2. Next Meeting

Our Annual General Meeting is on Wednesday October 11th. The agenda (see below) includes the election of the Officers and Committee to serve for the next twelve months. A nomination paper was published with last month's Newsletter on which you are cordially invited to offer the name(s) of anyone who would be interested in joining the Committee and contributing to the development of the Association. N.B. You can nominate yourself! We are particularly hoping to recruit members who would be interested in supporting the Secretary and the Treasurer in their tasks, with a view to taking over those positions at an appropriate point. Please give this some serious consideration.

After the formal business is over there will be an opportunity to put forward ideas for future activities. There may also be an outside speaker but this has yet to be confirmed. This year the meeting will be in the Ludlow Room at the Shirehall (junction of Abbey Foregate and London Road). and will commence at 7.30 p.m.

3. Report on the Flower Show 2006: Ray Green

This year saw the Bees, Honey & Wine Section move into the main body of the Severn Marquee. The allocated space was reduced but everything fitted in well and did not look cramped or have too much room to spare. The team of willing volunteers had the stands ready for the staging of exhibits well in time.

The evening of judging usually is interesting. Stewarding for a judge has helped me and others to pick up guidance as to what the judges are looking for in each class. Sometimes we even get to sample exhibits that the judge feels are of special merit or lacking something! I feel it has been helpful over the last couple of years when the judge has made comments on nearly every item. What do others think? There were two members who exhibited for the first time and went away with prizes at their first attempt. How about entering one or two items next year? You may surprise yourself.

This year two Associations and 9 members supplied honey for the Tasting and Sales. The number of units sold this year was down by about 400 but 50 jars for tasting were sampled over the two days! Our live Bee Display attracted many people again this year. The cage was delayed and so was put up very shortly before the public were on the Showground.

There are many people who work to make the Show a success. As I said last year, I am not going to name names as I am bound to miss someone out. Suffice it to say that the Committee is grateful to everyone who worked behind the scenes or 'up front'. Without your help the show would not be what it is. Is there anyone else reading this article who could give any time to help in any way next year? If you are interested in finding out more please contact me on 01743 462075 or email: berwickbees@connectfree.co.uk

4. Report of the September Apiary Meeting

There was an excellent turn out for the final apiary visit of this season, which was at Radbrook on 9th September. The focus was on preparing colonies for the winter so there was much discussion about treatments for varroa. Brian Goodwin brought along a "Varox Vaporiser", sold by Thorne's for the vapourising of oxalic acid crystals. It is an expensive piece of equipment (£83 + the cost of a 12v battery to power it) but very effectively evaporated 1 gram of the crystals in a demonstration on an empty broodbox to produce copious fumes that would kill off any varroa mites in a colony. Members were reminded that although this technique is widely used on the continent, oxalic acid has not been approved for the treatment of bees in this country. The chemical and the fumes it produces are hazardous to humans and have to be handled with great care. It is also only suitable for use in the winter when there is minimum brood because it will not affect any varroa mites in sealed cells, which is where they prefer to be. (N.B. Treatments with oxalic acid have been described in previous editions of this Newsletter, e.g. March 2004; April 2005).

Attention then turned to the occupied hives in the apiary and there was much praise for the splendid stands made by Robert Swallow, which incorporate open mesh floors and a sliding shelf to catch hive debris for more detailed examination. As always at these meetings the conversation was triggered by what we saw and included queen marking (neatly demonstrated by BG on an obliging queen); the virtues of brood-and-a-half for uninvasive inspections; equalising stores and bees by moving frames between hives, and the control of waxmoth. Various methods for doing this were discussed such as sulphur and acetic acid fumigation (both treatments requiring care) and the freezing of frames for 48 hours. Now that PDB crystals have been withdrawn the only other effective remedy is the use of Certan, which costs the equivalent of about 10p per frame to use. The active ingredient of Certan is bacillus thuringiensis, which was once readily, and much more cheaply, available in garden centres as an ingredient in caterpillar killers. Unfortunately these treatments have now also been withdrawn and are no longer available!

[It would be interesting to hear of members' experience with any of the varroa/waxmoth treatments mentioned above. Why not send me a note that I can include in a future Newsletter - Ed.]

5. ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING

7.30 p.m. on Wednesday 11th October 2006 Ludlow Room at Shirehall, Shrewsbury.

AGENDA

1. Apologies
2. Minutes of the Last Annual General Meeting and Matters Arising
3. Secretary's Report
4. Chairman's Report
5. Treasurer's Report and Accounts
6. Report on Association Apiary
7. Election of Officers
   • President
   • Chairman
   • Vice-Chairman
   • Treasurer
   • Secretary
   • BBKA Annual DM Representative
8. Election of Committee
9. Election of Show Committee Representatives
10. Any Other Business
11. Date of next A.G.M.

6. Heating Honey and the Formation of HMF by R H Swallow

For those beekeepers selling their honey the allowable levels of HMF (Hydroxy-Methyl-Furfuraldehyde) might be concerning, especially when looking at the magnitude of the changes in permitted content brought about by legislation. It looks at first sight to have been a draconian measure with which it would be difficult to comply, even if we could accurately measure the quantity in our honey. However, this is not necessarily the case if a little care is exercised.

HMF will already be present in our honey and new honey contains from 1 to 5 part per million (ppm) of HMF (depending on the source of the nectar). This will increase by approximately 1 ppm per month if honey is stored at 70 °F/20 °C. HMF is mainly produced from fructose, so to some extent the rise is dependent on the type of honey. HMF is not presently known to be harmful to humans and other food products such as syrup are sold with 10 to 100 times that allowable in honey. One possible reason for the tightening of the rule on this is that levels of HMF greater than 100 parts per million indicate the possibility of adulteration of the honey with fructose or glucose.

As most of us are aware, heating honey has a tendency to drive off the more volatile constituents so we already take care to minimise the application of heat, which will reduce flavour and fragrance. In some circumstances we are obliged to apply heat either to salvage honey that has become very viscous (or even set in the comb) or to make the product more suitable for selling on to others. If you are going to sell liquid honey to shopkeepers or other similar outlets, they might feel it to be less attractive if the honey starts to crystallise so any postponement of that change would be welcome. From a marketing point of view you may even consider it preferable to sell only creamed or set honey.

In order to reduce the likelihood of crystallisation it is necessary to dissolve the fine "seeding" crystals, which initiate the process in liquid honey, by the application of heat. This heat should be applied indirectly i.e. by water bath or warming cabinet, not directly to a container by flame or immersed heating element. Similarly, a microwave oven is also unsuitable due to the creation of very hot areas close to the surface of the vessel in which it is heated. A temperature of 140 °F for a period of thirty minutes should have the desired effect. (Bear in mind that it will take a finite time for the honey to heat up and cool down when more HMF will be produced.) The table below shows the time it takes to produce 30 ppm of HMF at various temperatures. The figures show very vividly how the rate of rise grows especially at higher temperatures.