Author Archives: Peter Coxon

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The weather has suddenly begun to warm up and several of us have had a quick look into the brood box to see what the bees are doing. If you put in your inspection boards as I suggested last time you will know, anyway, how many frames of brood you will find in your box. If you are in the lucky position of having a strong colony Helen suggests that you put a queen excluder and a super of drawn comb on top of the excluder so that the bees can begin to fill this up with nectar.
How do you decide if you have a strong colony? Out of my six hives I have two colonies that I would consider to be strong colonies. Remember I have 14 x 12 brood boxes. These two colonies already have five frames of brood and the Queen will soon be laying up more frames. If you are a beginner you will not have drawn super comb. You will need to put a box of foundation on top of your brood box. Remember that the foundation needs to be fresh and if you made the frames up a couple of months ago you will need to refresh the wax lightly with a hairdryer. Personally if I only had foundation I would not put a queen excluder on top of the brood box. I would wait until the bees had started to draw out some of the foundation. At that point I would slip an excluder between the brood box and the super. Drawn super comb is like hen's teeth but once you have got some you will be able to use it for several years.
Now how about colonies that are not strong colonies? Many of us will have colonies with just two frames of brood. Is there anything that we can do to ameliorate the situation? Perhaps you have put on fondant or Neopoll and the bees just do not seem to show much interest. This is not your fault : it just means that the bees are not numerous enough to take advantage of the offerings that you are giving them. Experience teaches one that a hive needs to get to a point where they feel they can
expand. You might be tempted to give them sugar syrup. Keith, however, would tell you that this will only place a small unit under even more stress. If they have got honey stores they will use those when they are ready. And sometimes a small unit,once it reaches the tipping point, can expand extremely quickly. It might seem at the moment like gloom and doom but things can turn around in the space of three weeks. In this scenario you won't get a honey crop from spring flowers.

This month the weather will  allow you to look into the brood box. Please check, beginners, that the queen does in fact have enough space to lay. If you overfed your colony in the autumn and there are a lot of frames of honey, you may need to take out a  frame of stores and add a frame of foundation. Place this on the edge of the brood nest and the bees will draw it out so that the Queen can lay in it. Remember one of the triggers for swarming is congestion in the brood nest and if your brood box is loaded with old honey stores then the poor Queen has nowhere to lay! Once you have allowed the bees to get congested they will probably go down the path of swarming and there will be very little you can do about it even if at that late stage you give them extra space.

And we are now coming into swarming season. I say this because I opened a colony on Saturday and there was a whole frame of drone brood and several drones were already walking around on the comb. If they have just hatched they will take 12 days to reach sexual maturity. So, theoretically, if a virgin queen flies in the middle of April there will be drones around with which she can mate. I would not be surprised to see swarms in late April this year. Be warned, and make sure you give the Queen space now so as to delay this swarming as long as possible. And make up those brood boxes and frames of foundation if you have not already done so! I am afraid this is a case of do as I say, don't do as I do because I still have got boxes to sterilise and frames of foundation to make. Once you have your hive ready, go and place it in your apiary ready to do the manipulation you have decided upon. You will add the frames of foundation at the last minute. A timely reminder that we have a session on swarm control on Thursday April 14th. This is at the Rose and Crown in Mayfield and will start at 7:30 PM. Keith and I will cover once again the artificial swarm and I will quickly show you another technique which can be used if you have a strong colony and want to do something before you go away on holiday.
Malcolm Wilkie
3rd April 2016

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38Deg1

 

 

Thanks to you, British bees can breathe a tiny sigh of relief. The government’s decided to keep the ban on bee-killing pesticides. [1] They’ve listened to the science, and the hundreds of thousands of us who were speaking up for our bees.

There’s a sting in the tail though. The powerful lobbyists who want the ban lifted aren’t giving up. They’ve said they’re “committed” to getting a yes from the government. [2] They could make another application within weeks. We need to be ready.

But when they try to get their way again, we won’t know. We won’t even get to see the evidence they give to back up their arguments. Because right now the entire process is done in secret. No public consultation or scrutiny allowed. [3]

Please sign the open letter to Environment Minister Liz Truss now, demanding transparency. The more we know about the danger to bees, the more we can do to stop it:38Deg2Last year when they were deciding whether to let bee-killing pesticides back on UK fields, the government gagged their own experts. And made the final decision behind closed doors. The only reason that together we found out in time to stop them was because a concerned MP, Barry Gardiner, pushed to learn what was going on, and told 38 Degrees members. [4]

And we were ready:

  • 250,000 of us signed the petition to keep bee-killing pesticides off UK fields. We delivered every name to government ministers last week, just before the decision was made.
  • Thousands of us emailed our MPs to make sure they had copies of our hard hitting report proving last year’s decision was wrong. And we delivered it directly into the hands of the government’s expert advisors.
  • We caused a buzz on social media when tens of thousands of us tweeted the government ministers making the decision on bee-killing pesticides.
  • Then amazingly, almost a hundred MPs came to listen to a panel of experts at our event in Parliament last week. [5]

38 Degrees members have got the truth out. But lobbyists are going to keep coming up with new reasons to get around the ban. Don’t let them get away with it. Sign the open letter to expose the truth behind any new application now:38Deg2Thanks for being involved,

Maddy, Amy, Rachel and the 38 Degrees team

PS: Bees will be feasting on a buffet of wildflowers this summer. Up and down the country, thousands of 38 Degrees members are planting wildflowers in our gardens, schools and allotments. You can join in and order your seeds here:
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/bee-seed-ordering

NOTES:
[1] The Guardian: Ministers reject plan for 'emergency' use of banned bee-harming pesticides:
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/13/mps-vote-against-emergency-use-of-banned-bee-harming-pesticides
This is advice from the government’s pesticide advisors, UK Expert Committee on Pesticides. It says that “the applications do not meet the criteria for an emergency authorisation”:
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/523047/ecp-ministers-advice-1605.pdf
[2] NFU online: NFU to continue with neonicotinoids application:
http://www.nfuonline.com/news/latest-news/nfu-to-continue-with-neonicotinoids-application/
[3] The government keeps the details of applications to lift the ban on bee-killing pesticides secret from MPs and the public. Add on top of that last year the government gagged their own experts, then made the final decision behind closed doors just before MPs went on summer holiday and it means there’s a huge lack of scrutiny.
[4] Barry Gardiner submitted a ‘written question’ to Liz Truss, the Environment Minister, in a bit to get her to reveal whether any applications to lift the ban had been made. She was forced to admit (at the end of April) that two applications were being assessed:
http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2016-04-19/34699/
[5] 38 Degrees Blog: 38 Degrees members are standing up for the bees in 2016:
https://speakout.38degrees.org.uk/campaigns/902

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WINNER OF THE VERA BECVAR HONEY CUP – Peter Coxon

CLASS ONE - Clear Honey - Open

1st – Peter Coxon
2nd – Steve & Clare Adams
3rd – Malcolm Wilkie
Highly Commended – John Preston

CLASS TWO - Set Honey - Open

1st – Elizabeth Missen
2nd - Helen Searle
3rd – Chris Chandler
Highly Commended – John Preston

CLASS THREE - Cut Comb - Open

1st – Helen Hadley
2nd - Brian Hopper
Highly Commended – John Lyte

CLASS FOUR - Clear or Set Honey - Novice

2 entries – added to Open Classes

CLASS FIVE - Cakes or Confectionery

1st – Malcolm Wilkie
2nd – Chris Chandler
3rd – David Tasker

CLASS SIX - Biscuits

1st – John Preston
2nd – Samantha Bowles
3rd – Amanda Savage

CLASS SEVEN - Preserves & Mead

1st – Robert Stovell

CLASS EIGHT - Dipped Candle

1st – Johannes Blummel

CLASS NINE - Moulded Candle

1st – Johannes Blummel
2nd – Chris Chandler

CLASS TEN - Any other Wax, Pollen or Propolis Product

1st – Johannes Blummel
2nd – Amanda Savage

CLASS TEN - Handmade Beekeeping item (Voted by the Attendees of the AGM)

1st - Helen Hadley