Wings & things - by Roxanne Gould

It is an honour to write to you as your new Chairperson, and I would like to begin by offering my sincere thanks to those who have brought us to this point. In particular, I want to recognise the dedication and steady leadership of our outgoing Chair, Malcolm Wilkie. His Chairman’s Chatter was a familiar and trusted voice, guiding the Association through the past few years. I am also deeply grateful to the committee members who have recently stepped down. Their time, expertise, and quiet commitment have helped build the strong, supportive Association we benefit from today.
I step into this role with respect for our traditions and with real excitement for what lies ahead. Beekeeping is rooted in patience, observation, and shared knowledge passed from one generation to the next. Those values will remain at the heart of everything we do. At the same time, like any hive, we must continue to adapt if we are to thrive.
While beekeeping can often be a solitary pursuit, with many quiet hours spent alone among our hives, there is immense value in coming together to share what we have learned. The collective knowledge within this Association is one of our greatest strengths. By openly sharing successes, challenges, and hard-won lessons, we all become better beekeepers. I also believe there is much to be gained from building closer relationships with like-minded organisations in neighbouring areas, allowing ideas and support to flow more freely across our wider beekeeping community.
I look forward to working with you all, listening carefully, and helping our Association grow, together and in balance. If you have any ideas for the future, please reach out to me at: the.hwbka+chair@gmail.com

by Malcolm Wilkie

My time as chairman is now coming to an end after three years. As with any organisation change occurs. I have also said I wish to hand over the organisation of the training to someone else although will still be involved. So 2025 is going to be a year of transition. Peter Coxon will be giving up his role as apiary manager at Horsted Green Park apiary and has said he now wishes to step back from this committee. Keith Obbard comes to the end of his time as President. Sandy Infield also is stepping down as events coordinator. The committee has been actively looking to replace these key figures and several people have been approached and accepted to get more involved in the work of our club. Roxanne Gould has said she is prepared to stand as chair but has made it clear that she wants the role advertised so others can stand if they so desired. Most committee members are remaining. However, we are looking for others to sit on the committee perhaps as a general member with a view to taking on a future role and particularly would like newer or younger members to come forward to reinvigorate the work of the association. If there were anyone (particularly with digital experience), please put your name forward. Clubs function because of people who volunteer their time and skills so others can learn and progress. If you could commit the time to four or five meetings a year, please give this request some careful consideration and send me an email on: (mj.wilkie2014@gmail.com)

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

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

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