4.      Report on the Bee Diseases and Varroa Day at Abberley (Robert Swallow)

The event was very well supported by beekeepers in the region, many more people attended than had replied to the invitation, so seating, car parking and supporting documentation were stretched. It was disappointing however, to see that the Shropshire BKA was represented by only a very few members. Dave Sutton led the meeting, ably supported by Ian Homer, Justus Klarr, Terry Ashley and other members of the bee inspection team.

A large number of brood frames were on display containing examples of brood diseases and brood conditions with which we were able to improve our disease recognition skills. In addition we were invited tom identify several diseases and brood conditions shown by way of PowerPoint slides. Jo Schup from North Shropshire Beekeepers achieved the highest number of points and received a copy of Celia Davies’ most recent book.

Justus Klarr gave a demonstration of an easier and improved method of administering icing sugar where instead of using a drizzler on each individual frame side in the brood nest, a wire mesh screen made in the style of a travelling screen was placed on top of the colony and a cupful of icing sugar put on the screen. A bee brush was then used to sweep the icing sugar back and forth so that it was steadily and evenly distributed down into the colony. Inevitably some of the icing sugar fell onto the top bars of the frames but a good proportion fell into the spaces between the combs.

The advantages of this method are that it is quicker than treating individual frames and that icing sugar is less likely to fall into unsealed brood cells, thus reducing damage to brood. Additionally, if the brood box and super(s) contain the same number of frames so that the seams of bees are directly in line from top to bottom of the hive, the treatment can be done without removing the supers i.e. just by removing the crown board and putting on the mesh screen. The method was said to be effective, having been used by commercial beekeepers (who are never ones to carry out unnecessary work or to use methods doubtful in producing results). The mesh size of the screen was said to be 2mm spaces as the optimum.

5.      Bee Legends

The South Staffordshire & District BKA has its apiary in the grounds of Shugborough Hall. When the late Lord Lichfield died, the President of the SSBKA, Robert Chesworth, sent a letter of condolence to his family which concluded with the words:

The origins of this custom lies in the notion that the bees were believed to be the souls of the dead returning to earth or on their way to the next world. If they bees were not asked to stay with their new master or mistress, it was believed that they would die or abscond.

The Christian Church also has strong links with bees. Monasteries kept bees to provide honey for sweetening and mead made from fermented honey - wax was in great demand for candles. Honey and mead were used to make herbal remedies more palatable! Brother Adam of Buckfast Abbey is well-known today.

          St. Ambrose, 4th Bishop of Milan, is the patron saint of beekeepers
           and is often shown with a skep in his hand or at his feet as shown here.
          Pictures and effigies of him are to be found at most apiaries in Poland.
           In Devon he is depicted in a stained glass window in the south wall of
          the nave of Exeter Cathedral, one of the few windows that survived the
          Exeter blitz undamaged.

          Ambrose was born in 340AD at Trier in Germany where his father was
          the commander of the Roman Emperor’s Gallic bodyguard. The legend
           that links the saint to bees has it that while the infant Ambrose slept, a
           swarm of bees settled on his cradle. He was not harmed and this was
           taken as a sign that he would be honey-tongued in all his words, deeds
          and writings.


Other saints are well represented in connection with bees. St. Gregory is responsible for opening the flowers on 12th March. A few weeks later, on 21st March, St. Benedict summons the bees to search for nectar. In the Ukraine, the patron saint of beekeepers is St. Sossima, who brought bees from Egypt. In many parts of Britain St. Bartholomew was considered the patron saint of beekeepers, probably because his feast day, 24th August, coincided with the gathering of the honey crop. St. Dominic started beekeeping in Wales and, when he returned to Ireland, gave his hives to St. David - the bees followed him to Ireland! Another Irish saint St. Gobnat changed a colony of bees into an army to drive away a local marauding chieftain.

Finally, in researching this article, I discovered that St. Ambrose’s day is also my own birthday - I was clearly always destined to become a beekeeper!

(Information for this article derived from BBKA website, and items in Newsletters from Devon BKA & South Staffs BKA Courtesy of BEES)

6.      What’s The ‘Best By Date For Honey?

The best by date’ refers to the time when honey still has the same nutritional quality as it was when fresh. A presentation at Apimondia last year described the work of M M Cavia and his colleagues from the University of Burgos, Spain, who made “an attempt to establish reliable ‘best before’ dates for honeys originating in both continental and oceanic climates” once the jars were opened. Sixty unheated samples of honeys, including monofloral varieties like lavender, sunflower, clover, thyme, sweet chestnut, broom, eucalyptus and rape-seed, were kept at room temperature and subjected to chemical tests for thirty months at five month intervals. The tests measured glucose, fructose, glycerol, pH, HMF, free acid, lactone and moisture content as well as diastase and acid phophatase activity of the samples.

The tests revealed that the honeys from continental and oceanic climates kept their original quality for 20 months and that this figure should be proposed as a best by” date. After 20 months the free acid, HMF and glycerol content continued to increase in honey whilst there was an increasing decline in moisture and lactones.

Beekeepers’ Quarterly Sep 2006 (Seen in The Irish Beekeeper March 2007. Courtesy BEES)