Newsletter : May 2003
Newsletter : May 2003
1. Editorial
The Stoneleigh Convention has come and gone and the bees are very busy. I bought some bargain copies of 'Bees in the Curriculum' on the Association's behalf. Anyone who finds him/herself going into a school to talk to children is welcome to a copy. Despite what I said last month about using disposable latex gloves now, I was also tempted by a pair of yellow leather gloves being sold by a French firm. They were only £5, which seemed such a bargain that I could not resist. 2. Next Meeting
Our next meeting will be at Tony Little's apiary on 14th June. Members should aim for the car-park of the 'Four Crosses' public house on the A41 at Hinstock. The apiary is a few hundred yards from there and there will be signposts to point the way. The meeting starts at 2.00 p.m.
3. Pest Control Charges by Selby Martin
Most beekeepers have been called out at one time or another to deal with a swarm or a wasp's nest. Sometimes it is worth the trouble, when you come home with a prime swarm to put into one of your waiting hives. At other times disappointment follows the discovery that the bees were in fact bumble bees, or wasps or a swarm that has already taken up residence in some awkward location. 4. Uniting Colonies & Nuclei by Gordon Hartshorn
Last month I wrote about increasing colonies by using a Wilson Board, this month let us look at the problems and advantages of uniting bees. Usually during a season there is a need to unite bees. When the manipulation takes place it is essential that the bees do not fight with each other, for this could result in the loss of a queen. It can be used as management tool, for example at the end of a season if one wishes to winter on fewer strong colonies. Like most matters in beekeeping weather conditions play their part and it is easier when there is a good flow on and the weather is fine. The idea of uniting is to allow the bees to mix slowly, for example by using biodegradable newspaper or confusing the bees with powders or scents. 5. Readers' Tips.
6. Hive Beetle Threatens Honey Yields (Tom Spears: Canwest News Service)
OTTAWA - Already killed or weakened by bloodsucking mites, Ontario's bees are about to meet a new threat: a beetle that drops foul-smelling feces in to honey turning it into useless "beetlejuice" The small hive beetle has come from Florida and Georgia to upper New York State in the past few years, just a short flight away from Ontario's hives. Experts say the beetles could arrive as early as this year. While previous bee pests have killed off bees in thousands of hives, this is the first one to turn the honey itself from a sweet treat to a repulsive, slimy goo that even the bees won't tolerate. 7. OSWESTRY BEEKEEPERS' ASSOCIATION
A reminder to our Oswestry neighbours that there is a meeting on Saturday 24th May at the invitation of Mr. & Mrs Rigby, Honeysuckle Cottage, Haughton, West Felton. It will include a talk and demonstration by Mr. D. Sutton, MAFF Foul Brood Officer. There is also a meeting on Saturday 7th June by invitation of Mr. K. Everitt, Cwmclyd, Llarnom Road, Pandy, Glyn Ceirog. The speaker will be Brian Goodwin, SBKA President. Both these meetings start at 3.00 p.m.
8. Postscript
Re: Question about removing sticky labels from jars.
We are moving into the swarming season now, so no apologies for including a couple of relevant articles from Gordon Hartshorn & Selby Martin. I discovered several developing queen cells in my strongest colony last week, encouraged no doubt by the plentiful supply of oil-seed rape nearby. I decided to pre-empt matters by setting up an 'artificial swarm', which I hope will relieve space problems for all concerned.
I'm interested to read what Steve Watkins has to say about note-taking. I have never found it easy to write notes in the apiary. Searching in my pockets for a pen & notepad after each hive inspection is fiddly and I often can't read my writing very well afterwards! My latest ploy, which I started to use last season and seems to work well for me, is to carry one of those small 'dicataphone' type recorders. I can handle that without difficulty while wearing gloves and, if necessary, record notes at any stage of the process. I then write it all up when I'm back in the house so it's there for reference before I do my next inspection.
I'm very grateful to our regular contributors who have kept me well supplied with material so far this year. Thanks also to Mr. Chapman who sent in the rather scary article about the ravages of the small hive-beetle in Canada. What about you? Bee keepers are so opinionated that you must all have something to say! Please share it with your fellow-members and help to make this Newsletter a real forum of communication for us all.
Householders who don't know of a beekeeper or don't think of calling one in probably turn to the local authority's pest control department. Those living in the Borough of Shrewsbury may be interested to know the charges that are raised on a visit from the pest control officer. The charges for domestic premises proposed for 2003/2004 vary enormously according to the type of pest. Rats and mice, bed bugs and human fleas are cleared free of charge. Animal fleas will cost £39 for a one or two-bedroomed property, with £8 for each additional bedroom in a larger property. Those on income support or housing benefit pay £9.00 and £2.50 respectively. For wasps, flies and bees in domestic premises, the charges, regardless of the size of house, are: Wasps £27, Flies £32 and Bees £55. If the work is done out of hours, a supplement of 100% is levied. The status of bumble bees is not clear.
For non-domestic premises, the charges are hourly based and do not appear to conform to the relative costs for domestic premises. Contract work is charged at £20.50 an hour regardless of pest. Bees, however, are £40.50 an hour, except in council-owned property, where the charge is only £12.20 an hour. The higher charges for bees presumably reflect the time and effort required to destroy a colony of bees once it has become established in a house. All the same, any one with a bee problem would do better to call on one of our members rather than seek council help out of hours.
THE NEWSPAPER METHOD
The newspaper method is the safest way of uniting bees, particularly for beginners. It can be used for uniting a nucleus to full strength colony or for joining two full strength colonies together. Since flying bees will return to their original site it is necessary to move the stocks to be united to within 3 feet of each other. If the hives or nuclei are in the same apiary this can be done by moving them 3 feet per day until they are side by side. The other alternative is to move one hive over 3 miles away and return after about week and place it next to the hive with which it is going to be united.
When uniting the two colonies the old or unsatisfactory queen must be removed. The colony with the young queen needs to be in the box that goes on top. The colonies are united by removing the crown board on the lower colony and putting a newspaper in its place. Then put on a queen excluder, which will stop the newspaper blowing off. Cut a few small cuts in the newspaper with the edge of the hive tool, then place the second box on top, add crownboard and roof and leave for a week. After a week open up the hive, remove any bits of old chewed up newspaper and check that the queen is laying.
UNITING WITH FLOUR OR ODOURS
This method involves covering both colonies with flour or spraying them with liquids such as peppermint, diluted in water. Each frame has to be dusted or sprayed. The idea is that the bees clean each other up and in so doing intermingle and develop a common hive odour. It could also be helped by the fact that the frames of bees are exposed to the light.
UNITING A SUPER OF HONEY AND BEES (This idea came from Dave Cushman of BIBBA.)
Sometimes in the summer we find one colony building up more quickly than another. The underdeveloped colony can be given a boost from a strong colony, by removing a super of honey and bees from the strong colony and adding it to the weaker one. Take a crownboard and cover up the porter bee escape holes with a thin piece of plywood which has an 8mm. hole drilled in it, the hole being over the central porter bee escape hole. Assuming both colonies are in the same apiary and are near to each other:.
The bees can only unite by passing through the 8mm hole, which allows room for 2 bees at a time, thus creating a slow mingling of the bees, as the bees below enter the super when they smell the honey. Because of the slow mingling there is no fighting. Also very few bees from the super return to their original hive.
Thanks to Gordon Hartshorn & Steve Watkins for these tips. What about sharing yours with other members?
The small hive beetle is about one-third the size of a worker bee, with three heavy-looking legs on each side of its stubby body. It's a native of South Africa, imported accidentally to the southern states in the 1990s. At the American Bee Conference in Baton Rouge in 1999, it was reported that Florida bee-keepers have lost 30,000 hives to the small hive beetle.
Bees take no notice when beetles come inside the hive. But within hours of mating, the female beetles lay eggs in dark places, cracks and crevices. Thousands of maggot-like larvae hatch within 48 hours and for the next 10 to 16 days they eat and defecate throughout the honeycomb. The result is foul, unusable honeycomb that must be destroyed. Even the frames inside the hive must be removed and washed before the bees will accept them again.
The best treatment, say bee scientists at the University of Florida, is to kill the beetles when they drop out of a hive in the pupa stage and burrow into the soil to mature. Treatments of the soil beneath a hive can include either chemical insecticides or Bt (Bacillus thuringiensis - a biological control based on natural soil bacterium.
It's already been a hard winter with a high death rate for honey bees in Ontario, and the spring forecast doesn't look all that optimistic for the survivors. Many hive owners found nothing but little bee corpses when the hives warmed up this spring, said Shannon Melin, of the Ontario Beekeepers' Association in Guelph. "There's been really high losses this year. These dead bees are victims of a twin attack," she said. "First the infamous Varroa mite, a foreign invader latches onto the outside of the bees' bodies and sucks their blood, weakening them severely. Bees this weak were finished off by a winter that was longer and more severe than many."
(This article appeared first in the Montreal Gazette and was kindly supplied by Mr. S. D. Chapman).
To get the last stubborn sticky residue off the jar I recommend "Sticky Stuff Remover" it is made by MYKAL (de.solv.it citrus technology) in a 250ml bottle. We got ours from Lakeland Plastics by mail order but you may find it in somewhere like Wilko's. You need the smallest drop and works really well. (Steve Watkins, Wellington)
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