As I write, there is bright sunshine outside, the temperature has risen to about 20 degrees C and the bees are flying strongly, no doubt encouraged by the proximity of a field of rape in full flower. April was a difficult month with the temperatures fluctuating wildly and the spring blossom being late. It is only recently that I have managed to look through my colonies, clean up the floors and the top bars and set them up for supering. Of the six colonies that went into the winter only three have survived. The ones that died out were not short of food but they were very small and, with hindsight, would have been better united with the stronger colonies. Fortunately the remaining colonies are strong and should grow rapidly with the abundance of food available nearby.

That other harbinger of the new season, the BBKA Annual Convention, was busier than ever this year. A great deal of interest seemed to be being aroused in nucleus & standard brood boxes made of light-weight, but high-density synthetic materials - the shape of things to come? I also heard many enquiries being made of dealers selling oxalic acid - either as crystals or in solution. Given its widespread acceptance on the continent, and the impending reduction in suitable alternative treatments for pyrethroid-resistant varroa here, it seems baffling that our government still looks set to enforce a ban on oxalic acid in this country. If common sense does not break out soon it seems likely that there will be widespread flouting of such a ban. The proper authorities would then also be unable to publish instructions as to its safe and proper use, and there would be no open monitoring or ongoing discussion about its limitations. That begins to look like the worst of all worlds.

 

2. Next Meeting

The May meeting is the beginning of our apiary programme. It will be on Saturday 13th May, beginning at 2.30 p.m. at the relocated Radbrook apiary. For anyone unsure of where this is, if you stand in the front doorway of the college, the apiary is directly ahead of you, beyond the furthest car park. Drive to the far edge of the park and you will see the hives just beyond the trees.

There will be an opportunity to buy & sell equipment and materials and new beekeepers might like to note that Peter Woodcock, who is giving up active beekeeping, will be bringing many items of great use to someone wanting to set up a new apiary. Ray Green can also bring along anything that members order in advance (deadline Thursday 11th) from Berwick Beekeeping Supplies

 

3. Last Meeting

We had anticipated a talk about the instrumental insemination of queens but for some reason this did not happen. However, whenever beekeepers meet together they are never short of things to talk about so we had a very interesting session sharing news and views, with Tony Little and Gordon Hartshorn offering expert advice. Two of the topics covered at some length were:

• the merits of keeping bees on a 'brood-and-a-half'
  This was generally approved, with the recommendation that the ½ brood box (i.e. a super) should be under the full brood box in the foraging season, thus giving a readily available chamber for the flying bees to deposit nectar, then moved on top during the autumn and winter to provide stores for the clustered colony. Another suggestion was the use of deep brood frames (i.e. 14" x 12") though these were seen as likely to create a problem for anyone wanting to sell on a colony.
  
  
• varroa control
  Much of this discussion focused on the need to use a variety of treatments to combat the mites. Several members referred to the effectiveness of oxalic acid, used in winter either in a vapouriser or in solution. The fact that the latter product has now been approved for use in Germany underlines the lack of urgency displayed by our own agricultural authorities. (See the Newsletters for March 2004 & April 2005 for further information on how these methods are used - you can access them on this website if you do not have copies to hand).
  
  Thymol crystals were also referred to as a simple and effective way of knocking down the mites early in the season. One method described was to prepare a number of 'tea-bag' sized containers from old tights and fill them with the crystals. One is then placed on top of each brood chamber for six weeks. Obviously they must be removed before the colonies are supered.
  
  
• topical tips
  When examining the bees at the beginning of the season, do not use smoke. The bees are unlikely to have any open cells of food to retreat to. Smoking is therefore more likely to agitate than pacify them.
  
  With all the focus on varroa, it is easy to forget nosema, a common reason for poor colony growth. Confirmation is by microscopic examination. Prevention is better than cure (Fumidil costs about £7 for three colonies) so get rid of old comb. There is further advice about this below.

 

4. Nosema-Still With Us By Brian Gant

We do not hear as much about nosema as we did when I started beekeeping; varroa has taken over the attention of beekeepers but that does not mean that nosema has gone away, or that our bees have developed an immunity. What has been called the 'spring dwindling disease' is indeed still with our bees, and quite possibly with its effects made worse by the arrival of the more recent problem. Outside of the bee, on the combs or on any part of the hive, nosema exists as a long-lived spore; sausage or rice-grain shaped. Inside the spore, coiled into a neat helix, is a 'polar filament', a tube almost half a millimetre long! Worker bees take in the spores when they are cleaning up inside the hive, particularly when cleaning faecal droppings left by bees who were unable to get outside during the winter months. The result is that the bee is no longer able to digest its food efficiently. In particular the hypopharyngeal glands fail to develop fully so the worker is less able to produce brood food and there will be less protein stored in the fat body. This under-nourished bee will start foraging earlier than normal and will die much sooner. If a queen becomes infected then her egg laying is reduced and she is likely to be superseded.

The effect on the colony will depend on the extent of the infection and the time of year. Over the winter, because more of the workers die early and those remaining are less able to feed the brood, the colony will fail to develop in the early spring; it may die or struggle on. In the summer a smaller proportion of the eggs will develop to the adult stage. As the weather improves and bees are able to leave the hive to die or to defecate the disease level should go down and the colony recovers though the early set-back means that it will not do as well as colonies which are initially disease free.

What should you do? If in doubt get a microscopist to check a sample of your bees, or do it yourself if you have a suitable microscope. You need to collect a sample of about thirty worker bees, preferably the foragers since in these older bees the disease will be most developed. The bees need to be killed which you can do by putting the matchbox in a freezer for a day or so. Your microscopist will need to know that they are coming and will much prefer them to be fresh but dead on arrival.

Nosema spores can be identified in long-dead bees but the microscopist will usually also check for acarine and this is easier to do in fresh bees. It is very common to find a low level of nosema present, especially in the spring. If your bees are found to have a much higher level of the disease then you will need to consider the use of Fumidil B. We are fortunate that it is still available for bees, although from time to time its future is threatened by regulations. As always follow the manufacturer's instructions but if a spring treatment is needed, put the dose in syrup and then use a hand sprayer to spray the bees so that they all get the treatment as they clean themselves up.

Good management can reduce the incidence of nosema to a level at which it is not a problem so that this antibiotic treatment is not needed. Clean, or at least well-disinfected, combs are your first concern and have rightly been given much publicity in recent years. Eliminating old combs with their load of spores will reduce the problem, if you are unwilling to do a complete change then take out most of the broodless combs at the first inspection, feed your bees and as the brood expands give them foundation, one or two combs at a time placed next to the brood nest. At the height of the summer move all old combs to the edge of the brood chamber so that you will be able to remove them next spring.
(Article edited from the BBKA web-site)

 

5. Can Your Bees Recognise You?

Honeybees may look pretty much all alike to us. But it seems we may not look all alike to them. A study has found that they can learn to recognize human faces in photos, and remember them for at least two days. The findings toss new uncertainty into a long-studied question that some scientists considered largely settled, the researchers say: how humans themselves recognize faces. The results also may help lead to better face-recognition software, developed through study of the insect brain, the scientists added.

Many researchers traditionally believed facial recognition required a large brain, and possibly a specialized area of that organ dedicated to processing face information. The bee finding casts doubt on that, said Adrian G. Dyer, the lead researcher in the study. He added that to his knowledge, the finding is the first time an invertebrate has shown ability to recognize faces of other species. But not all bees were up to the task: some flunked it, he said, although this seemed due more to a failure to grasp how the experiment worked than to poor facial recognition specifically.

In the bee study, reported in the Dec. 15 issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology, Dyer and two colleagues presented honeybees with photos of human faces taken from a standard human psychology test. The photos had similar lighting, background colours and sizes and included only the face and neck to avoid having the insects make judgments based on the clothing. In some cases, the people in the pictures themselves looked similar.

The researchers tried to train the bees to realize that a photo of one man had a drop of a sugary liquid next to it. Different photos came with a drop of bitter liquid instead. A few bees apparently failed to realize that they should pay attention to the photos at all. But five bees learned to fly toward the photo horizontally in such a way that they could get a good look at it. In fact, these bees tended to hover a few centimetres in front of the image for a while before deciding where to land.

The bees learned to distinguish the correct face from the wrong one with better than 80 percent accuracy, even when the faces were similar, and regardless of where the photos were placed. Also, just like humans, the bees performed worse when the faces were flipped upside-down.
"This is evidence that face recognition requires neither a specialised neuronal [brain] circuitry nor a fundamentally advanced nervous system," the researchers wrote, noting that the test they used was one for which even humans have some difficulty. Moreover, "Two bees tested two days after the initial training retained the information in long-term memory," they wrote. The researchers also checked whether bees performed better for faces that humans judged as being more different. This seemed to be the case, they found, but the result didn't reach statistical significance. The bees probably don't understand what a human face is, Dyer said in an email. "To the bees the faces were spatial patterns (or strange looking flowers)," he added.

Bees are famous for their pattern-recognition abilities, which scientists believe evolved in order to discriminate among flowers. As social insects, they can also tell apart their hivemates. But the new study shows that they can recognize human faces better than some humans can-with one-ten thousandth of the brain cells. This raises the question of how bees recognize faces, and if so, whether they do it differently from the way we do it, Dyer and colleagues wrote. Studies suggest small children recognize faces by picking out specific features that are easy to recognize, whereas adults see the interrelationships among facial features. Bees seem to show aspects of both strategies depending on the study, the researchers added.

The findings cast doubt on the belief among some researchers that the human brain has a specialized area for face recognition. Neuroscientists point to an area called the fusiform gyrus, which tends to show increased activity during face-viewing, as serving this purpose. But the bee finding suggests, "the human brain may not need to have a visual area specific for the recognition of faces," Dyer and colleagues wrote.

That may be helpful to researchers who develop face-recognition technologies to be used for security at airports and other locations, Dyer noted. Already, the way that bees navigate is being used to design "autonomous aircraft that can fly in remote areas without the need for radio contact or satellite navigation," Dyer wrote in the email. "We show that the miniature brain can definitely recognize faces, and if in the future we can work out the mechanisms by which this is achieved," this might suggest ideas for improved face recognition technologies."

Dyer said that if bees can learn to recognize humans in photos, then they reasonably might also be able to recognize real-life faces. On the other hand, he remarked, this probably isn't the explanation for an adage popular in some parts of the world-that you shouldn't kill a bee because its nestmates will remember and come after you!
(edited from APIS UK Jan/Apr. 06)

 

6. Round and About

Ludlow & District BKA: Sat 6 May - Apiary meeting in Luston. Further Information: Andy Vanderhook Tel: 01299 841379

Oswestry BKA:Saturday May 13th at 3.00 p.m. Invitation of Mr. K. Everitt, Cwnclyd, Llanarmon Rd., Pandy, Glyn Ceirog. Demonstration & talk by Mr. G. Critchley, Mold. Further details: G. Jones Tel: 01691 654448

 

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