“Why bee banters are so important and a female hairy footed flower bee” - by Malcolm Wilkie

Below is a link to a video of a female hairy footed flower bee.  Lesley rescued her as she was clinging onto a crocus flower, completely frozen, which is a scenario you may already have come across with you own honeybees. This hairy footed flower bee was taken into the warm and given some sugar syrup and as you can see it revived her.

How is it that she became so listless? Well it is because the nights are still very cold and the current wet weather has brought down the temperatures considerably.

So how is this relevant to all of us? The problem is that during February we have had some record warm temperatures and the bees have started to raise brood. Most of you will have noticed your bees bringing back pollen baskets crammed full of pollen, and this is a clear sign that your Queen has come back into lay.

Wonderful, of course.

Well is it so wonderful? Such unseasonal temperatures have tempted some of you to open up your hives. Not a good idea as if you crush your queen inadvertently now they will not be able to make a new queen. Or if they do, there is no chance of her getting mated! You will also be breaking the propolis seal and be setting the bees back which is an unwise thing to do so early in the year. Keith says that there is no point in looking so early on because if something has gone wrong with your hive there is nothing you can do about it anyway! Better to leave well alone!

Our bees have responded to the environment because early spring flowers have come into bloom and nighttime temperatures have been well above average. The consequence of this is that there will be brood in those hives. And that brood needs to be fed and to be kept warm. And that is a problem for us all.

Go to your hive and look at the uncappings below your open mesh floor. Watch your bees gathering water from your bird bath. What does this mean? Well, it means that they are using honey in order to keep the brood warm and in order to make new bees. The energy from the nectar last year is being converted into new life. So that, of course, is a danger if you did not feed your bees adequately last autumn because they could run out of food. March is that critical moment when new beekeepers do not realise what is happening and let their bees starve! That is why I always put fondant on in January.

What else should one be doing? I add a pollen pattie (neopoll). If the bees manage to get out and collect pollen (some of it they will store as bee bread)  this may be a waste of my money, but if for a whole week they are incarcerated in their hive due to bad weather then my pollen pattie will be a lifeline for them.  Given the current cold weather I am jolly glad I put on those patties! I hope you all have done so too.

So why my title? Because it is a chance to talk to other experienced beekeepers and work out what is going on and what you should be doing. I learn a lot and a lot of what I have set down here is information gathered at the February bee banter. As for the furry footed flower bee, it is just that I couldn’t resist sending you my video and the fact that she had got chilled was sort of relevant.

Look at the environment around you and try and read the signs. You will be a better bee keeper in consequence.

Malcolm Wilkie 4th March 2019

“Preparing for the coming season” - by Malcolm Wilkie

The Sun has got some warmth in it at last and the bees are coming out and looking for fresh pollen and nectar. I have seen them working camellias, hellebores and snowdrops. It is only flowers planted in some sunshine that are being worked.

If you have not already been busy preparing for the coming season, now would be a good time to start.

1. On a sunny morning check whether the bees are flying or if that is not possible then stick your ear to the side of the hive and listen for the gentle hum of the cluster. If you cannot hear anything, then gently tap the side of the hive and they will respond.
2. Make a plan for what you are going to do with your bees this coming season. If you are a beginner and have only one hive, then you will be going for increase. Make sure you have ordered a second hive and that you have sufficient frames and foundation to be able to do a split. Better to order all this now than to be caught out at the end of April. I will run a session on swarm control in early April. April 3rd at 7:30pm at the Cross in Hand pub.
   
   (I am spelling out what I mean by the above so there can be no room for misunderstanding.
   
   If you are doing an artificial swarm then you will need 11 frames and eleven pieces of foundation. When you do an artificial swarm the Old Queen is placed on a brood frame on the original site in a new box (new floor, new crown board and new roof).  Have you purchased and built a new hive for this purpose? This new hive is filled with frames of foundation around the one brood frame where your old Queen is laying eggs.
   You will also need a large rapid feeder. If you have not yet purchased one this will be necessary if you are going to make increase. You will have to feed them at least 8kg of sugar to get them to draw out your foundation. And this is best fed to them all in one go in the large rapid feeder. Just be prepared to avoid rushing out and buying everything at the last moment. When you leave everything to the last moment mistakes are made. And as the experienced know among you if a hive swarms and then casts, you can be left with so few bees that it may take you two years to get the colony back to being prosperous again! Any delay at swarming time can lead to disaster.)
   
   On April 3rd I will also show you what to do if your bees want to swarm and you cannot find the Queen. It’s not as good as the Pagden method above but it should work.

3. If you have been keeping bees for several years you should have cleaned up all your spare brood boxes, floors, crown boards and roofs by now. You will have used a blowtorch to clean up any wooden equipment so as to ensure that no disease is spread to a new colony. If you use poly hives any spare equipment will have been cleaned with soda crystals and then a strong solution of bleach.

4. If you are Helen you will already have built frames for any increase that you are going to make but you will not have added the foundation as you will be waiting for early April. This is so that the wax does not turn brittle.

5. Now is the time where you could add some Neopoll above the crown board. If the weather keeps clement, the gathering of pollen will not be an issue. However if we have a long spell of wet weather, Neopoll can be a lifeline for your bees. It will certainly help them build up if they are a medium sized or strong colony. This will give you the best chance of gathering a spring honey crop.

6. There is now time to put order into your bee shed and check that wax moth has not done too much damage. Do it now because once the season starts you will just run out of time.

7. If you have a very small colony and are wringing your hands in despair, don’t. Bees are amazingly resilient and you will be surprised just how quickly they come back after a long winter. However some Neopoll might well help. But not too much! You don’t want it oozing all over the crown board and running down into the brood nest through the hole in the crown board.
   
   If you haven’t treated against varroa in the autumn and were not brave enough to sublimate in the winter, then you need to think carefully what you are going to do. It may not be a huge problem but you will probably need to use something like varroa Med or hive alive every time you inspect in spring. If things are really desperate then in mid to late April you could use something like Apiguard. Difficult of course  with a small unit because Apiguard will put the Queen off lay for about a month. Only you can make the judgement. And only you can put the inspection board in to see what the natural dead mite drop is.

Have a plan and if you haven’t a plan, make one. Order those bits of equipment now!

Malcolm Wilkie February 11th 2019

“Christmas is nearly here” - by Malcolm Wilkie

Christmas is nearly here and finally it is a quiet time in the apiary for the beekeeper. Autumn has been wet and like many of you I have wrapped my hives in a breathable roofing membrane. This keeps my wooden hives dry but lets out any moisture that the bees are producing.

Above is what Helen did for her bees at the end of October. You have to cut out a section so you don’t block up their entrance, of course. Keeping the bees dry really does make a difference as wet hives encourages fungal infections to grow on the bees and colonies will suffer. Even at this late stage this is something you could do on a dry day. I just fix the membrane on with drawing pins and crudely cut a section for the entrance.

If you have a WBC hive or a poly hive then this is not something you have to do (the outer skin of the WBC keeps the inner boxes dry and a poly hive sheds water, unlike wood which can retain moisture even if you have been careful and treated it with linseed oil).

All may be quiet with the bees (although these exceptionally mild temperatures are encouraging them out ) but there is still something you can do to help colonies. Bees often decide to take a brood break between mid-December and very early January. Because this is so this enables one to treat a colony with bad varroa with oxalic acid, either by the trickle method or by sublimating them. Please refer to my article last January if you are going to sublimate them, and make sure you have the right mask. By doing it now when there is no brood you will kill 96% of the mites. There is no real difference in efficacy between the two methods although if you are using the trickle method a Queen can only be treated once in her lifetime so write down in your records what you have done in case you are tempted to use this method again next year. With sublimation the number of times a Queen is treated does not seem to matter.

I have found boxes of bees that have been treated with either method have done really well and have romped away in the Spring. Keith would encourage you to monitor your natural dead mite drop for a week and then to go on bee base and use the varroa calculator as he does not like bees just being treated prophylactically. And he is absolutely right. Count the drop, do the calculation and then only treat if you need to.

If you decide on the trickle method it would be best to buy oxalic acid already mixed in to sugar syrup. Let the bee farmer get the correct concentration for you as otherwise you could kill your bees. The trickle method works because the bees pass the syrup containing the oxalic acid between themselves via trophallaxis. However some bees will get a higher dose as they will have come directly into contact with your syrup and so inevitably there will be some casualties. But for the greater good of the colony........

Finally an idea for a Christmas present. If you have been keeping bees for a year or two and have not read Bill Turnbull’s novel ‘The bad beekeepers club’ then you should ask to be given the novel for Christmas. It is hilarious. I suspect most of us will recognise aspects of our own beekeeping in what he recounts or even things we may have done ourselves. However on no account should it be given to the wife or husband of the beekeeper unless they have a good sense of humour!

Happy Christmas everyone and happy beekeeping.

Malcolm Wilkie 11th December 2018

The National Honey Show, Sandown Park Race Course

Just a brief reminder to everybody that we have the National honey show coming up at the end of October. This is held at Sandown Park racecourse in the outskirts of London.

You can have a look at the program of lectures and the workshops that are offered on line. This year I am particularly interested in one of the lectures that Clarence Collison will be giving.  That is because he will be looking at factors affecting Queen quality. I think that some of us are beginning to have problems with Queens and I have seen two colonies this year where although there were a lot of bees and a new queen, the Queen never really started to lay eggs. I find this quite alarming and is the first time I have come across this.

The honey show is held over the course of three days. The best day to go is really Friday. However there are interesting lectures and workshops every day. If you are interested in doing a workshop it is absolutely fundamental that you book that on the 1st of September. If you don’t, you may find that it is booked out.

There are also sessions for beginners or people who have only been keeping bees for a couple of years. These are always interesting sessions and a Master beekeeper always takes these.

I will be taking up my honey to show, as well as other people’s honeys. If you are interested in doing that you can download an entry form and I could take that honey up for you on Thursday morning, 25th October. It costs £1 to enter and I would suggest entering class five because the judge gives a comment about every single honey in that class. If you are not going up, I will report back with any comments. This is a gift class and you do not get back your honey – so be warned.

N.B.No incipient granulation, please. If you get three jars of honey to me well beforehand I will titivate and enter two jars having stood them in my honey warming cabinet. I need three jars in order to ensure the best presentation of the two required jars.

Malcolm Wilkie 30th August 2018

“You can never have too many crown boards” - by Malcolm Wilkie

This has been an exceptional year for honey. Those who have managed their colonies correctly will have had honey to extract.

Once the honey has been extracted from your supers one is left with the problem of getting the bees to clean up the mess you have created.

Firstly it is advisable for supers to go back on the colonies that evening. The later, the better. This is to cut down on the possibility of robbing.

Secondly how should you put the supers back onto your hive? You will still have your crown boards with porter bee escapes in place on your hives. With your hive tool, remove the escapes. Then simply place the wet supers that belong to that hive back on top of the crown board. If you are lucky you may be able to do this without any smoke. However personally I still light  the smoker.

Leave the supers on the hive for two or three days and then remove them if they have been cleaned out. These can be stored in your bee shed once they have been sprayed with Certan against wax moth.

Sometimes a colony doesn’t play ball. They start to chuck nectar back into the supers that have been removed. So you need to do something. Place an empty super on top of your crown board, place another crown board on top of the empty super, place your supers that you want cleared out on top of that crown board, then replace another crown board on top of all those supers and then finally replace the roof. In other words you never can have too many crown boards!

Oh, I hear you say, I will just leave the supers for the bees. Mistake! If you are keeping your bees on 14*12 frames you shouldn’t really leave them a super. That brood box is big enough for them to over winter. In fact giving them an extra super will create a much bigger volume and colder environment for them during the winter months. WBC owners don’t have to worry about this of course because of the double skin provided by the lifts and poly hive owners also will probably get away with creating a larger volume. For me the ideal as an owner of wooden hives is to have them in the 14*12 brood box with the outside frames filled with honey. Of course bees will survive given a bigger volume as long as there are loads of them and the hive is situated in a nice warm winter site. However if this is not the case they may struggle, and you may find yourself at the beginning of next year with bees that have survived but have developed fungal infections or that simply do not survive.

So what am I going to do with that super of honey that I haven’t extracted?

Two options. Certan and store in your shed. Or try and get the bees to rob it out and place the honey in the brood box.

You can get them to rob it out by following the advice given above for clearing wet supers. i.e. you need loads of crown boards. I will do this with some supers in early September once the temperatures have started to fall.

Below is a picture of what happens if you don’t use Certan. Once again advice is, do as I say, don’t do as I do! There is a good reason, of course, why I have a picture!!!

Malcolm Wilkie 16^th August 2018