GBKA  Registered Charity Number : 1014600

YOUR WEBMASTER WISHES TO EXPRESS HIS BEST WISHES AND COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON TO ALL OUR READER AND "SURFERS WORLD WIDE"

Enclosed with this newsletter were the membership forms for 2003/2004 and the programme for the coming year.

Please fill in the membership application NOW if you wish to rejoin and send it off before you forget—or bring it with you to the next Goytre meeting.

  Are You Doing This?

If someone asks you what you would like for a Christmas present tell them you would like some new frames and foundation. Then you can make a New Year resolution to get rid of those old black hangers on and improve hygiene.

After Christmas lunch you will need a walk. Go to your apiary and heft the hives to see if they need feeding. At this time of year fondant or candy.

June James Trophy

The trophy was awarded to John Holden for the exceptional amount of work he has put in for the Beginners’ Course, not just in organising it and teaching but for all the practical sessions that he has run throughout the summer.

Unfortunately John could not come to the AGM and so was unable to receive the trophy. Janet will present it to him at another time.

June James Trophy

John wishes me to convey his thanks to the people who put forward his name to receive this award. He doesn’t think that he deserves it but will be pleased to look after such a beautiful piece of glass for a year.  

JUST RAMBLING

I can never understand the interest in the papers with bees. In one of the glossy Sunday supplements there was an article on bees on top of the Paris opera (I wonder what happens if there is a swarm in the middle of Tosca!) with all the usual rhetoric of "bees raiding the chestnut trees" and "smoke acting like a trainers whip". Removal of the filled supers sounds a little hair raising, with a steep iron ladder and a steel bridge 30m over the stage, to negotiate. The beekeeper must find it worthwhile as he gets about £8 for 125g in the opera gift shop.

Still sometimes I have difficulty in understanding my interest in bees!

Whilst trying to cut out an alder tree which was spoiling the shape of a leylandii hedge, leylandii are very sensitive to competition and a vigorous alder will soon kill it, it was very noticeable that the established trunk of the alder was thick with mosses & lichens, whilst similar sized branches in the hedge were clean. Apple trees, but not plums, adjacent to the hedge are covered in a similar fuzz, I used to spray them every year to get rid of it but have long since stopped spraying, it des not seem to make any difference to the crop though I suspect the fuzz could harbour all sorts of nasties. The mosses and lichens seem to favour some trees with very rough bark but not others. Clearly trees that tend to shed their bark, like some birches, would not make good hosts, but what does make a good host for this type of flora?

Another item for the beekeeper’s apiary kit: I find that a pair of pliers, preferably the long nosed variety, are very useful for removing the varroa strips at the end of their six weeks. One can grip the strip firmly, even the one that has slipped down the comb, without moving the comb and causing any further disturbance to the bees.

On a not unpleasant day at the beginning of November my bees were bringing in loaded pollen baskets of a yellow pollen, I suspect ivy, and on the 18th bees were very busy on the ivy covered electric pole in the garden.

The autumn colour on the trees made a good show this year, especially the beech, and seems to have lasted a long time, perhaps the absence of strong winds. There was an interesting article on this changing colour in one of the papers. The loss of the manufacture of chlorophyl is the reason why the green vanishes, but there is no real explanation as to why the leaves take on the colours, like brown and gold. Is there any particular advantage in nature for these colours to be adopted, it is very general, even bracken and larch and the leaves of evergreens, such as holly turn brown. In fact I cannot think of any plant when it loses its leaves that goes a significantly different colour. Is there an advantage for these colours, are they more attractive to the moulds and fungi that return the leaves to the earth? We used to have a walnut tree in the garden and the worms used to draw them into the ground and leave the stalk sticking up, about the only example I know of animals eating non green leaves.

Why is this colour brown universal? What is its purpose? Answers on a postcard please ....

Compliments of the season to all members, their bees and their queens.

Dick Sadler, 25/11 /03,

A .G .M .

The talk ‘Good Husbandry’ was given by Dr. Ivor Davies, vice chairman of the BBKA. He noted that without beekeepers there would be no bees, and that five million pounds came from the sale of UK honey and that bees produced fifteen million pounds for agriculture.

The big message that Ivor was keen to propose was that we must change the way that we treat our bees, and that it would involve more work. He emphasised that bees were creatures and deserved the best that we could give them. He stated that renewing all brood comb in April every two years would produce a higher crop at the end of the season. It was also a way of reducing the risk of disease. The increase in resistant varroa means that Apistan & Bayvarol will become ineffective and that alternative chemicals and procedures will be needed. The thymol based Apiguard has been approved, and drone removal and powdering with icing sugar will help reduce the numbers of varroa. Mesh floors also play a part in this management…

Much of the husbandry and beekeeping discussed can be read in beekeeping books but I did like use of the acronym DEFRA to describe what to look for at your first spring inspection.

Disease.             Are there any signs.

Eggs.               Are they being laid in the correct fashion and                              numbers

Food.   Is there enough food for the bees until your next             visit

Room Do the bees have enough room to expand

Average      Is the hive you are examining at a similar stage of development to the others in your apiary.

After the talk, Janet Jones ran the raffle and we enjoyed tea with cakes supplied by members.  

(Lord Raglan, who was in the chair at the meeting, told us about one of his employees who had been stung quite badly on his hands which were covered with warts. Four days after the stinging the warts started to disappear. Could the stings have caused this?)     

 Graham Loveridge

Comment

Once again I find that I am to distribute the BBKA newsletter. Read it with care, there are things of importance which I feel I needn’t repeat. There are also TWO messages from Ivor Davis who we now know.

I must make a comment about IPM (or integrated pest management for those who don’t like abbreviations.) We are told to check the natural mite drop, and this I conscientiously do. The number of mites dropping at a given time of year determines when or whether any action is required. This BBKA letter says that if there are less than nine dropping every day in November then you need to do nothing until next March when you monitor again. If there are more than two dropping every day in March then you must take some action. And it tells you what action to take. However I have recently read another article in which the mites were collected over 7-8 days and it was not clear that one should divide by the number of days. So take heed of the BBKA newsletter (newsletters are rarely if ever wrong) and follow their good advice. Perhaps you should also follow the advice of Ivor Davis “… if you haven’t got your bees on open mesh floors yet then spend the winter making some..”

I hope you all have a very happy Christmas. The next newsletter will be in February.

Bridget

The Honey Show.

    Driven out by an excess of rugby watching in our household, I ventured up to West Kensington for the Saturday of the last honey show to be held on that site.  I am full of admiration for all those shiny pots of honey and the lovely bees’ wax exhibits.  There was an interesting full-size demonstration national hive where instead of having un-drawn foundation in the frames, they had full size pictures of the bees that would be on the frame in a hive.  One innovative soul had upturned a skep and supported it on a pole as a swarm catcher from high branches.  The lectures are the main attraction for me and I was not disappointed  

    Willie Robson from Chain Bridge Honey Farm in Northhumberland gave a very practical and entertaining talk on the marketing of honey.  I had missed his talk on honey production, but as he told us, it was all on his web site, www.willierobson etc.  I searched when I came home and found it on www.chainbridgehoney.co.uk So if you are not on the web, go and use the library, it will be worth your while.  Willie keeps 1750 hives which harvest rape and heather. The rape honey is rendered mechanically.  This man knows his business, and he has taken on the supermarkets and succeeded as a company that employs 6 full time and some part time people.

    The largest honey business in the UK was followed by a talk from Kim Flottum on the largest honey business in the US – Richard Addie who has 64700 colonies.  This was a feat of mind-boggling organisation.  About now they take their colonies from South Dakota to California, where they prepare them for almond tree pollination in early spring.  Protein is fed by spreading it on the ground.  Lots of 350 to 750 hives are loaded and placed in specific places in the orchards at night – the operation is planned with military precision and equipment designed for minimum breakdown. Each hive must contain a minimum of 8 frames of brood and most have 10 when introduced to the orchards.  Following this operation, the hives are moved to Mississippi for splitting and requeening.  They raise 65000 of their own queens from Italian stock. In late May the new colonies are moved to South Dakota for the main honey crop of sweet clover and Alfalfa.  For extraction they have 64 x 128 frame extractors – they produce 2% of US honey.  This is a very stressful system for the bees and Yes they do have problems with the mite, with antibiotic resistance and with Africanised intermingling in California.

    To round off the day, there was a talk from Paul Draper who has, with the help of Michael Duggan, set up a beekeepers co-operative on the small island of Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean to provide employment for handicapped people on the island.  With the timely help of publicity of prize honey at the National Honey Show UK, their honey is sought after by tourists.  This small well-run operation contrasted with a failed effort.  Large amounts of aide money was spent on expensive French equipment that spend its time in a shed for which the key always appeared to be missing. 

    Next year the Honey Show is going to be held at the RAF Museum, Hendon (21-23 October). Maybe people will find it an easier location to attend.

                                                                                                                                                                                   Janet

The Welsh Assembly and their Bee Concerns

    Responsibility for bee matters within the Welsh Assembly has now been allocated to the Animal ID and Traceability section based in Caernarfon.  (The possibility of having to tag ones bees comes to mind!). This Dept, for the first time ever, arranged a meeting in Llandrindod to discuss welsh bee concerns prior to a UK wide meeting.  32 folk attended including secretaries of most welsh associations, and other members of WBKA and Bee Farmers.

    First on the agenda was the new Ragwort legislation that is in the pipeline to add teeth to the current “toothless tiger” Weed Control Act which can only be applied to productive agricultural land.  In case any of you have not encountered it, Ragwort honey has an obnoxtious taste and smell.  It still stays with me from the time I waved around a pot on the coach to the Honey Show many years ago.  It’s content of liver destroying poisonous alkaloids also does not enhance it’s reputation.  More details of the Ragwort control act are on the DEFRA web site.

    James Morton, UK chief bee inspector gave an update on the last year’s work in Wales when 883 apiaries with 4251 hives were inspected.  As well as AFB & EFB, the inspectors are also on the lookout for Aethina, the small hive beetle ( in Florida when it arrived it ruined 20000 hives in 2 years!) and Tropilaelaps.  They are also looking for resistant Varroa. To slow the spread of this they now recommend alternating Apiguard and Apistan on an annual basis as well as other IPM techniques.  As Ivor Davies pointed out at the AGM, we will have to alter our annual cycle to accommodate the use of Apiguard when the temperature is warm enough.  To encourage chemical companies to register other products such as Apivar, James suggested writing to them directly.

    Mike Brown from the National Bee Unit then told us of the signs that the EU is taking a more active role in protecting bee health. Mike said he had been to Brussels 3 times this year!  Shortly, the EU is going to bring in measures to tighten up the controls that apply to importing bees.  In future the import of honey bees into the community will only be allowed from third countries if AFB, Aethina and Tropilaelaps are confirmed as notifiable diseases in the exporting country and that the bees have been inspected and have been certified as free from these diseases.  Also it will only be queens and attendant workers – no bee packages and for the first time this will apply to Bumble bees.  In the UK, the import ban on queens from New Zealand will be lifted as Varroa is now so widespread here. 

    There was much interesting discussion and other matters such as the native bee, GM crops, government subsidies, red tape and paperwork were raised.  I hope these meetings become an annual event.

 Janet

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