Editorial
Welcome to the new format Herts Bees newsletter. Ever since the Herts Bees blog started about 18 months ago at hertsbees.blogspot.com I have been doing two versions of the newsletter – one online and one for emailing/printing. Needless to say this was inefficient and I was never sure how many people actually read the blog. So, from this month onwards, there will only be one version of the newsletter and it will be the online version.
Furthermore there is a new website for HBKA at www.hertsbees.org.uk. Now all HBKA information will be in one place – general information, the diary, newsletters and maps. For those without the internet and for members that still want to receive Herts Bees by post, don’t worry, you will still be getting a newsletter – it just won’t look as pretty as the online version. The content will be the same so you won’t miss out on any news or articles. As always, no private addresses, email or phone numbers will be online; this information will be sent separately in the monthly email and attached to the printed version. Over time some of the content on the old blog site may be moved to the archive here.
The main news this month is the AGM. Please come along - it is always a great way to start the season.
Paul Cooper
North Herts news by John Hill
"February Fill Dyke", a well known painting in my wife's home, (a Victorian print of course), which gloomily depicted a really soggy agricultural scene, somehow has left an indelible reminder with me that winter isn't over until "Mad March Hares" have strutted their stuff. We don't see many hares these days but this February did bring some wonderful warm days and the bees were very active early on. Don't be fooled! Global warming might be the "in thing" but don't put away the "Long Johns" just yet. At the time of writing this piece (late Feb.) the wind has just shifted to the East. We could still have some "real" snow (not the 'namby-pamby' stuff that the NE have had so far) but that white drifting fine powder that penetrates everywhere. So, get some sugar, you may yet have to feed the little blighters!
The possibility of feeding was brought up during discussion by our February speaker, Andy Johnston (thank you Andy!), who gave 25 of us a very interesting talk which mainly related to his own devised method of swarm control (by the use of Nucleus boxes); which at the same time ensured a sensible replacement of frames from a number of hives. Andy gave us all a 'write-up' which I am sending to the editor (with Andy's permission), in the hope it may be printed in this month's epistle. If you have more than three hives it seems a very practical way of detracting bees from swarming. We were very pleased to welcome to the meeting 6 prospective new members and we all enjoyed Rosemary's tea, cake and Chelsea buns at the interval.
Our next meeting will be on the 11th March at the Friends Meeting House, Sollershott East, Letchworth at 7.30p.m. This will be a short AGM followed, hopefully, by a talk on 'Bumblebees' from a gentleman (whose name escapes me) from Cambridge. (There will be no Honey Tasting Competition this year .... Hurrah, I hear you say!!!) So please all turn up and support your Committee, there could be changes!!
The answer to last month's teaser was 625. Subtract each individual digit in the numbers in the left column from 10 to crack the code. If you solved this one you must be up to Bletchley Park standard... I couldn't, but I went there recently (near Milton Keynes) for a very inspiring day out! Well worth a visit!
Try this one: Four couples enter a restaurant. How many ways can they be seated at a round table so that men and women alternate and no husband or wife sit next to each other? The answer will surprise you. It did me !
Now the poem bit. It was Blake who wrote last month's extracts - Jerusalem was the give-away. Here's a well know "funny", it always makes me smile:
Lord Finchley tried to mend the Electric Light
Himself. It struck him dead: And serve him right!
It is the business of the wealthy man
To give employment to the artisan. Hillare Belloc
Just before I finish - we at Boxwood Apiary have had a hive, with bees, stolen during the period 17th - 26th January. The thieves took a complete hive, including two spare supers and excluder, standing about 5ft from the floor. However, most of the component items were "branded", heatwise, with the initials FGE (about 1.5ins long). Please look out for any evidence. The police are to be informed.
St Albans news by Richard Peterson
Members should note that the first of our apiary meetings will be our ‘Spring Clear Up’ on Saturday, April 12 so make a note of it in your diary. Please come along and lend a hand even you do not have your bees at the apiary as there will be plenty to do around the place. The contractors have left the site in rather a rough condition following the replacement of the overhead electric poles during the winter and we need to tidy things up for the coming season.
The next meeting is at 19:30 on 12th March at Alan’s house in Hadham Road. Please call ☏ if you need directions.
Welwyn news by Peter Mathews
Many congratulations to Peter and Alicia Folge on their new arrival. They now have a son, Oliver. We wish them well and hope they are not losing too much sleep. Peter will continue to run training sessions at Raffin Green Apiary, details to follow.
Our first event of the year is Applecroft School Fete on Saturday, 7th June. We are hoping to have an observation hive and demonstration. We will also be able to sell hive products - keep some on the side. I don't have a date for Welwyn Street Market 15th or 22nd June. We will also running an afternoon at The Mill Green Museum on Sunday, 13th July. Please mark these dates in your diary.
West Herts news
No news this month.
Barnet news by Michelle vonAhn
BDBKA has proposed having a ”buddy system“ or mentoring scheme for new beekeepers, so that each can be paired with an experienced beekeeper as a source of information and support as needed. If you are willing to be a “buddy“, or if you would like to have someone to contact, please contact Roger Hedgecoe on ☏.
There is increasing interest in Manuka Honey, due to claims of its health benefits and antibiotic properties reported in the media. Manuka Honey is the product of honey bees that collect nectar from Leptospermum plants and is made in New
Zealand. All honey is known to have healing antibiotic properties, but Manuka honey claims to have special benefits, and this is currently the subject of a BBKA inquiry.
Bumble Bees and Swarms – Clive Cohen, Swarms Officer, will be provided temporary sites for collected swarms, away from existing apiaries for disease control. For those needing swarms, please contact Clive on ☏. Clive also has a particular interest in Bumblebees, and anyone needing information or support can contact him.
South East Herts news by John Mumford
The AGM was attended by just 12 members. Subscriptions were raised by £1.00 to £20.00 with a £2.00 discount if paid before March 31st. A Subscription Remittance slip is enclosed with this Newsletter and must be returned to the Treasurer by the 31st. March to qualify for the £2.00 discount.
The Division made a loss on the year 2006/2007 of £191.38. The committee are quite relaxed about the loss as there are specific reasons for it. 1. The Hall Hire costs increased from £72.00 in 2006, to £220.00 for 2007, this was mainly due to the Beekeeping Course. 2. The HBKA Treasurer did not distribute any Tax Claw Back to Divisions during the year, which in 2006 amounted to £52.18, I will raise this at the Next Executive Meeting. On the other hand the Sale of Association Honey brought in £110.40 as against £39.00 the previous year.
It would be so easy to increase Subscriptions, BUT, until we have exhausted all other options we won’t go there! However, with BBKA affiliation at £14.00, HBKA affiliation at £4.50, and BDI at £2.00 there is a loss of £2.50 per member before we start!
Just a reminder to those members who missed our AGM, and to those who came on our course last year, if you have now joined a local group don't forget you can still be an associate member with our group and enjoy all our activities.
Have you Gift Aided your Subscription? Any member who pays tax can sign a form and return it to our Treasurer. The HBKA Treasurer then reclaims the tax and passes a proportion of it onto the divisions, about £2.50 per member.
If it ain’t broke then don’t fix it! I am not in favour of change for the sake of change, however, in todays world it makes sense to take advantage of modern technology. A number of benefits accrue, (financial and labour saving), if members are prepared to receive this Newsletter by e-mail rather that by snail mail. First you will receive it about a week earlier than by post in Glorious Colour. Secondly it will save the Division about £4.00 a year per member in postage and Daphne the job of sending it out. HBKA and Peter Mathews who prints the newsletter will also benefit. It’s a Win - Win situation. It is also the GREEN way to save a tree, and perhaps a forest one day. If you are prepared to receive your Newsletter by e-mail then please e-mail me from the address you want your Newsletter to go to.
Colonies that took advantage of the warm spell in early February and started to breed heavily, then burnt up stores like mad to keep their brood warm during the cold spell that followed could be in trouble. If your colonies are like mine they may now need a feed if they are to survive. Bee survive despite what beekeepers do to them. If in doubt a half gallon of 50/50(wt/wt) syrup in a contact feeder won’t do them any harm at all.
We have re-convened, hoping the worst of the winter weather is over.
There has to be a lull with building the Community Garden (Discovery Centre, Market Shelter, plant beds), until the grant decision is known. But to keep things going we are preparing the ground, completing the fit-out of the Bee Centre (shed , fence and hives), and setting out the Plant Nursery (greenhouses, horticultural tables, display bed) – then we can plant some seeds! This means all those items will not qualify for grant – but are not expensive.
A Method of Swarm and Varroa Control
by Andy Johnston
Some time ago I wrote about a method I had devised for swarm control without too much disruption of the colonies on an apiary basis. The apiary I used lent itself to the plan and it worked for two seasons but unfortunately I was vandalised twice so gave up the site. The site had five colonies, all with queens of the same age, in single National brood chambers.
When I was a beginner I was taught that moving combs between colonies was not a good idea because of the risk of transmission of diseases. However if you are sure your bees are clean then a little equalising would help make all colonies a similar size. If one colony should be much weaker than the rest then take it out of the plan, as it probably won't swarm anyway.
The idea is to gradually "bleed" brood and bees away, without affecting the morale or foraging of the colony. The equipment needed is one 5 comb nucleus box including an eke (for treatment purposes) for each of 5 hives plus 5 new frames fitted with foundation for each hive.
When all the colonies are at full strength, that is occupying all the combs, and the proportion of sealed brood is increasing over that of open brood, select one comb from each colony that has sealed brood with some honey over the top of the comb. If you can select a comb with a queen cell, that would be good. If no queen cells are apparent, make sure one comb has some eggs and young larvae so that they can raise a queen to keep them happy. Transfer all 5 combs to the first nucleus box, as you lift each comb out of the hive, gently spray each side with water to minimise bees flying off, then make a final check to ascertain the queen is not on that comb.
Place all 5 combs and bees in the nuc box, replace the lid and lightly stuff the entrance with grass. Place the box in the shade as far as from the hives as possible, another apiary would be best but makes more labour. Place one frame of foundation in each hive, ideally between brood and food. Four days later, check the first nucleus for extra queen cells, destroy all except the selected one. Then prepare the second nucleus box and repeat the procedure. Repeat at 4-day intervals until all 5-nucleus boxes are full and each hive has 5 new frames of foundation. By the time that you make up the 4th nuc, the queen from the first nuc may well be mated so check. When each queen in turn has started to lay and has larvae, using the eke give that nuc half a tray of Apiguard, if the bees clear out the Apiguard before most of the combs contain sealed brood, give them another half. After about a month, maybe a little longer, you should have 5 colonies each with 5 new combs drawn out, and 5 nuclei with clean varroa free bees.
When the honey has been removed, unite the bees only to each hive. Place a sheet of newspaper over the hive body, then an empty box (brood or super). Shake or brush all the bees into the empty box, you need to be fairly quick doing this as the bees will rapidly climb the box walls and escape, spraying first helps. When the bees have settled down, commence normal autumn treatment. Burn old combs as brood may contain varroa.
If you only have 4 colonies, make up 4 comb nucs plus one comb of foundation in four nuc boxes. If you only have 2 colonies, make up 4 comb nucs using two combs from each colony plus one comb of foundation. These may fight so place a piece of newspaper cut to the size of a comb between the two pairs, and the foundation on the outside.
A new type of hive?
by Rabah Benali
An invention for a new technique and a new architecture of hive of bees completely modernized is born.
The site www.apirabah.over-blog.com contains animations and more detailed explanations.
In hope it's an opportunity for all us that we would have more success in the development of beekeeping, I solicit your high kindness for point me to an institution where I can find possibility for cooperation or sponsor for my exhibitions and/or put this project in application on large-scale.
Thanks in advance.
Queen Rearing
What about rearing a few queens this year? It is important that each member of HBKA should raise some queens in 2008 from their selected colonies. These can be used to replace those unsatisfactory queens that have to be culled. They can also be introduced to queenless nuclei for over-wintering as young replacement queens next spring.
Obituary – David Moore
Beekeeping and honey production will continue at Benslow Music Trust when a new beekeeper has been installed.
Varroa Resistant Bees Bred in New Zealand
Over the past three years, among other bee- and pollination-related projects, the honeybee research unit at HortResearch, New Zealand, has been breeding honeybee stock that shows resistance to varroa to provide a more sustainable control option. The project is part of a programme funded by the Sustainable Farming Fund, HortResearch, the National Beekeepers Association, ZESPRI and individual beekeepers. The aim of the breeding project has been to select stock that display a genetically inherited trait called delayed suppressed mite reproduction (SMRD). Varroa reproduce inside the brood cells, feeding on developing honeybees. Varroa in colonies with high levels of the SMRD are, however, not able to reproduce.
Initial honeybee stocks were sourced from beekeepers throughout the North and South Islands and assessed for the ability to suppress varroa reproduction. The best 10 queens were selected for breeding. Each successive year the best queens were inbred using artificial insemination to increase the percentage of SMRD expressed. This was done using a closed mating population, where virgin queens were artificially inseminated with semen from drones produced by their mother. "By continually doing inter-breeding we increase the frequency of that gene until the stock that we've got here, the best of it, 80% of the varroa in those hives can't reproduce," says HortResearch scientist Dr. Mark Goodwin.
However, selection has been for a trait, and although we have culled any lines that have not bred well, have been overly aggressive or have had high levels of disease, we do not know how these bees will perform. High SMRD queens cannot simply be introduced to colonies around New Zealand, as with every generation of queens that mate with drones that do not carry the SMRD gene, the tolerance of these colonies to varroa will reduce. The only way to maintain and improve this stock on the mainland is with a breeding programme utilising artificial insemination. The reliance on artificial insemination makes such a system expensive to maintain and if funding were stopped at any time, the gains made would be quickly lost.
Fifty high-resistance hives are being moved to Great Mercury Island on the Coromandel Peninsula, where there are no other bees. "Once the population's established here we can start producing queens, take cells off the island and providing them back to the industry so that they can start using genes on their own hives and reduce the dependence on insecticides," says Dr. Goodwin.
Press Release - HortResearch New Zealand (Courtesy of Ruary Rudd).
The National Honey Show
by John Mumford
The National Honey Show for 2008 is moving to St. George’s College, Weybridge, Surrey, KT15 2QS. It is just off the M25 and has an excellent Lecture Theatre - Trade Exhibition Space - Catering Facilities - and Free Parking. Date 30th. 31st. October and 1st. November.
Anyone joining HBKA for the first time is entitled to a FREE FULL membership of the National Honey Show for their first year. Ask your Divisional Secretary for details. Applications must be received by email or to the Rev. H. F. Capener (Hon. Sec) 1, Baldric Road, Folkstone, Kent, CT20 2NR in Excel format please.
Native English speaker needed for beekeeping job in Italy
MieliThun (www.mielithun.it) is looking for a native English speaker for beekeeping, It is not necessarily previous experience. We offer accommodation and eventually training, if is needed. The company is based in Trentino 25 km from the city of Trento but we will required the person to move in different areas in all north of Italy during the work period as we practice nomad beekeeping. The work will be full time 5 days a week for a period starting from April 2008 to the end of August 2008. The person has to prove to be not allergic bees’ poison.
For Sale and Wanted
Over wintered nucs, all queens clipped & marked. British standard & commercial frames. Ring for details.