ECBKA Newsletter – December 2016
I'm not sure how December got here so quickly but we all have yet another beekeeping season tucked under our belts, probably different from every other season gone before. If you are one of our many new starters this season, enjoy the quiet time because next year is when the steep learning curve begins. Use the time to get your head into some books and think about what additional equipment you may need next season – the Winter sales are coming up and it is a good opportunity to stock up.
We had an enjoyable quiz at our last meeting. Thank you Frank for setting the questions and congratulations to the winning team of Alan, John (Dray) Debz and Hefin. I'm sure everyone learned something even if it was only how abysmal our knowledge of sixties bee (loosely) related music was.
For our final evening meeting of the year we have Catherine Clark from Honey Bee Beautiful coming to talk about and demonstrate cosmetic making using hive products. This is always a popular topic and I hope we will see a good many members there.
Our AGM will be held on Thursday 12th January 2017. I know that an AGM is not the most exciting event but it is a necessary one and is an opportunity for all members to have a say in how our Association is organised and run. If there is anything you would like to be raised at the meeting please let Sharon know
If you would like to put your name forward for the committee please also inform Sharon.
I have said this before but I will say it again because you never know – if there is anyone out there who might like to have a go at producing the newsletter, please pop your head up over the parapet. I'm very happy to do it but members might like to hear from someone else for a change. Perhaps someone would consider 'guest editing' one month's copy – no strings attached.
And finally …....
thank you to all of you who have contributed in any way to the running of our Association this year - as an officer or committee member, at the apiary, training and mentoring, manning our website and library, making tea, washing up, putting out chairs, putting away chairs, contributing to the newsletter, manning our show stands, selling honey, promoting beekeeping and generally being just a good bunch of friendly people.
MERRY CHRISTMASANDHAPPY NEW YEARTOYOUALL
NADOLIGLLAWENABLWYDDYNNEWYDDDDAI CHIGYD
Dates
Thursday 8th December 8.00pm – Making cosmetics from hive products with Catherine Jones (Honey Bee Beautiful)
Thursday 12th January 8.00pm - AGM
Thursday 9th February 8.00pm – A talk on Pests with Frank
Vaporising Equipment
You will be aware that the Association has a Varrox vaporiser, for oxalic acid varroa treatment, which is available for members to borrow at no charge. If you wish to use it please contact Terri 01550 740662
The equipment will be in use at the apiary in the not too distant future for Oxalic acid treatment and Nikki will inform members so that anyone wishing to see how it is used can come along. If you are borrowing the equipment and need some guidance on its use, Doug, Keith and Nikki are regular users and I’m sure would be happy to give you some pointers.
Keith has pointed out that over or unnecessary charging of any battery can reduce its useful life. He has calculated that the battery currently being used to power our vaporiser is capable of powering approximately 67 applications of 2½ minutes duration.
So, a usage record sheet will be included in the box of equipment and it would be helpful if everyone using the equipment filled in the relevant boxes. In this way everyone will have a good idea of the battery’s charge level andwill only need to charge it if necessary.
In Praise of Bees
A Cabinet of Curiosities
I have mentioned before that the number of bee books on my shelf has a tendency to increase along with my number of hives. You may or may not have wondered where I find the oddments that I use to fill in spaces in the newsletter. I don’t spend hours trawling the internet because I have this fascinating book. It is an indulgence - it’s not a cheap book and not always a very easy one to come by at a reasonable price. It isn’t a book that you can sit down and read from cover to cover more a labour of love by its author, Elizabeth Birchall. It is a collection of everything and anything to do with bees, covering history, science, mythology, art, literature, customs, poetry, philosophy and more. It is a beautifully produced book with high quality photographs throughout. One to look out for perhaps.
My First Cut-Out, Part two
A cautionary tale by Doug Taylor
So the plan was in place and on the day we were to remove the bottom hive I arrived at 4pm (to fit in with Allan the builder) to get all the gear onto the roof: extension cable, electric drill, tank cutters, hive, dust extractor, empty DN frames, elastic bands, saw, trugs, hive tools, smoker, bee brush: some bits brought by me, some supplied by Vinny. I also brought three suits which were used by Malcolm, Allan and Vinny’s friend Trudy, who was taking pictures. Vinny, having done a course a few years ago in preparation for becoming a beekeeper, had her own suit already.
/ To start with we sucked a few hundred bees from around the entrance into the dust extractor and checked they had survived the journey down the 100mm pipe into the drum. They were clustered in the bottom and were fine. The extractor seemed to be working just as well as the bespoke one I’d read about on the Beekeeping Forum and which had first given me the idea of using an extractor. I then drilled a 75mm hole through the asphalt and stirlingboard of the flat roof to find lots of stores, mashed by the tank cutter (!) but very few bees. I figured the plan to drill a series of holes and slowly suck the bees out of the nest wasn’t going to work as it was already quite late (on a beautifully sunny, warm end-of-September evening) and, more importantly, the base of the scaffolding was preventing access to where I estimated the major part of nest to be. So I decided to move to plan B: remove the fascia board and work off a ladder. Happily Allan had a reciprocating saw, which made short work of cutting through the board and I was soon hoovering up bees, cutting out comb, handing it to Vinny, who was either putting stores into trugs or suspending combs of honey or brood in the empty frames, using elastic bands to hold them in place, and putting them into the hive all with the help of Malcolm.We then hit an unanticipated problem: a lot of bees had retreated behind a noggin to a space that wasn’t accessible through the roof (the boards the scaffolding was resting on were directly above it) or from the front with the 100mm dia pipe as the noggin was too close to the wall. I thought I could get a 50mm pipe into the space, so went home to collect one. During the time I was away more bees had collected there and were busy fanning, with their Nasonov glands in the air, suggesting they were there with the queen. So on I went, blithely hoovering up the remaining bees, without checking the effect on them of their journey through the narrower pipe. Sadly, this was the FATAL MISTAKE, which doomed the hive…. It wasn’t until we opened the drum to pour the bees into the hive that we realised the extent of the massacre. We cleared the roof, leaving the hive and surviving bees, hoping that the queen might be alive in there with them but suspecting deep-down that she was probably dead. This mistake on my part was probably worse than the time I let a queen drop off a frame when I was trying to mark her at the first Spring inspection and then trod on her while she was on the ground! Aaargh! Both mistakes still cause me sleepless nights.
Happily the removal of the second colony was more successful and it is now united with the survivors of the first cut-out and tucked up at an out-apiary, awaiting return to Vinny’s garden in the Spring. We’ve fed them and Vinny’s done a great job insulating the hive. I took a quick peep a couple of weeks ago and the queen had started laying. They are mainly dark bees (although the queen seems to have mated with at least one Carniolan drone), they are quite spirited and are out and about more than my bees. We treated them for Varroa mites and there was a significant drop. We have fingers crossed that they make it through to Spring. We removed quite a lot of honey. Vinny gave some comb away to friends and we extracted, filtered and jarred some of it (20+ jars) – the honey I extracted came from the older comb (2014 or 2015 vintage?) and tasted excellent. So I guess we achieved two and a half of our three objectives: we cleared the roof of both nests (although I think we all got stung in the process); we got a good honey harvest in what was a bad year; BUT we only saved one colony....
Some observations for anyone else thinking of doing a cut-out:
- It is very time-consuming – I made many visits during the process and on the day of the cut-out you need more time than I had realised to go slower and maximise the number of bees you save.
- The dust extractor worked well with the 100mm pipe but was a disaster with the 50mm pipe.
- On balance I think fewer people taking longer is the way to go: Allan’s presence with his reciprocating saw and jemmy was invaluable in removing the fascia board; putting comb into frames is a two-person job which Malcolm and Vinny did while I was hoovering and cutting out comb BUT a lot of bees get killed under people’s feet.
- Clothing and equipment gets very messy; cleaning up time after the process shouldn’t be underestimated.
- You need scaffolding giving good access. Working off a ladder would be very dangerous.
- September/October is not a good time to do a cut-out. There is no time for the bees to produce a new queen if you fail to get the old one into the hive. Feeding syrup in the second week in October to get enough stores into the hive probably isn’t a good idea.
- Bees chew through elastic bands and remove them from the hive fairly quickly meaning that some comb falls over before the bees have fixed it in the frames. Putting wire round the frames the day after the cut-out might be better.
- Would I do another one? Probably not!
Well done to Doug for attempting this job and many thanks to him for taking the time to record his experience. It is indeed a cautionary tale as it is easy, especially for inexperienced beekeepers, to let the heart rule the head. Every situation is unique and as you can see from Doug’s comments, needs careful planning if removal is to be attempted.
December Notes
I saw my bees actively bringing in pollen a month ago, but latterly the temperature has consistently struggled to get much above freezing. This now gives us some opportunities. First of all, we should consider delaying oxalic acid medication until late December, early January, when it is least likely that there will be sealed brood present after a prolonged cold spell. Otherwise, treatment is counterproductive, as the breeding varroa mites will be protected and unharmed in the brood.
Api – Bioxal is the authorised treatment which you make up fresh and is best done on a bright winters day when the temperature is above 0 degrees. Legally you are obliged to record supplier, date purchased, name of product, quantity, strength, batch number, date used, quantity used per colony, identity of treated colony/ies and expiry date of product. Don’t forget that the Association equipment is available for oxalic acid vaporisation / sublimation – my preferred method of application. There is an article in the Feb 2016 newsletter by Keith about this.
If dribbling with an oxalic acid solution the dose is 5ml per full seam of bees, but moderate this according to size of cluster, don’t overdose. Draw the quantity required into the syringe and dribble it gently across the seams. Close the colony and avoid disturbance for several days after treatment. Clean the insert under the OMF when treating and count the mite drop a week later for your records.
With single brood, when you lift the crown board, the cluster should be immediately apparent and easy to treat. However, if you have more than one box, on brood and a half or double brood, the cluster can be tucked away and not immediately visible. Despite the temptations, I do not favour splitting the boxes to apply the treatment to the cluster. Even in a well kept hive, there is usually brace comb and honey built between the boxes which the bees will tuck into.
If disturbed in the cold, they tend to be dopey and slow and very difficult to smoke back between the frames. The operation then ceases to be quick and simple. It becomes awkward and risks squashing bees and, potentially, even the queen, when replacing the top box. Instead, I recommend looking for the cluster between the frames with a torch or checking the debris drop on the OMF insert, and dribbling the acid accordingly.
Now is the perfect time to carry out apiary maintenance without disturbing the bees - cutting back overgrown hedges and branches to reduce shading, as well as tidying up vegetation around and under hives to improve air circulation and reduce dampness generally. Cold weather will not harm bees, but cold and dampness will. It is also a good time to relocate hives, if necessary. The 3 mile or 3 feet rule can be ignored if bees are not likely to venture out for at least a week - when temperatures do not rise above 10 degrees maximum and light intensity is low.
Don’t forget to regularly heft your hives, if any feel light, which they shouldn’t do yet, feed fondant directly over the cluster. It’s best wrapped in a plastic bag and an oval hole cut out
to place over the feed hole in the crown board. Observe the outside of the hive for woodpecker damage, they normally only attack in cold, snowy weather. Have a look at the entrance for possible mouse damage and ensure that it is not blocked by dead bees. Check that the roofs are secure and no rain is getting in, the safest thing to do if your hives are in an exposed position, is to tie the roofs on with a strap or some baler twine.
Now is the time to repair any damaged hive components that are being stored and to do a stock take for replacing or buying equipment for the coming season. All old wax should be melted down and recycled, the frames cleaned and disinfected before wax foundation is put back in. I use a steamer from Thornes, but a good hot air gun will clean frames. Brood comb less than 3 years old can be reused, but this should first be fumigated with acetic acid. Get those queen excluders cleaned up now as well, ready to go back on the hives when required next year.
Frank Gellatly
Have you joined the ECBKA Facebook group. For access to the closed group go to the page and click on 'join'. This will notify Doug Taylor or Sharon Davidson who will then add you to the membership.
If you are not a Facebook user you can get advice by e mailing
To borrow Association extraction equipment or the Varrox contact Terri 01550 740662
2016 Committee
Margaret Watson - Chair
Sharon Davidson �Secretary
Huw Jones �Treasurer
Paul Davies
Frank Gellatly
Keith Hall
Terri Kill
Stephen Smith