News

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I don’t know about you but my bees have been nothing but trouble these last few weeks. St Leonards has good forage so starvation has not been a problem but my difficulty has been the number of boxes that have wanted to swarm for a second time. The bees seem to have felt cramped in their brood boxes after splits were done; no doubt in part due to their difficulty in drawing wax given the lowish temperatures we have had recently. Every box has now built queen cells. My biggest challenge has been one box of extremely prolific bees ( I got from another beekeeper) where varroa had been allowed to build up. I decided to do a split but leaving the queen on the old site with just foundation (I knew this queen needed a fresh start). This just didn’t work as I had planned, however, as the temperatures just weren’t elevated enough and with the supers above the bees just didn’t bother to work Mr Kembles nice foundation. I eventually gave them drawn comb and the Queen laid into that. But now for the second time they have built queen cells and so I have just banked her in an apidea mating hive with a cupful of bees. Bees are so frustrating at times! The parent hive was another story. Over a period of two weeks a carpet of dead bees has built up in front of the hive as diseased bees crawled out of the hive. They had wings but couldn’t take off and a stream of them seemed to be making their way daily down the garden. I knew it would be risky getting a viable queen cell so took out an insurance policy of two frames of brood with over 10 queen cells. I left them all in the nuc I took away from the parent hive. From that insurance policy I got one nice looking queen. In the parent hive I left one queen cell. Just as well I had my insurance policy as the queen cell I left in the parent hive, when checked, contained a dead larva. So I was able to put back my insurance policy. However what had been a big box of bees is now a smallish unit. The three supers they had laden with honey have now had to be given to other hives as there aren’t enough of them to look after it or to cap it! My queen will take another week to come into lay and as I have a lot of units I have added a frame of sacrificial larvae. Phoretic varroa mites will hopefully dive into this as there is no other brood and in a weeks time I shall remove this frame and burn it. Let’s hope this gives my new queen a fresh start. I have a similar scenario at my out apiary with the box of bees I allowed to expand into a double 14*12 brood box for queen rearing. Lots of bees equates to lots of varroa and lots of varroa means lots of viruses getting a hold. I have created a real management headache for myself! I don’t know about you but varroa seems to be a big problem this year. Yet again this is proving to be a year like no other and my prediction is that many of you will struggle with varroa in your hives earlier than normal so you will need to monitor carefully what the daily mite drop is. We have bee safaris organised for the end of June and those who will come will be in for a treat. Look out for the session on treatments. In my opinion this is the most important session. Get that right and the bees are far more likely to survive the winter. Get it wrong and hives can collapse in March.

Malcolm Wilkie – July 2024

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2024 will undoubtedly be a challenging year for all of us.

At the present time the season looks as if it is going to be an extremely early one. On the association’s WhatsApp group Rob Gore has said that he already has sealed drone brood in hives. Jo Groom says she has never had such large colonies at this time of year. In my own garden Darwin tulips that are meant to flower from mid April are now currently blooming, and it is the 21st of March! So if you have a large colony, expect swarming to start mid April.

At the moment you have an opportunity to swap out old frames, adding foundation in its place and as there are so many young bees eager to make wax that will be drawn out no problem. Doing this may also hold back swarming for a while. And of course if you do that the likelihood of getting tasty June honey increases.

Our program of events is on the website and everyone should take a look month by month what is being offered. Go to the website, click on the menu, scroll down to events and you can see month by month what is going on. This is a fantastic resource and everyone should take a look. All the timings and locations are there. We encourage you to book but are well aware people are busy and no one will be turned away if they just turn up. As long as they are a member of course!

 People are putting out hornet traps and they should be regularly monitored. Let’s hope this year not too many of us find ourselves dealing with this invasive top predator. Wishing you every success in getting a good Spring honey crop.

Malcolm Wilkie – April 2024

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As Chairman in 2022 to 2023 I have run improver sessions for members of the Association. There has been good attendance and on average about 15 people came to those sessions that were organised. Timings were correct and there was a swarming session before swarming took place, there was a session on treatments before treatments needed to be done, and Keith ran a session on preparing hives for winter before all the wet weather arrived. There was also the opportunity for people to attend a half day on disease run by Dave Rudland of East Surrey Bees.

The Honey show was well attended (I badgered a lot of you to enter Honey) and there was a lot of discussion about the Asian hornet. This is going to be a challenge for each and everyone of us in the next two or three years. We also had the microscopes to look at and if that interests you, look out for a session that will be organised by Peter and Paul in the Spring. Next year we revert to a beginners’ course, but it will be a hybrid course and for most sessions beginners will have to join in with activities that will be organised for all of you members.

As I feel Asian hornets to be the main priority a workshop will be run in February to build a trap. Every Asian hornet Queen in February that is caught will prevent countless beehives being targeted in July, August and September.

The High Weald is one of the divisions of the Sussex Beekeeping Association. This year we are hosting their AGM and Dan Morgan, who is our seasonal bee inspector, will be talking about Asian Hornets and tracing the Asian hornet nest that was found in Eastbourne. I am hoping a fair number of members from different divisions will attend and lead to a healthy debate about trapping and tracing. You will be able to enter a hornet trap and there will be prize money (probably about £50). As we are hosting, this AGM will take place at Five Ashes village hall. It’s on March 2nd. Sign up if you have not already done so. It’s on our patch, so easy to get to.

Finally keep all those 2 L bottles to make traps in February at our workshop. You can then immediately hang them up. I look forward to seeing lots of you at that session. I can’t help feeling that everyone of you that does not put out a trap will inadvertently and unwittingly be causing a problem for everyone else. So, if you can’t come in February make sure you find out from others what to do.

I wish you all a successful Beekeeping season and may your bees give you lots of pleasure and lbs and lbs of honey.

Malcolm Wilkie – January 2024

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For those interested in raising queens this is how I do it. Helen Hadley taught me, and I have read a lot of books. However, this is what works for me.

I am on 14*12 brood boxes. I build up a colony I like by adding a second brood box. I lift a frame of brood and stores into the top brood box and add a piece of foundation and a dummy board to help prevent the brood getting chilled. I place foundation below into the brood nest to make up for the frames I have lifted into the top box. The bees quickly draw out the frames of foundation particularly in the top box as there is heat rising from the brood in the bottom box. The next week I start adding frames of foundation to the top box. I may raise another frame of brood to encourage expansion. This process goes on for several weeks until I have two 14*12 brood boxes rammed with bees. I often have to give them a super as well to give them space.

Then when I feel it is the right moment, I find the queen and place her in a clip. I raise into the top box as much brood as I can and make sure there are eggs on which emergency queen cells can be made. Important that there are stores and,  if possible, a pollen bank.

I then turn the bottom brood box and entrance 180 degrees, so the entrance faces the woodland edge which all my hives back onto. I add a solid crown board. I add an eke with the entrance facing outwards in the same direction as the original entrance. I place an inspection board over where the original entrance would have been in order to prevent the bees going underneath the box. This encourages them to walk up and find the new top entrance. If I have a super I remove the queen excluder to encourage all these bees to collect me Spring honey.

After three days I go back and remove any sealed queen cell as it will probably have been made from a three-day old larva. I add a pollen pattie as shown me by Helen or any extra fondant/ food I have got. If there are cells in places too difficult to be harvested, I may remove them.

After 9 days (possibly 10 days) I go back and harvest cells.  My calculation is that there will be queens made from two-day old larvae. In a queenless box two-day old larvae are converted into emergency queens and sealed three days later. Then in 8 days’ time those cells will hatch. If I go in on day 9 then the queen cells will be ready to harvest and will no doubt hatch two or three days later.

This year I may harvest them all and put them in apideas. I will then do a second round of queen rearing using eggs from another hive or a frame of eggs taken from the queen in the bottom box. This will also mean these bees collect me more honey.

Once this second round of queen cells is complete, I will divide up the hive and make up nucs which will be taken to another apiary for the queens to get mated. One of these nucs will be used to requeen the original colony as the original queen will have produced a lot of brood and won’t make a strong colony going into winter.

Watch these videos. I have tried to be clear, but the process is complex, and I forget to mention certain things. However perhaps with the above written explanation plus the long videos showing the set up you will be able to work out how it is done.

Most of the queen cells from the first round I intend to harvest and put in apideas. Those from the second round will be used to make up nucs or add again to any apideas that destroyed the queen cell they were given.

I’ll let you know how I get on.

Malcolm Wilkie – May 2024