SOS - super now

We are very early in the season because we are still in the month of March, however there is a nectar flow on at the moment. Believe it or not rape seed is now coming into flower and we are still in March!! The fields around Lamberhurst are yellow today. At Mount Camphill on Friday the large ornamental cherry tree was abuzz with honeybees. At the slab castle apiary the blackthorn (sloe) is in full flower. In Hastings there are trees after trees awash with spring flowers and the presence of these spring flowers coupled with high temperatures are enabling our bees to bring back nectar to the hive.

Experienced beekeepers have been aware for a number of weeks now of the unusual high temperatures and activity in the hives has been strong. Those of you who do not work have been able to choose a nice day to go through your hive or hives quickly. You have realised that with a very strong hive there is a lot of brood and as Keith taught you, you have put on a super to allow the bees room to expand. Those supers are currently filling with nectar! If, like me, you have ignored the warning signs of high activity in a strong colony and not yet supered, you will find yourself with comb built above the crown board and stuck to the roof. When you remove the crown board there are bees everywhere.

So what do you do? You will have to go in and smoke the bees down, scrape all the honey off the top of the frames and then put on a queen excluder and give your charges a super. It may be wise with a strong colony like this to examine them on Thursday (March 30th) when temperatures could get up to 20 degrees, to check that they are not building queen cells. Sid Hook tells me he has drones in his hives at this very moment. Temperatures are not so high on Sunday but if you work and have no other option, you will have to do it then. The season is kicking off with a vengeance!

The majority of you will not be in this situation but sit up and take note. You need to put a super on your hive. This can be drawn comb or a mixture of drawn comb and foundation. If the foundation is old it must be warmed up by using a hair dryer. Don't think you can dispense with the hairdryer because the bees just do not like drawing out old wax and in the long run you will make work for yourself by not freshening up the wax. Some foundation in your super box is a good idea so that the young bees can make wax; young bees without the possibility to make wax will trigger swarming in your hive. Keep your bees busy and it will take their minds off swarming for the time being and, of course, give you a spring crop. Be warned  supering and choosing the right moment to put a super on is part of swarm control. If bees don't have room to expand, they swarm!

With a small to middling sized colony they sometimes ignore the super completely.  Box clever, put your super on without a queen excluder. Go back three or four days later and if they are working the super pop your queen excluder in at that stage. If you are a Newbee and only have foundation, this is the way to proceed to tempt your charges to draw out the foundation for you. Remember foundation is more likely to be drawn out if it is placed above the brood nest.

In colonies with lots of young bees now is the moment when you can replace a couple of old brood frames with new foundation. All those young bees are desperate to draw out the wax for you. If you were organised last autumn you put the dirtiest combs on the edge of the box and it is these that you are now renewing.

Beginners should also take note of this email. The season is early and if they wish to obtain bees it is crucial that they have a hive ready. This hive should be in position and the frames of foundation should be made up so that  they can be placed in the hive at a moment's notice.

Keith and I are holding a session on keeping control of swarming on Thursday the 6th of April at Cross in Hand at 7.30pm. Given the early nature of the season it won't be a moment too soon for us to hold this session. Swarming is never easy and cannot be controlled 100%, but having a strategy in your head and a hive ready or a nucleus box ready, will help. Remember to let Rosemarie know if you are coming.

28th March 2017 - Malcolm Wilkie

Subject: Topical Tips - Shopping list for Heathfield
Here are a few ideas for anyone who has just started keeping bees or has only been keeping bees for one or two years. It will help you plan for the season ahead. Perhaps also a reminder for those of you who have kept bees for a longer time.
Essential
Apiguard (a type of thymol gel) to treat colonies in August for varroa
An eke for each colony (to apply the Apiguard). If you are good with your hands you can make one yourself
Super frames and wax foundation (in the hope your bees will make you some honey)Make up the frames but don't add wax until you are ready. Keep the wax indoors in a dry but cool place but not near a heat source. Under a spare room bed is ideal.
A contact feeder. Everyone should have one. This is the feeder with the fine mesh covering a central hole. To use you need to have an empty super placed on top of the crown board.
2 Queen clips. Make sure the spring works really well. If in doubt ask Helen or Keith
A spare hive tool. As brightly coloured as possible
What would be good
A polystyrene nucleus box. Contact Paynes beforehand so that they put it on their lorry. Specify size ie ordinary national, deep national, commercial, WBC. The owner of a nucleus box can get themselves out of so much trouble. Every new beekeeper should have one. They are not that expensive
A plastic rapid feeder for each colony. Never buy wooden; they leak and that causes robbing. Make sure the feeder you are buying is the right size for your hives!
What I would be cautious about buying
Bad quality equipment in the auction
A honey extractor in the auction that does not work. Why do they allow them to go into the sale?
A colony of bees without a Queen. How can beekeepers allow a beginner to waste their money in this way?
A colony of bees on the wrong sized frames for the hive type you have purchased. Only a strong colony can be shook swarmed.
If you are thinking about buying bees at least check on the Internet what price a colony or nucleus usually is going for. Don't pay a lot more than you need to pay. Don't get carried away by the fact the bees are being auctioned.

As far as equipment to make increase is concerned, far better to wait until October and get the equipment at the national honey show, or wait until one of the autumn sales and buy the equipment at a fraction of the price at that moment( unless you have a strong colony and will have to divide it to stop swarming). But a nucleus box would get you out of this difficulty. Remember most beginners who manage to buy a whole colony at this time of year loose most of them in a swarm about a week after they have bought them Your choice, but not having the possibility of dividing a colony will get you into trouble. Beginners you are warned.

Paynes 01273 843388
Ben and Maggie Pratt 01323 841249

And finally some plants for the bees. Or just some plants. Keith always comes up with something quirky.

Malcolm May 10th 2016

Diseases

Traditionally beekeepers do not start to think about treating disease in their colonies until August. The reason for this is varroa takes time to build up in a colony and it is at this stage in the year that you will really begin to see bees with deformed wings.

Varroa which is causing DWV (deformed wing virus) is only one of many viral, fungal and bacterial infections that are probably present all the time at low levels in every colony. Varroa is the number one enemy at present and I will be suggesting some strategies for dealing with it, but other infections should not be ignored and at the beginning of this missive that it what I shall be dealing with.

The worst infections from a novice's point of view are EFB (European Foul Brood) and AFB (American Foul Brood). Outbreaks of AFB don't seem to be that common but EFB has been a problem in this area.

Suffice it to say that if you see in your hive melted down larvae this could be EFB. The larvae look like 'snot'! When EFB starts to take a hold you may not see many larvae like this as, to begin with, the bees remove them. However it is the very act of removing the larvae and cleaning out the cells that is spreading the disease further. If nothing is done to treat eventually the hive will start to smell fishy, as bacteria start to hasten the decomposition of the melted down larvae (these are not being removed by the colony as they have become overwhelmed by the disease).

The above scenario would entail you contacting firstly someone in the association and then the bee inspector who comes out, and using a lateral flow device tests for the presence of EFB. A simple test you can do yourself is to take a pair of tweezers and pull one of the suspicious larvae apart. If a ball of yellow pollen can be seen, then probably everything is alright. This is because EFB is a bacteria that feeds off pollen in the gut of the larva and if EFB is present the bacteria will have already digested the yellow pollen.

Yellow pollen in the gut = larva hasn’t died due to starvation; EFB may be present at an early stage or you are mistaken and it is sac brood or another fungal infection.

White snotty mess when the gut is pulled apart = larva has died of starvation; EFB likely

One of the commonest diseases for beginners is chalk brood. . In the initial stages you will see dead larvae in the frames that have died. These larvae have become mummies that are hard and look like chalk. This is a fungal infection and if left unchecked the mummies of the dead larvae turn from looking like chalk to a dark blue colour and this indicates that the fungus is producing spores, which will further pollute your hive and slow up its expansion. You will find dead mummies on the inspection board if you have it in. If you leave well alone the bees usually clear out the mummies, but only if the colony is strong. I have found that beginners often leave their inspection boards in and the lack of air circulation seems to worsen this problem. If you have open mesh floors, then let the bees have plenty of air. The inspection boards are not intended to be left in for any great length of time!

In cold summers sac brood can become a problem. Beginners muddle this with EFB. The larvae curl up in an odd way and it has been suggested that this looks rather like a Chinese slipper. The larvae do have a slightly melted down look but you can still see the Michelin tyres on them. They tend to turn a dark brown colour as they die. Once again this usually clears up.

If you have the luxury of keeping several colonies, I personally would try and combine two or three hives, as with more bees they will better be able to cope with these fungal infections. EFB, of course, is another matter. If you have a number of colonies the best bet when EFB is confirmed in one hive is destruction (inspection floor added, entrance sealed with gaffer tape, petrol poured through the crown board at night). Remember to seal up the hive so your other hives do not go and rob out the infected honey. Then burn all frames. The box should be torched as should the crown board, floor and roof. A Beekeeper should have a blow torch anyway so as to regularly clean his equipment. Remember hot water and soda crystals are insufficient to kill the bacterial spores of EFB, which can only be eradicated by using a blow torch. Bacterial spores are even resistant to boiling water!

Now to varroa. Some of you will have read the article in the BBKA news and will be thinking you should perhaps just do nothing and the bees will find a way of dealing with it. Don't! Unless you have got a huge number of colonies.

Colin Stocks swears by icing sugar and dusts this onto the frames each time he looks at his colonies. This will knock off a small percentage of phoretic mites and delay the build-up of mites in a colony. He does nothing else and that can only work, in my opinion, if you have a really good strong colony. Something beginners rarely have.

A late summer treatment with thymol. The bees try and remove the thymol from the hive and this irritates them so they keep cleaning themselves. Probably the thymol gets transferred to the varroa mites damaging their delicate outer carapace and this causes the demise of most of them. However beginners make the mistake of not starting the treatment early enough. To be really effective temperatures for the whole period of the treatment need to be well above 15 degrees. So you will only get the best out of the product if it is put on mid or even early August. By the time we visit the French in Normandy in late August their winter treatments are already complete. The inspection board needs to be put in, and I have even resorted to putting gaffa tape over the back of the hive so as to guarantee as little ventilation gets into the hive as possible. You want the volatile oils in the product to irritate the bees to the maximum as this will try and make them remove it from the hive and in so doing pass it around among themselves thereby guaranteeing a good mite drop. An eke is needed for the tray of Apiguard. If you have no eke , buy Apilife Var, the biscuits of which are laid directly on top of the frames. So if you have not yet got your late summer treatment from Paynes or Ben and Maggie Pratt, then order it now in readiness.

When a colony swarms you also have options. If you have a virgin and she is about to come into lay, Oxalic acid is an option. I have never wanted to do this fearing I might damage the new Queen. However inspired by Jonathan Coote in West Sussex I am now using a weak solution of lactic acid. This is no stronger than lemon juice but when sprayed on the bees they concentrate it down and this damages the delicate feeding parts of the varroa. This knocks off 70% of the mites on the bees. However bees need to be excluded from their supers. This will hopefully mean that in August I won't have the huge numbers of varroa in these units that I have had in the past. Helen has mixed up the correct quantities and you should contact her if you want to try this option.

If you have a number of hives, you may be able to take a frame of eggs and young larvae and introduce it into a hive where the Virgin is about to come into lay. Mark the frame clearly and when it has been sealed remove it. It will be full of mites as they will not have been able to breed for at least five weeks, so will have been desperate to dive into the nearest brood cell. Uncap the sealed cells and you will see the number of mites you have trapped.

I won't now deal with winter treatments. That will be for another time. As ever I hope the above is helpful.