year, the temperature around the brood will be maintained at about 95°F) To do this they must be in constant contact with their honey stores. On milder days they are able to move around and relocate the cluster, and a large cluster can move around at will, due to its superior heat producing capacity. The bees expand and contract the cluster, according to the temperature. When it is really cold the bees on the outside may be unable to maintain their grip and so fall off and die but generally they stay just warm enough to cling on.
The bigger the cluster the better able it is to maintain an even temperature in the brood nest and any interference disturbs this equilibrium. Sudden changes of temperature lead to in- creased activity, this means increased food consumption and possible dysentery if it is too cold for cleansing flights to take place. From now until Spring only disturb the bees if absolutely essential.
[From the Blackburn Beekeepers Newsletter Courtesy eBEES]
7. A Holiday Quiz
[Adapted from Somerton BKA Newsletter [Courtesy eBEES] For answers see here.
8. MEMBERSHIP RENEWAL
PLEASE NOTE THAT IF YOU HAVE NOT YET RENEWED YOUR MEMBERSHIP YOU MUST DO SO BEFORE THE END OF THIS MONTH TO CONTINUE RECEIVING THE NEWSLETTER
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