GBKA  Registered Charity Number : 1014600

IMPORTANT

New contact details for our SBI  John Holden  01873 831273  

   Carlyon, Crickhowell Road, Gilwern, Abergavenny, Mons., NP7 0DG

Are You Doing This?

1.

2. Prepare to give your colonies their last check before winter healthwise.

3.Once the honey has been removed put in varroa strips, if you have never done so test for resistance.

4. If they are not there already make sure all your hives have entrance blocks restricting the entrance to cut down robbing.

 I don’t know whom this will interest but the number in our association is now 101 (including associates) compared with 85 a year ago.                          Bridget

JUST RAMBLING

The new season home grown strawberries have arrived in the greengrocers this month, well labelled with "New Season Home Grown", but compared with the Spanish ones seen in previous weeks their quality and appearance was very poor, with many small and misshapen fruits showing that they had not been pollinated properly. If I had been the greengrocer I would have objected very strenuously and asked for the Spanish ones again. Somehow I do not think that the home producers of strawberries export their produce and the home market is left with the second class fruit. It does show the importance of appearance when one is selling to the general public. I do not think I have ever seen honey labelled, even with a sticker, as "New Season".

But it does raise an interesting point on pollination. As I understand the growing system of home grown early strawberries they are produced under these polythene low level tunnels, with the tunnel stretching almost the full width of the field, as seen from the A40 near Ross. How does a pollinating insect, hopefully a bee, get down the full length of one of these tunnels? Does the farmer leave gaps in the tunnel as entry points, sure to be spots where the flowers would be blackened by the early frost? I cannot imagine a colony of bees, bumble or honey appreciating being placed at one end of one of these tunnels.

A number of horror stories in the press about people being attacked by insects, one paper reporting 3 or 4 fatalities a year, the number I had always understood, whilst another equally respected paper mentioning 40. If the press cannot get a number like this right, a number that is in the public record, then how can one believe many other stories one reads there, (except of course in the GBKA Newsletter).

  An interesting account of the establishment of a beekeeping association in a one acre plot in Kennington in central London, not too near the Oval I hope or the beer tent might get some visitors that were not too welcome. The article was enthusing about the number of young people taking up beekeeping throughout the UK, I wonder how we can encourage it locally. It is interesting that significant beekeeping can be tolerated in the middle of a busy city, perhaps favourable to the bees with slightly higher temperatures and many varied garden plants for pollen and nectar, whilst the new incoming country dweller objects to them, in a slightly cooler area with perhaps a farming monoculture. Perhaps the city dweller is too busy to notice a few insects, or is the incomer over sensitive. Of course it may be that the town dwelling beekeeper cannot countenance the presence of the aggressive bee, whilst the countryman is prepared to accept a bee that can give the beekeeper a hard time.

Dick Sadler, 24/7/03,

Froe Mixture

John Verran would like to point out that on no account should anyone get the idea that they should try this ghastly mixture. There is no real evidence that it actually had any effect on acarine mites, although it probably killed a lot of bees. Most of our bees now are resistant to Acarine, and a colony suffering from it is best killed or allowed to die out.

It is not one of the accepted treatments for bees and would probably leave dreadful residues in the honey.

John would also like to remind you that formic and oxalic acid are dangerous and should be treated with the greatest of care.

Swarm talk

Here is a contribution from Janet:

A Shropshire tale: Jean has 4 hives and a bait hive a couple of hundred yards from her farmhouse. Back in mid July, while we were having summer, signs of activity in the bait hive - not only was it being inspected but it was also being cleaned out. That was Thursday. Friday -same again. Saturday - no action . Sunday - no action. Monday - no action. Decided bees had found a more desirable res. Tues - late afternoon -more bees than usual in the house and she gets a feeling something is about to happen. Dons veil and goes to the hives where she turns up a nuc box a yard from her bait hive and sits down to wait. Lots of bee inspecting going on and 20 mins pass. Then she begins to hear a "roar" and down the valley comes an enormous and very loud cloud. The "cloud" heads straight for the bait hive. Within 10 mins they had "flowed" inside and bees were fanning in the strays at the entrance. It was a wonderful experience.

Comment

I have a very important tip for anyone who is going to be extracting for the first time. Anyone else needn’t read this as they will know. When you start washing up afterwards—large containers, the odd saucepan, a few strainers, spoons and knives and even the extractor itself—always use cold water first until you have got rid of all the little bits of wax. Then you can move on to the hot soapy stuff. Once you allow wax to get warm it sticks to everything and stays there until you resort to boiling water or something. Don’t let it happen.

I always have difficulty persuading my bees to leave the supers and go through the porter escapes. Les never has this problem, even in hot weather and says I must have my escapes too wide open. In Canada we watched commercial beekeepers removing supers and one of them maintained that if you took the super off and put it on its side all the bees would leave and go back to the hive. So if you did this to all the colonies in the apiary by the time you wanted to return and collect the supers they would all be clear. Mind you their idea of clear and mine are not exactly the same. In my experience Welsh bees don’t seem to mind being on their side. Another method the ‘big boys’ use is a blower which literally blows the bees off the face of the comb. Of course it is always much easier to clear bees from fully capped frames, but there always seem to be some not quite capped ones which are the sticking point. If you are using clearer boards leave them there for 48 hours.

Have any of you looked at the Dartington hive website? I’ve always been tempted to try this sort of design but there seem to be problems, how do you treat for varroa without affecting the honey producing frames and how do you monitor for varroa—no open mesh floor possible.                                      Bridget

Sweet tale of the Sundarbans’ unstung hero

                                                                 from the Guardian, letter from Bangladesh by Angus Davidson

With his small, wrinkled and wiry frame and his mischievously twinkling eyes, it’s difficult to estimate just how old Aziz Dhali is, but I can well believe he has spent around 50 years as a honey hunter, as he says.

The Sundarbans in the southwest of Bangledesh are well known as part of the world’s largest continuous mangrove forest and home of the Royal Bengal tiger. In common with many forest reserves around the world this is an area of natural beauty preserved not merely for the tourist or to provide employment for guards to engage with the regular attempts at illegal logging. It also helps to support the various communities that eke out an existence on its margins. Towards the end of the year local people are able to enter the forest and cut the long grass for domestic purposes, though removing cover for the ever wary deer in the process. From April to June they are allowed to gather wild honey from within the forest reserve, which is then sold on, eventually ending up in Dhaka and Kolkata, somewhat diluted and at inflated prices.

Despite the risks involved the mowalis, or honey hunters, of the Sundarbans go about their business with the air of dark humour that is so often the mainstay of the camaraderie of those working in dangerous circumstances. On our trip that air was less palpable, partly because they were escorting foreigners through the forest but also because the reality of the tiger danger was too fresh in their minds. It was Dhali’s first trip back to the forest since his brother was mauled to death by a tiger while gathering honey here the month before.

With their deftness of foot, skill and experience, the mowalis were able to glide through the forest with ease while we slid and squelched our way through knee-deep mud and rivers, tripped over mangrove roots, and constantly dripped with sweat in the heat and humidity.

When at last we located a honeycomb with harvesting potential, it resembled the dung pats that are dried on tree trunks and used for fuel more than anything ambrosial. The reason for its appearance was the mass of bees on its surface, but as the smoke torches were lit and wafted around, the bees dispersed to reveal an exquisite piece of apian architecture—one of the largest combs the hunters had seen for a while.

As we wrapped our ghamshas (cloth towels, often worn round the waist) around our heads and tried to cover up any other bare skin, we were astounded to see the lead hunter climbing naked from the waist up. I don’t know his reason for stripping off but he emerged unscathed—an unstung hero if ever I saw one ! When he started to cut away at the comb the honey flowed freely. Often much of the comb is left behind because it contains too many grubs or the wax cells are empty. But here virtually everything was collected in a basket, with a small part of the comb left behind to encourage the bees back.

It was at that moment, with the noise and the smoke swirling round us, and the need to keep our heads covered, that I appreciated the danger from tigers. No one was maintaining a serious lookout, and although we had two forest guards carrying ancient .303 rifles, at times the greatest threat seemed to be from their handling of their firearms—”please point it the other way”. With their eyes streaming I’m not sure they would have been able to focus on a tiger if one had appeared on the scene. But none did, and the hunters had a very productive afternoon.

The mowalis will get 150 taka (around $2) per kilo for the honey from the traders when they get back home, with the wax and other residue being sold to pharmaceutical companies—a recent addition to their customer base. While the 10 or so kilos gathered on this trip are a welcome boost to their incomes, many trips are not so rewarding—even less so as the season wears on.

Looking resplendent in his newly acquired T-shirt and revelling in his elder statesman role, Dhali was philosophical about his way of life and the perils that the honey hunters face: “We have to get on with life and appreciate what we’ve got”.

The Secret Life of Bees

          published by Review ISBN 0 7472 6683 2        price £6.99

This beautifully written book is set in the Southern US in the early 1960s, at the time of the Civil Rights Bill that allowed black people to register as voters. It tells the story of Lily, an adolescent brought up by her father on a poor fruit farm. Lily is determined to escape from his cruelty and a bizarre set of circumstances results in her running away with Rosaleen, her black nurse. They find sanctuary with the Boatwright sisters, May the neurotic, June the skilled musician and August the beekeeper. Lily is convinced that her dead mother had visited these sisters and much of the book focuses on her internal struggle-on the one hand the desire to learn the truth of her mother’s past and on the other fear of what that truth might be.

The story cleverly weaves together Lily’s search for her identity with the wider issues of blacks and whites coming to terms with a changing world. The bees are the anchor point. Their serene and ordered lives serve to exaggerate the turmoil within Lily and her companions. The novel reaches a terrifying climax when all becomes clear to Lily and she is forced to come to terms with the horror of her childhood. She succeeds and in doing so makes the transition to adulthood.

This, Sue Monk Kidd’s first novel, tells a wonderful story with sympathy, humour and an attention to detail that will make you live every moment. It’s just the thing to read on a hot day with the bees buzzing gently in the background.                                                                                  Rattus

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