Extracting

    There seem to be far more wasps about this year after the dearth of last year. They can make the friendliest bees very ‘defensive’ at harvest time, so although they are a ‘Good Thing ‘ for gardeners, it is better if they do not nest too close to the apiary.

    Our webmaster, Gerald Cole, told me that he had found an ants nest in an occupied bee hive. When he lifted the crown board there were black ants and eggs to be seen on the top of the super frames. He scraped them off and the hive didn’t appear to suffer. Has anyone else ever seen this?

    Harping back to the new Honey Labelling Regs which came into force on the 1st of this month. The main items were in June’s BBKA newsletter, more detail is on their  website:       www.britishbeekeepers.com

    In the summer issue of BKQ the editor, John Phipps, mentions the problem of what to use for the “Best Before” date. He says a study has been carried out in Spain on different samples of honey with regard to eg water content, electrical activity, pH and types of acidity, fructose, glucose, HMF content, diastase and invertase and b-glucosidase activity etc. Rather surprisingly “the frontier of twenty months could clearly be seen as the time during which the quality of the honey was maintained.” It was therefore proposed that the most relevant “Best Before” date for honey was twenty months from the time of production.

Bridget

The National Honey Show

International Classes and Beekeepers’ Lecture Convention

At the RAF Museum Hendon, free parking, near Colindale Underground station, bus 303 passes the door.

Admission £5.00

Free entry for  new members of the association

 If you want to enter anything Northern Bee Books and Thornes both will transport entries to and from the show. You have to get the entry to them in the first place though. This venue has a lot to offer and the organisers are anxious to get as many exhibits as possible and make this a show worth remembering. There is an on-site restaurant and café, magnificent exhibition and trading areas and a large tiered lecture theatre. If you can go to it I’m sure you will not be disappointed, and it would be nice if a lot of people made the effort to support it this year.

Admission has been halved to £5.00, and as always any of our NEW members can get in free if they apply at the admissions desk. Your names have been supplied to them by our membership secretary.

Congratulations to the Chirnsides for  their successes:

1.           At the Royal Welsh,

Firsts for heather honey in the closed and open categories, and also          Firsts for their heather blend in both these categories.

2. At the Great Yorkshire Show

First for photos and First for swarm control invention.

(Les is being tight lipped about the details of this, but it sounds interesting and will have to be pursued, you do not have to find the queen.)

LIFE IN HIVE FIVE

The chief guard bee at the entrance of Hive No.5 was in a very bad mood; there was nothing abnormal about this; she was ALWAYS in a bad mood ‑ and to good effect. There was no future for any bee trying to rob Hive Five. Well, there was, but only a brief and painful one ‑ even wasps gave it a wide berth.

She was not bad tempered because she was on guard duty although the two facts were related. It was the other way round ‑ she had been put on guard duty as a punishment for being bad tempered, and she was bad tempered because she hated her name.

To follow the twists of this feeble fable, it is necessary to understand the system of identification used in Hive Five. There are so many bees hatching simultaneously that one single name per bee would be quite impracticable for just one frame, let alone the entire hive. Therefore each bee was given two names followed by the letters "A" or "B" plus a number, to indicate both the face and the frame of her birth cell. So, instead of beginning with Abigail and having to start all over again five minutes later when Zuleika was reached , the addition of a second name gave an almost infinite number of titles giving not only the name but the home address of every bee in the hive.

That was how the Hive Mind had worked it out long ago ‑ many millennia Bee C* in fact, and generally speaking it worked very well ‑ well, almost. The one thing the Hive Mind had overlooked was the irresistible urge of the bee to take short cuts ‑ not only in flight as shown by "bee lines " but in speech. In Apish, or “Beespeak", this is known as "Abeeviation" . Thus a bee born on the back face of he fourth frame and named Petula Carol would swiftly became "Petrol" B/4.

Can you follow that? I hope so, because it's all the explanation you are going to get. You can? ‑ Good.

Well, for Dannielle Melody, it was just "Dandy" and since it turned Beulah Verity into a "Beauty" she didn't object either. Priscilla Betty, who was thus made "Pritty" agreed with Susan Philippa that it was all "Supa" and so, it wasn't only Harriet Poppy who was "Happy"'; the entire hive was in a state of blissful content and would have stayed that way had it not been for the advent of Diana Maria A/4. The appellation of  "Diaria " to a scrupulously immaculate and Hygienic bee she felt besmirched her good name ‑ or would have done if she'd had one and she made her extreme displeasure known with both extremities; the rough edge of her tongue and the sharp end of her abdomen .

But such unbeecoming beehaviour could not bee tolerated and the Executive Committee informed the Hive Mind that Diana Maria A/4 was in revolt end what was to be done about it? Sagely, the Hive Mind concurred that Diaria was indeed revolting; putting the hive in bad odour so to speak.

As for what was to be done the HM suggested that if Diaria A/4 were to be disciplined by being given extra guard duty, her bad temper could be turned to good account .

And so it proved. Whereas she had been angry at being named Diaria, she became absolutely livid at becoming known as "Di Sentry" and the fact that A/4 refers to paper ‑ well, it doesn't take a genius to see the connection and realise that that didn't improve her temperament, either. No one could say she was disgruntled because she had never been gruntled to begin with, she simply  became permanently beeligerrent with the result that Hive Five swiftly became the best protected in the apiary for Diaria promptly recruited a gang of similarly resentful viragos such as Titanic Olga (`Tiga') Greta Camilla (`Grilla') Madeleine Alice (`Malice') Eva Abigail ('Evil') Myrtle Hilda (`Myrda') and Ruth Phyllis ('Ruthlis') ** and between them they knocked the stuffing out of anything smaller than a blue tit.

In her idle moments, however, when she isn’t either defending or bullying Hive Five, Diaria A/4 still wishes she had been born Rita Sally ('Rially') B/9 (Benign)

DRAC

 *Bee C ‑ Before Crundwell

** Ruthlis ‑ Like Gerald Beddoes when his wife is out.

This wonderful story was given to me by Alan Brown, thank you very much Alan. It was written by Denis Cordwell, and was originally in the Welsh Beekeepers magazine.