GBKA  Registered Charity Number : 1014600

Are You Doing This?

Resistance to pesticides in varroa is caused by the mites being over subjected to low concentrations of the treatment. REMOVE ALL VARROA STRIPS AFTER SIX WEEKS

JUST RAMBLING

 An interesting comment in BKQ about the time that it takes for bees to lose their orientation relative to the hive, suggesting that it was a matter of just a few days perhaps even one or two days. Watching bees when there is a strong flow on the great majority emerge with a definite "target' in mind, whilst towards the end of the season the flights seem much more random, with some bees doing little more than putting their heads outside the front door and then going back to the warm. My feeling is that it is the process of closing up the entrance, whether by the beekeeper shutting the door, or by the weather preventing the bees flying, that is the real signal that tells our bees to reorient themselves, though clearly the longer the door is shut the better the bees get the message. But this does not answer the question how drones, or for that matter the virgin queens, find their way to the mating areas, an area that must be completely new to a colony that has been brought into the district. The Heather Trust, I wonder who set that up, is worried about the decline in heather moorland, claiming that 25% has been lost since the 1940's, with overgrazing by sheep and poor maintenance, burning and the like, being blamed for the decrease. A forum has been set up in Scotland, consisting of conservation groups and landowners to encourage everyone to help preserve this habitat for insects, animals and birds. It is claimed that in at least half the bird species, numbers have dropped by 10% since the 1950's. Might it not be that there has been too much shooting? I wonder if beekeepers are represented on this forum? Our spring flowering heathers seem to be laden with potential blooms, better than most years. On a warm winters day they are very popular with the bees and seem to provide valuable forage. A long time this autumn without significant rain, some of the shallow rooted plants, my lawn in particular are looking very sick, but those with deeper roots seem to be surviving quite well, and if one digs down there still seems to be some dampness in the ground, suiting the deep rooted plants. The autumn raspberries, with plentiful watering again a shallow rooted plant, have given an excellent crop, with virtually no trouble with the fruits rotting from damp and rain, and just a few strawberries at the beginning of October. The apple crop has suffered greatly from birds pecking the fruit, causing them to rot and fall prematurely, perhaps the birds were thirsty too. The hardwood hedges have made very excellent growth, but Leyland seem not to have grown as much this year. They tend to grow mostly in the late summer & I suspect that the dry weather stunted their growth.

Very few wasps this year, not even on the few damaged apples. There was a reasonable autumn last year, so the queens should have been in good condition for hibernation, quite a mild winter, and a wet spring, which seemed to suit our bees. My guess would be that the queens emerged early and were caught by a cold and wet period and so were unable to build up a reasonable colony.

Dick Sadler, 25/10/03

Bees for Development

 Bees for Development helps people in poor countries to create livelihoods involving bees in ways that are sustainable and environmentally beneficial. As far as possible they do this without charging a fee.

 The Journal seeks to inform about methods that work well, gives news of global issues, details of organisations and dates of meetings, events and courses, ideas for new ways of beekeeping and an understanding of the role of beekeeping in other countries and situations. 

If you would like to subscribe to Bees for Development their details follow. It costs £20 a year for us, (people in developing countries who could not otherwise afford it can barter in wax). If you think that you would not be interested in reading the journal yourself you can still help the poor beekeepers of the world by sponsoring a subscription to be sent to whoever is considered most needful. For readers living in remote areas the journal is often their only source of beekeeping news and information.

 GBKA sponsor the beekeepers in Malawi who have been helped in their co-operative efforts by our members Sue and Steve, and now also by Pam backed by Bees Abroad. The Craft Fair in Usk on October 26th was arranged by Sue to raise money for these same beekeepers. There was a piece about the project in the Abergavenny Chronicle the week of the craft fair. I think it tells you everything you may want to know. 

We have had a very nice thank you letter from the beekeepers themselves.(click to enlarge and click again to obtain a clear picture)

 We were represented by Graham who brought his bee display to the Fair and spent the day talking about bees and selling honey, wax and all the other things in his formidable shop.

DEFRA 

There has been an amendment to an EU directive so that there are now two more pests of bees that are notifiable. Tropilaelaps clareae and Aethina tumida are both notifiable. ie you must tell John Holden if you see one in your colonies. Tropilaelaps clareae is a very small mite 1.1x0.5mm, which has a similar life style to varroa and is thought to cause the same problems. The NBU have been looking for it this year but it may not survive our winters even if it is found. Aethina tumida is the small hive beetle, which we were told all about earlier this year, and as far as I know has not yet been found in the UK either. NBU want us to continue monitoring for resistant mites.

Association Business 

Adrian Waring has been nominated to be President of BBKA. Your committee have seconded the nomination as they believe him to be the best man for the job. 

Please think about nominations for our new Chairman and vice-Chairman and have them ready for the AGM. Anyone who would like to help in any capacity in the running of the association would be welcomed onto the committee, please don't be shy about suggesting yourself.

Comment

 You should all have received your copy of BBKA news directly from them last month. If for some reason you did not get one and think that you should have the person to contact is Sharon Blake, the BBKA news editor. Tel. No. 01460 242124. If you did get one but haven't read it the good news is that Apiguard has now been formally authorised as a Varroa control medicine. As it is thymol based it can be used alternately with the pyrethroid based ones and thus hopefully delay/avoid the development of resistance. As we keep being urged to do, I have been monitoring the 'natural mite mortality' in my beehives. I recorded the total drop of mites for the 9 days before I removed the Bayvarol strips (this being unnatural due to the presence of what one hopes is an active miticide) and then again for 9 days after the strips had been removed. I am pleased to report that although there were a few mites still falling with the strips present (not many but it was at the end of the 6 weeks) I could find none at all in any of my colonies after the strips had been removed. I don't know if I would have seen T. clareae as it is so much smaller. Bridget

BDI 

I have been sent the minutes and accounts of the BDI AGM. It makes interesting reading. They have paid out less in compensation this year than last-and also, good news, less than they collected. There were 21 claims for AFB and 81 for EFB. It doesn't sound like an awful lot of disease to me and I think we should be grateful that UK has this policy of destroying every AFB case so that the disease has never been allowed to become endemic here (although it's dreadful when it happens to you) The premiums collected were only slightly up on last year, I think the improved finances are more due to their increased vigilance in paying out reduced claims for old or bad comb condition and rejecting claims where there is gross underinsurance. It is important that we realise this when insuring our own bees.

Annual Dinner

 A very pleasant evening was enjoyed at the Beaufort Hotel in Raglan. The food there is really good and quite imaginative. There is an area of the dining room that they can separate off for private parties which is always a Good Thing. It would be nice to hold the event next year in a more southerly location for those of our members who live that way. If anyone has a good idea about a location please let someone on the committee know. Any information about what you would like does help when organising the event.

Ragwort 

Fortunately for beekeepers this 'weed' is poisonous to horses so the British Horse Society with John Greenway MP are taking out a Private Members Bill. This will amend the Weeds Act 1959 to enforce a Code of Practice to control the spread of the plant. The honey collected from ragwort actually contains something that is toxic to humans (damages the liver) so the unpleasant taste is a real warning of danger.

Gibberish in ? Gibberish out! 

It's what happens in computers when the information in them is out of date.

We try therefore to keep the information in the computers which run the Spray Liaison Scheme as up to date as possible. We must make sure that the apiary details in the computers which run the scheme are as up to date as possible. For example, incorrect details can have someone trying to call a telephone number which no longer exists or trying to give you information about a spraying near a apiary which you no longer use.

To prevent this happening and to ensure only up to date information is on the computers, details of apiaries which have not been confirmed are deleted from the data base.

If you want to be informed of any proposed sprayings near your bees you must return the Apiary Identification form to confirm your apiary details. If you receive no form giving you details of the apiaries listed under your name with this AGM information ? your apiaries have been removed from the data base because you have not returned previous forms. Fill up a blank form and send it in if you want the use of the Spray Liaison Scheme. 

John Waller

The National Honey Show.

More about the National Honey Show This month is one of the highlights of the Beekeeping calandar - the National Honey Show.

It takes place in the Kensington Town Hall, just off Kensington High Street and very close to the High Street Kensington tube station.

At 2.00pm on Thursday 13th November, Mr Kim Flottum (editor of the US magazine Bee Culture) will open the show. There are two lectures later in the afternoon by James Morton (Use of Geographical Information Systems by the National Bee Unit to help monitor, understand and control the spread of serious Bee Diseases) and Kim Flottum (Beekeepers Literature in the United States and A.I. Root's contribution) The show closes at 7.00pm that evening.

On Friday 14th, the doors of the show open at 9.30am. Lectures are - Martin Buckle (Beeswax Modelling); Selwyn Wilkins (Novel research into pesticides at the National Bee Unit - what does it mean for honeybees); Francis Capener and Moyra Davidson (Judging a class in public - questions and answers); Peter Smith (Swarms and Queen finding); Wille Robson (Honey Farming in the Scottish Borders); Kim Flottum (Towards Chemical-free Beekeeping). The Show closes at 7.00pm.

On Saturday 15th, the doors open at 9.30am. Lectures are Willie Robson (The Marketing of Honey and Associated Products); Kim Flottum (The largest beekeeping operation in the Universe, the Richard Adee business) and Steve Benbow (Beekeeping amongst the rooftops of London) The presentation of the trophies and awards is at 4.00pm and the show closes at 5.00pm.

There is still time to enter your exhibits - just - late entries (except classes 40-48) may be made until 1st November. If you have a problem with getting your exhibits to the Town Hall, you can take them to our Windsor branch or bring them to us at Wragby and we will transport them to and back from the Show on your behalf.

Do please try to attend the Show. You'll have a great day out, learn a bit, meet old friends and make new ones. We will have our usual stand with lots of goodies for you to buy, you can see the new Unique label range, see a video of our state-of-the-art wiring machine at work and have your honey labels printed while you wait. If you would like to pre-order anything, please let us know as soon as possible.

For more information visit www.honeyshow.co.uk

Whilst the domains gbka.co.uk & gbka .org .uk are owned by G Cole.  The web pages under these domains are published for  the Gwent Beekeepers association and its members ,  in order to publicise our association's news, aims, activities, and the art of beekeeping.