GBKA Registered 
Charity Number : 1014600
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GBKA Registered
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A very merry Christmas to all our readers and contributers from your Editor and Web master
Check
that the wind has not disrupted anything in your apiary. Go
for a walk after Christmas lunch and heft the hives to check stores. If they
feel light give a block of candy. It
is not too early to start thinking about what
to do next year. Make
a New Year Resolution to correct the mistakes you made this year. Pondering
on what we were told by Robert Pickard about the need to select bees that can
protect themselves from varroa with acquired traits, I have had thoughts on our
IPM methods. Surely by removing the drone brood in order to control the rate of
increase of varroa we are actually
selecting for those mites which prefer worker brood. I
would like some comments on this thought. At
Apimondia there was a competition for the best website. The gold medal was won
by Somerset BKA, see www.somersetbeekeepers.org.uk Merry
Christmas and a Happy New Year to everyone and may you all have a new J-tool in
your stockings.
Bridget The
Association has taken delivery of 4 new bee suits + gloves from Sherriff’s.
They have been cleverly marked with an impressive plate size GBKA logo by
Ken Key. These will be a useful
addition to the collection of spare suits that we are able to loan to our new
beekeepers when they are gaining hands on experience at the apiary.
Together with some new brood boxes, frames and foundation, they have been
paid for with a grant from Monmouthshire County Council, Agenda 21 fund. Over
recent times we have been steadily refurbishing equipment in our apiary so that
it sets a good example for our beekeepers.
As you will know from your own equipment, it requires time to assemble
and maintain. So even if the
weather is looking dim, when we have our apiary sessions, there will be work to
be done on equipment. Your
committee is open to any ideas you may have on ways we can improve upon the use
of our apiary, so do let us know what you think. Janet Robin
Waddington has an old Thornes extractor in reasonable condition which he hopes
might be of use to one of our members. It is free to a good home and can
be collected from Nantyderry. If anyone is interested, he can be contacted on
01873 880483 or by email.
robinwaddington@virgin.net
Congratulations
to Gerald Cole who was awarded this trophy at the AGM for the construction and
maintenance of our website. If
you haven’t seen it go in and look now. www.gbka.co.uk Due
to the changes the committee consider it is no longer sensible to belong to IBRA.
The library is now located in Aberystwyth, and corporate membership is to be £160/annum,
which for a quarterly magazine that only 5 members wish to read is too much for
the association to bear. Our
apologies go to those who are on the mailing list. You can become an independent
member for only £40 and you will then receive the journal, a combination of the
best of Bee World + Journal of
Apicultural Research. The
next newsletter will be out in time for the February meeting in Goytre. There is
a rather heavy new DEFRA varroa leaflet . There are not quite enough copies to
go round, so if you would like one come to the meeting and collect it thus
ensuring yourself a copy and saving postage. Here
is a joke sent in by Nicola. It
arose while she and Gareth Baker
were searching (in vain) for a cup of tea at the end of the Honey Show: If you
don’t understand it then reread the report of the National Honey Show that was
in November’s newsletter. Q.
What do a National Honey Show participant and a wildebeest have in common?
Encaustic
Art If
you are in the Goytre area, call in at the Secret Garden and view the GWENT
BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION There
is a banner with this message used at ‘events’. If anyone has any idea where
it is please would they tell a member of the committee. The
AGM prompted a good turnout. No disputes occurred and the business was rapidly
resolved. After the talk there was plenty of time to catch up with people and
quiz the speaker. Kath had done a splendid job acquiring buns for us all. Indeed
I think there were some left over. Enclosed
with this newsletter is a copy of the minutes. Please note that unfortunately
the subscription has had to be
raised again. I hope this doesn’t cause anyone not to rejoin. Next year there
is going to be the chance of free queens to anyone who attends the apiary
session on the right day. Maybe that can mollify a bit. When you get your
receipt for BDI remember to keep it in a safe place.
Professor Pickard’s talks often follow a theme concerning how
unsatisfactory the human social condition is compared with that excellent
example set by the honey bee. He was not as provocative on Saturday as I have
heard him be, although he did cause one or two gasps. He explained how the honey
bee has been on the planet for 70 million years since the first flowers
appeared, and has been a social insect for at least the last 26 million. This
means that it could have taken 44 million years to become social. Humans are
still right at the beginning of their social development, we have only been
around for about 2 million years. Our ‘civilisation’ is a very thin veneer,
and we are at heart still a herding animal with the males territorially
aggressive and ready to fight to defend their own. It will not be until we can
live together, working collectively for the common good, with no possessions of
our own that we will even begin to be a social animal.
We were given some interesting bee facts relating to varroa mites. Apis
cerana, which we all know is the natural host of varroa has evolved methods
for keeping its infestation rate low. In an experiment varroa mites were
introduced into a hive of A.cerana. The bees picked the mites off each
other and ejected them. The same thing was done with A. mellifera but the
bees made no response. A mixture of bees was then prepared, A. cerana and
A. mellifera together, and mites were introduced. The A.cerana picked
the mites off each other but left those on the A. mellifera. This
demonstrates the importance of acquired characteristics for survival and the
necessity of maintaining a broad gene base. The unravelling of the A.
mellifera genome and increase in the knowledge of gene function may help us
to identify those characters which will protect our bees from exotic pests . Christmas
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