GBKA Registered 
Charity Number : 1014600
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GBKA Registered
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a)Make
sure you feed any swarms that you have collected and check their health. b) John
Holden reports that there are now AFB hot
spots throughout the county. Please
be vigilant about cleanliness. Make sure you do not transfer disease
unnecessarily from one site to another. Please
LOOK for signs each time you open your bees and at the first hint of disease ask
John to check. Many people turned up for the last evening meeting in Goytre before the summer break. Dinah Sweet from the Cardiff BKA talked about pollen, what it is, its uses, its appearance, its detection and how to recognise it in honey. She gave everyone a sheet describing how to prepare pollen samples from honey in order to identify the plant source of the honey. You need to be able to magnify the mounted specimen x400 in order to see the identifying characteristics. There is a book by Rex Saunders called ‘Pollen Identification for Beekeepers’ which is a key to pollens, but if you haven’t got the book Dinah suggested that you could make your own reference samples of pollen by taking it direct from the plant and preparing slides. Then you can compare the grains that you find in the honey with this reference collection. Sounds fun. Sounds like quite a lot of work too. An interesting thing about this is: the pollen that the bees go out to collect for storing as pollen is not necessarily that which is found in the honey. The pollen in honey is there incidentally. It has dropped in accidentally or was present in the nectar when it was collected. Bees can actively filter pollen grains out of honey with their proventriculus so it is surprising there is as much there as there is. Mostly the pollen in honey does reflect the source of the honey, although some wind distributed grains find their way in. Honeydew honey has very few pollen grains, it does have fungus spores, wind pollen, algae, soot, dust and hair. Other honey with very few pollen grains is that which has been collected by bees foraging on plants with extra floral nectaries (as in field beans). The next meeting in Goytre will be the AGM in November. Can
anyone tell me the reason that plants develop extra floral nectaries? What is
the benefit for the plant? I
would be interested to learn which plants in your gardens are alive with bees
and when. At the moment I have a large laurel which is humming, and the
attraction is the extra floral nectaries. The other most attended plants are the
‘mole spurges’ which I allow in the veg patch (to deter moles ?) from which
the bees seem to be collecting mainly nectar, very small pollen loads. There is
the famous June gap due this month when there is a shortage of flowering plants,
the spring flush is over and the main summer flow hasn’t got going. The
phacelia in the field is coming out nicely but it cannot really be considered
enough for a crop. My
GWC LDH (I now learn it is the Tasmanian version), otherwise known as a top bar
hive, is causing great excitement here. On May 17th we introduced it to a small
cast. Two days later they were drawing out comb on 4 bars. A fortnight later
there is sealed brood in four bits of comb and they have started drawing down
two more bars. This can mainly be seen through the window in the side. It is
very noticeable when looking into a hive through a window, that with mesh floors
the inside (especially of a new top bar hive) is not dark—in fact it is very
well lit from below. But the bees stayed there so it must be OK. A noticeable
rule to which they adhere is the bee space. The bars are mainly 1 3/8”
and they are being drawn directly from the middle line with its line of
wax. But one bar was 1 5/8”, and on this the comb is slightly one sided and on
the subsequent one even more one sided. So this is going to be corrected, it
demonstrates that they know best. It also demonstrates that what the experts say
is right. PAM says in one of her articles on top bar hives in BfD that they
should be 33mm wide for African bees, and 35mm for our bees.
Bridget The bees Sneeze and wheeze Scraping pollen and honey From the lime trees: The ants Hurries and pants Storing up everything They wants: But the flies Is wise When the cold weather comes They dies.
Day
at the Auction A
lovely day in May, Barry and I were joined by Chris Harries from Cardiff ready
for the trip to Hartpury. Since we were taking two cars, anticipating big
purchases, we decided to do a mileage versus time check on the two possible
routes. Chris took the M50, and we went on the old road to Gloucester, a pretty
route but full of speed restrictions along the way. Chris arrived about six or
seven minutes before us and took seven miles further. We
didn't start until nine o’clock and we arrived in time to have a quick look
round before the usual morning talk at ten thirty. Our speaker was a Mr Chub who
talked about beekeeping in skeps, I found it difficult to decide on what the
general direction of his talk was. Initially he started with the history of bees
in skeps, starting from 1650 until the introduction of movable frames in 1896.
In these early days the bees were less prolific and not contaminated by foreign
introductions. It was quite early in the talk that he seemed to run out of
material and started to prompt for questions. At this stage I am reluctant to
say that I obliged. There was a bit of light hearted banter, with me taking the
anti skep role. Speaking to Mr. Chub afterwards he said that making and selling
skeps had provided the means for him to start beekeeping. The
auction started about twelve thirty and went off at a pace, there is no doubt
there is no substitute for the professional auctioneer, as has been tried on
earlier years. The
general quality of the lots appeared better than usual, there was none of the
absolute rubbish seen on previous occasions, I suspect that the stewards must do
a bit of sorting as the entries come in. There
were some good buys, in particular there was a 9 frame stainless extractor,
missing only the top cover plates but otherwise looked brand new, went for £100.
Chris picked up a W.B.C. hive to use as an advert, for £6. Barry and I both bid
for new condition frames but both of us pulled out way before the end. There
were several lots of live bees for auction, in five frame nuc’s. The price
varied a bit, but all in the £40 - £50 range, Mr. EasyBees bought most of
them. There were the usual lots of first class wax, going for around £2 a pound
and a surprising number of open mesh floors, all new from a couple of sources,
but I did not get the sale prices. There
were a couple of trade stand present, Arthur Taylor, Maismore Apiaries and Karl
Showler, all nicely available to check the sensible value to bid to. As
usual for me the best part of the auction was the interaction with other
beekeepers and the discussions held. I do remember talking to one man, while
drinking tea, about the Happykeeper Anti- Varroa Floor, he said he was familiar
with the design and in fact knew a man who had told him that Thornes had bought
a 500 batch for resale. However he dashed off after his young offspring and I
failed to see him again. Well that's all for now. See you there next year. G.K. Herefordshire Beekeepers' Association Integrated
Pest Management Day
Alternative
Treatments for Varroa
This doesn't really
grab the imagination as a "have to be there" event does it? These were
my thoughts as I drove through pretty Herefordshire lanes searching for the
venue at Brockhampton Village Hall. Four Gwent BKA members
overcame misgivings to join forty or so Herefordshire BKA members to add further
skills to their beekeeping C.V s. We divided into three
groups for the six discussions and demonstrations, viz: Icing Sugar Dusting
with Varroa Floors
Use of Thymol Drone Brood Removal
Queen Trapping Testing for
Pythrethroid Resistance
Artificial Swarm Method There would be three
sessions before lunch, three after, each about half an hour in duration. My first session was
drone brood removal. Egg-laying female varroa mites have an 8-1 preference for
drone brood, so it makes sense to give them what they prefer by putting a
shallow frame of foundation into the brood box (mark it in some way). When it is
laid up and sealed simply discard. This technique can be used over and over in
conjunction with say, open mesh floors. It is cheap, anyone can do it. Queen Trapping came
next. Apparently a very effective method, restricting the amount of brood.
However, timing is important - the beginning of the honey flow is ideal; not to
be used in spring or in late summer/early autumn. That's the theory; the
practise begins with the daunting instruction "find the queen". It is
quite a complicated sequence, working on a 9-day cycle and can only be used once
in a season. Checking for
pythrethroid resistant mites - a beaker kit is issued to all associations for
this test. Take a sample of bees, about 400 or half a beaker full, from a brood
frame, making sure the queen is not on it and shake the bees into a small
washing up bowl and proceed as instructions. At the end of which one has to do
the sum to ascertain the percentage of efficiency of the medicant used. The artificial swarm
method was demonstrated using two miniature hives. Again, the dreaded words
"find the queen" in Hive "A" and put her into Hive
"B". As in the queen trapping method timing is all important; doing it
tomorrow is not an option! Dusting with icing
sugar by comparison is a much more laid back option. Use an open mesh floor with
a gap of at least 1 3/4" as a natural mite drop distance, dust both sides
of every frame giving frames and bees a liberal amount of icing sugar. Theory
advanced was that mites cannot hold onto the bees because of the sugar and that
bees will groom each other displacing the mites. This method need only be done
twice a year as convenient. My last demonstation
was the use of thymol and other non-medicinal curative substances. (Bear in mind
that at this stage we were sitting outside in brilliant sunshine, soothed by
bird song and a good lunch and a little mesmerised by facts and figures.) Thymol
etc is used in spring or Autumn when there are no supers on the hives. Api-guard,
dry thymol powder, a concoction of peppermint oil, beeswax and cooking oil,
oxalic acid were all cited as possibilites. Formic acid was best avoided, though
this and also thymol were said to be the only treatments which would kill varroa
mites in brood. Messrs Griffiths and Laxton were intrigued by a method using
oxalic acid vaporized inside a length of copper piping - who wouldn't be! I said
I'd mention this fascinating concept when writing up my notes for the Gwent
Newsletter if only I could find more details - initially it sounded like an
April Fool's Day prank. Reg Laxton thought there had been an article in BeeCraft
and would look it up for me. Sure enough, early next morning he was able to give
a precise reference - "Page 14 of BeeCraft, May 2003. 'Isenring's oxalic
acid vapourizer' " Wonderful! Everyone had now been
round the six stations, so the obvious thing to do was have a cup of tea and a
discussion. I'm sure we had all learned far more during the day than we thought
we would and had thoroughly enjoyed ourselves in very relaxed surroundings.
These musings are a very brief synopsis of my copious notes, but I hope it has
convinced you to make a point of attending the Gwent BKA's Integrated Pest
Management Day on 9th April 2005 at the Congress Theatre, Cwmbran. I wonder if
we can persuade Messrs Griffiths and Laxton to demonstrate Isenring's Oxalic
Acid Vapourizer? Jill Chirnside
2004 May 2004 The Midland and South
Western Counties Convention of Beekeepers 2004 On Friday 10th to
Sunday 12th September, at Glenfall House, Mill Lane, Charlton Kings,
Cheltenham The cost £145-£155 (depending on the room) see glenfall@surfaid.org Dr Francis Ratnieks will be a speaker Details from Annie Ellis 01242 571175
or Sue Peckitt 01242
237951 Someone in Llanvapley has 5 acres with their house and would like bees on it. If you need a site and it sounds to be in the right spot please phone Janet 01291 690331
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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.
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