When you explore the pages you will see that Newsletters are archived there back to January 2004 (2003 to follow). The latest Newsletter available is protected by a password. Any member who does not know what this is should contact the editor. You can print off a pdf version there that will reproduce the format of the paper version. Feedback and ideas (or better still - copy) for additional pages will be welcome.

Finally I want to thank Claire Tellis-Doherty for her original work for the design and layout of the website.

2.      Next Meeting

This month's apiary meeting is at Mrs. Hodgson's apiary at her Lavender Farm near Astley Abbotts, Bridgnorth. It lies just off the B4373 road from Broseley to Bridgnorth. Approaching from Broseley turn left off this road when you see the Astley Abbotts sign. The apiary is on the edge of the lavender fields, which you will see on your right hand side a little way down this road (grid reference: SO 704964). Our annual visit to Mrs. Hodgson's apiary is always a particular treat. If you have not been before it really is worth a special effort to be there. Date - 18th June, time : 2.30 p.m.

Advance notice: the July meeting is again at our own apiary at Radbrook. It is likely that there will be a talk and demonstration of the making up of nuclei. Given the number of colony losses last winter members may find this particularly relevant to restoring their apiaries before the autumn comes. Beginners and new members are, as always, particularly welcome.

3.      The Sugar Roll

To assess number of Varroa mites there is a simple, non-destructive, immediate test I know called the Sugar Roll and is quite fun. All you need is 2 honey jars, a way to close one jar top leaving 3mm holes (either a bit of plastic greenhouse mesh or a bit of an onion bag or (easiest) the little bag that comes in each packet of clothes washer tablets or a jar lid punched with holes from the inside. Plus a packet of icing sugar.

Put 3 teaspoonsful of the sugar in one jar then take an outer brood frame and check carefully the queen is not there, then bump the bees off into a square cornered box and pour the bees up one corner to fill the jar half full. The bees are a bit surprised you are doing this and only a few fly away. Cover the jar and fix the mesh with say a rubber band. Turn the jar sideways and roll it in your fingers. The bees turn white almost immediately. Continue remorselessly until all are coated. Now fill the other jar half full with water and set the first jar upside down on top. Sugar trickles through for about 5 minutes as the bees continue to kick and struggle. The sugar dissolves and mites float, clearly visible. (Last week I got 65 from an untreated hive, about a 50% infestation). Release the bees at the hive entrance and they fly/crawl in, except for any bees damaged by Varroa. Do give it a try.

If you want to be scientific, then immerse the jar in detergent water to kill the bees, rinse them with a fine sieve underneath to see how many mites survived the sugar and then count the number of bees in your sample to get an accurate measure of the percentage infestation. Estimate the total number of bees in the colony and multiply up to estimate the total mite population.

Robin Dartington (from Hertfordshire BKA's Newsletter. Courtesy of BEES)

4.      The Joys of Beekeeping American Style

BOZEMAN, Montana (AP) - A tractor-trailer overturned on a curve on a highway, shedding its load of hundreds of bee-hives and unleashing some nine million angry honey bees. The bees buzzed furiously as driver Lane Miller, his arm scraped to the bone, struggled to flee his rig after it overturned Monday n Bear Trap Canyon west of Bozeman, The truck slid across the highway before coming to a stop between guardrails. Miller walked away from the crash, and two people picked him up and took him to the hospital. He underwent surgery on his arm and suffered bruises and about 26 stings. The state road was closed for 16 hours as crews and beekeepers cleaned up the 512 hives Miller was hauling from Idaho to North Dakota.

In spite of bee suits and extra clothing, beekeeper Gary Clark said he counted about 60 stings of his own. "Everybody had literally thousands of bees on them, in their hats and on their suits," Clark said. "When we pulled the boxes out, big globs of them would fall on us." Firefighters directing traffic also suffered stings. 'The bees were so agitated you could barely see the beekeepers or the wreckage itself because of the cloud of bees that were swarming," said fire chief Shawn Christiansen.

Reprinted from The Scottish Beekeeper: May 2005 courtesy BEES

5.      Oozing with Nectar : the Nectary

Like airborne tankers, bees don't exactly drink nectar, they just fill up with it and transport it back to the hive where other worker bees make it into honey. On each flower visit it is the nectaries the honeybee seeks out for nectar. Rather than an easily recognisable organ, such as a flower petal or an ovary, a nectary is simply a small group of cells that secretes a sugary solution. A nectary may be no more than a secretory surface, but in some plant species nectar is secreted by special glandular knobs or fine hairs.

All plants have two plumbing systems: water is transported upwards through the xylem from the roots to the leaves, and a sugary supply of energy is transported from the leaves, where it is manufactured, to all other parts of the plant via the phloem. Depending on which plumbing system makes the greatest contribution to the nectar, the nectar can contain anything from 5% to 50% of sugar in varying combinations of sucrose, glucose, maltose and fructose. Bees prefer the nectar sugary and thick, bumblebees are less fussy, birds can only cope with watery solution.

Nectaries can be situated practical anywhere on a plant. Some plant species, for example the maples and limes, have nectaries inside the flowers. Other species such as the Black Cherry, the Madrone and the Acacias, have nectaries on the outside of the flowers, or on leaves or stems. Species like oak and willow, which a wind pollinated, have no nectaries but still are visited by foraging bees, this time attracted by the sweet honeydew excreted by phloem sucking aphids. For species with nectaries, their location on the plant is important in an ecological context because when honeybees forage from floral nectaries, they also help with pollination. Some extra-floral nectaries are visited by ants, who turn keep the plant free of harmful insects.

[Information from the International Tree Foundation reprinted in The Essex Beekeeper July 2002 courtesy BEES]

6.      Round and About

Ludlow & District BKA:Sat. 11th June: Practical Apiary Meeting at Hamish & Elspeth Barber's, Mocktree, Leintwardine. 3rd July is 'Buzz Day at Acton Scott Farm - demonstration & sales. Further details: Andy Vanderhook Tel: 01299 841379

North Shropshire BKA:Saturday June 18th. Out-apiary afternoon at Pim Hill 2.00 p.m. Details: Mike Harris Tel: 01939 232302

Oswestry BKA: Saturday June 11th at 3.00 p.m. Invitation of Mr. & Mrs. A Rigby, Honeysuckle Cottage, Haughton, West Felton. Demonstration & talk by Dave Sutton. June 25th. Demonstration at the secretary's apiary, followed by a strawberry tea. Please confirm attendance in advance to: G. Jones Tel: 01691 654448

Montgomery BKA:Sunday 26th June 2.30 p.m. Apiary meeting: venue to be confirmed. Please contact Programme Secretary (Barbara Downie) 01686 43051 for further details.

7.      War and Bees-- military applications of apiculture

One of the earliest accounts, from the first century B.C., records the misfortunes of a Roman campaign, led by Pompeii the Great, against the Heptakometes in Asia Minor. Interestingly, it is not the bees themselves that are employed in this instance but rather their honey. About a thousand Roman troops were passing through a narrow mountain pass when they encountered a cache of honey. The soldiers halted their advance and eagerly devoured the honey. They soon became afflicted with delirium and violent seizures of vomiting and purges and in such a condition were easily defeated by the Heptakomete defenders who took their cue to attack. It seems that the honey had been left in the soldiers' path as a poisonous bait to stupefy them.

The locals would have been well aware that honey produced during certain times of the year was naturally poisonous. Honey yielded from the nectar of such plants as Rhododendron ponticum/ Azalea pontica contain alkaloids that are toxic to humans but harmless to bees. Beekeepers in areas where these plants are common (such as the area of present-day Turkey where this incident occurred) routinely remove this toxic honey so it doesn't contaminate subsequent stores. The poisonous honey is later fed back to the bees.

Of course, there are plenty of instances when bees have been used in the more obvious way, as "meat-seeking missiles". Both the Romans and the Dacians (from present day Romania) for instance learned to use bees in the wars they waged. They simply sent beehives catapulting into the ranks or fortifications of their enemies. The unleashed fury of the bees is credited with being the decisive stroke of more than one battle.

In the eleventh century, Emperor Henry 1's troops defended their fortifications by launching a barrage of beehives at the siege forces of Duke Geiselbert of Lorraine and sent them scurrying. King Richard is recorded as having used hives of bees as catapult-launched bombs against the Saracens during the Third Crusade in the twelfth century. In 1289 in Gussing, Hungary, an Austrian invasion lead by Duke Albert was repulsed with a fusillade of hot water, fire and bees thrown from the battlements of the city. In 1513 troops belonging to Emmanuel the Fortunate, King of Portugal were repulsed during a siege by Moorish defenders who threw hives down onto them from the citadel's walls.

Taken from an article: 'War and Bees' by Conrad A Berube first published in Dromore Buzzette, 1997 and copied here from Montgomery Beekeepers Association Newsletter, Jan. 2005 courtesy BEES

8.      Saving Bees: Fungus Found To Attack Varroa Mites

Since 2000, scientists in the ARS Beneficial Insects Research Unit (BIRU) at Weslaco, Texas, have been looking for a disease-causing agent, or pathogen, that can stop Varroa mites. The mite has developed resistance to the only US approved chemicals-fluvalinate and coumaphos-now used for control, and coumaphos is on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's "hit list" for possible removal from the market. So the researchers have looked at various disease agents, tried different dosages and application methods, and conducted toxicity tests. Finally, they selected a strain of the fungus Metarhizium anisopliae that was highly pathogenic to Varroa mites.

This potent fungus, which also kills termites, doesn't harm bees or affect their queen's production. To test it, the scientists coated plastic strips with dry fungal spores and placed them inside the hives. Since bees naturally attack anything entering their hives, they tried to chew up the strips, spreading the spores throughout the colony.

In field trials, once the strips were inside the hives, several bees quickly made contact with the spores. Within 5 to 10 minutes, all the bees in the hive were exposed to the fungus, and most of the mites on them died within 3 to 5 days. The fungus provided excellent control of Varroa without impeding colony development or population size.

Tests showed that Metarhizium was as effective as fluvalinate, even 42 days after application. The scientific team is now fine-tuning the strategy for transfer to producers.

(Saving Bees: Fungus Found To Attack Varroa Mites" was published in the October 2004 issue of Agricultural Research magazine.)

9.      Propolis Rinse Helps Prevent Cavities

Propolis is sticky, glue-like material that bees make from the resin of trees and plants and their own secretions. Researchers say propolis halts an enzyme in streptococcus mutans, a micro-organism found in the mouths of humans and animals that is the main culprit behind tooth decay.

Bees use propolis to seal holes in their hives and to embalm predators, including wasps, that have invaded their homes. Propolis keeps the dead insects from decomposing in the hive and causing further problems. This ability to keep organisms from decomposing is what first sparked the researchers' interest in the potential propolis might have as an antiseptic, or antibacterial, agent. "Antiseptics reduce the virulence of bacteria or kill enough of it so the human immune system can get rid of it," says Dr. Michel Hyun Koo, a dentist at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.

In a laboratory test, rats that were given a mouthwash containing propolis twice a day had 60% fewer cavities than rats given a mouthwash that didn't contain propolis, Koo says. Rats get cavities the same way humans do, he adds. Koo and his colleagues have been gathering propolis from beehives in Brazil to use in their laboratory experiments. "The potential is enormous," Koo says. "So far, we haven't found any other agent that is as effective as this natural product. Propolis will not, however, replace fluoride," he adds. "The idea would be to use both," Koo says, noting that the two fight cavities in entirely different ways. Fluoride helps replenish enamel that's been lost to decay. Researchers believe propolis works by inhibiting an enzyme, called glucosyltransferase, in Streptococcus mutans, which is key to the build-up of plaque on teeth.

The enzyme aids the formation of plaque by creating molecules, called glucans, which become the building blocks of plaque. The structure of the biofilm enables bacteria to collect on it and latch on to teeth. Cavities form when bacteria metabolise sugar, producing lactic acid that eats away at the enamel. "If you knock out the enzyme, you prevent dental plaque formation," Koo says. "If you prevent dental plaque formation, you prevent cavities. But before a propolis mouthwash is ready for market, more research has to be done," he adds.

Propolis is highly complex and contains more than 40 compounds. The amount of each compound varies with the type of bee, and even from hive to hive. The challenge for researchers is to isolate the active ingredients that combat streptococcus mutans.

(Jennifer Thomas, Health Scout News Reporter)  Edited from http://www.beesource.com/news/article/propolis.htm

10.      Members' Advertisements

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11.      Did you know.......?

• A honeybee visits between 50 and 100 flowers during one collection flight from the hive.
  
  
• In order to produce 1 pound of honey, 2 million flowers must be visited.

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