First full inspection of the year lead by Glynis Morse. The activity was focused on performing a detailed health check on all colonies to check for presence of brood diseases. No issues were found. The session also looked to determine the strength of individual colonies. All looked to be doing well except one colony, which had lost it's queen recently. Emergency queen cells were found and no eggs or young larvae. As it is early in the season it is unlikely the queen cells will produce a good queen and well as ensure she gets well mated, so the colony was merged with another. Overall a good and productive meeting.
Joy Dodson led the session this afternoon and supported eight keen beekeepers to check the varroa treatment on the hives. This season, we have been using Apivar Strips. Joy says... It should be noted that Apivar Strips is a chemical treatment and should NOT be used when honey is on. If a super is being left on for the bees for winter whilst undertaking the treatment, the contents should ONLY be consumed by the bees. The super should be taken off in the Spring, thoroughly cleaned and the wax from the frames melted and new foundation replaced before reusing. Patience was the word of the day, as this is a long process (6 - 10 weeks) and rather fiddly too! Much concentration and a delicate touch was needed to lift the strips and then move them one frame forward. Don't forget to scrape the strip before reinserting - this releases the chemical treatment. Our next task was feeding the bees for the Winter. It is important that the bees go into the Winter season with enough stores to see them through to the Spring. Joy says... Before feeding, heft the hive. Take off the roof and lift the hive from all four sides. The weight will give you an idea of where about the stores are without disturbing the colony. The hive should feel as if it is nailed down to the stand. A heavy syrup was used to feed the colonies, as this will support the bees in using less energy to evaporate the water content before capping the cells. If you are making your own syrup use 1kg of white sugar to 600ml of water. We thank Joy for sharing her expertise with us.
Join us for the next Apiary Session on Sunday 1st December 2019 at 2pm, where Glynis will be demonstrating how to administer Oxalic Acid treatment. This week's blog and photos was prepared by Robert with notes provided by Ro. The last apiary session of 2018 was led by Stephen and Glynis on Sunday 16th December, a cold, but luckily dry day. We were to learn about how to safely use oxalic acid - a powerful varroacide which is corrosive and toxic to both man and bee if used incorrectly. This is the ideal time of year and ideal week since the key elements are a broodless colony, a tight ball of bees and before the winter solstice sometime after which the queen renews laying. Whether employing the "trickle” or vapour method of application the process is in 2 stages: Stage 1. Ensure your colonies are broodless Don't open up hives if the temperature is below 3 C. If sealed brood is present it must be removed since the treatment cannot penetrate through the wax cappings. If no brood is present then all the remaining mites in the colony are phoretic (on the bees) so vulnerable to oxalic acid. This needs to be done quickly to stop the bees getting chilled. Smoke under the crown board and carefully examine those frames with bees on. DO NOT SHAKE THE BEES OFF. Instead use the back of your fingers/hand to very gently move them aside so that all cells can be seen. Move through the box and close up the frames allowing the bees to settle. Ideally this inspection should be done 1 or 2 days prior to treatment but at this apiary session we needed to carry on with the treatment phase immediately. Of the 6 hives in the apiary two contained sealed brood which was removed. The varroa can sometimes be seen in the ‘mush’ of brood extracted, but be careful not to confuse red eyes of the pupae with adult mites! The sight of varroa mites feeding on pupae goes some way to ameliorate the sinking feeling of destroying brood. This is an appropriate time to also check stores. Stage 2. Treatment Both trickle and vaporisation methods of application were demonstrated, but first there was a safety briefing! Safety Precautions Oxalic Acid is a licensed veterinary medicine sold under the brand name Api-Bioxal. It comes as a 175 g and 35 g sachets containing a fine white powder (oxalic acid dihydrate with glucose and silica included as excipients. Api-Bioxal is the only oxalic acid product licensed in the UK for sublimation; 175 g of Api-Bioxal (£48) is enough to treat 50 hives; 35 g (£12) sufficient for 10 hives). Due to the corrosive nature of oxalic acid, whether as the powder, liquid or in vaporised form, safety precautions are necessary throughout when handling this substance. That means having a FFP3 mask, goggles, rubber gloves and plenty of clean water nearby to wash off acid in the event of a spill. An eyewash bottle should be available. Any containers containing oxalic acid must be clearly labelled and date of preparation of solutions written on the container. When ingested oxalic acid can be toxic (one tea spoon /20-40 g can cause irreversible kidney damage. It is highly corrosive on skin, eyes, nose and lungs. Preparing the oxalic acid solution for trickle treatment Solutions should be made up in a draught-free area to prevent dust blowing around. Surfaces and all utensils should be washed down with plenty of water after preparation. Protective clothing should be washed after use. Keep pets and members of the household out of the way. Manufacturer's instructions should be followed. Basically the process involves making up 50% sugar syrup and then adding the oxalic acid powder: 35g dissolved in 500 ml of syrup makes 4.2% w/v solution. Accurate weigh out the sugar, water and oxalic acid powder because under-strength solutions will give a poor mite kill and over-strength (5%+) may kill the bees. LABEL CONTAINERS OF OXALIC ACID SOLUTION and KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN The solution has a short shelf life of a few weeks if refrigerated. Alternatively, a product called Oxybee is available which can be stored in the fridge for up to a year after the solution is made up. Trickle Treatment The "trickle" method is quick, simple and good for those with just a few hives. It involves trickling 5 ml of the 4.2% oxalic solution along each seem of bees in the hive. Those on brood and half or double brood may need a torch to see the seems of bees. Use either a syringe or fixed unit bottle to trickle 5 ml of mixture along each seam in the brood box. Use a finger/marker to keep track of each seam as you move through the box. Vaporisation Do not vaporise oxalic acid if members of the public or livestock are nearby. The “vapour” or sublimation method is less toxic to bees more effective according to research at LASI, with mite kill rates approaching 100%. Care must be taken to ensure the hive is well sealed by using a solid floor or sheet of wood placed under the open mesh floor and the entrance and rear gap should be sealed with wood, tape or wet sponge, jay cloths etc. According to a 'trusted source' at least two people this year have been hospitalised from the effects of oxalic acid vapour inhalation. The Api-Bioxal powder contains glucose which causes the vaporiser pan to be coated in a film of burned sugar when heated. To avoid having to clean this out after every vaporisation, cover the pan with metal foil. All gaps in the hive must be blocked to avoid vapour loss. The rear of the hive can be blocked with a piece of wood with a notch to accommodate the handle to the vaporiser. Once inserted, the charged vaporiser is heated to 250-300 degrees Celsius, which sublimates the oxalic acid into the hive. The vaporiser is powered by a battery, and as with all battery powered kit check the battery is charged and that the connections are correct. Handle lead acid batteries with care.The vaporisation of the oxalic acid powder within the hive should be timed as per the product instructions. The battery is disconnected after 3 minutes and the hive is left sealed to allow the vapour to continue to diffuse through the hive for ten minutes. Complete your hive records! It's a legal requirement to complete a veterinary medicines record card or your hive records with the batch number, expiry date and dose of any medications given to bees. Follow-up After either process has been undertaken it is useful to know what your mite drop is over the next week by fitting a varroa board under the hive. The mite drop would be expected to be high after the first day, then even higher as the oxalic acid treatment continues to take effect and then to reduce to almost nothing over the following week. Results will be posted on this blog next week. ,This is the penultimate apiary session for 2018, and this week the Blog has been produced by Basra with Photos by Clive. Next year the management of the apiary is likely to be a team effort, but in reality it has been a team effort this year, and I have been privileged to be part of that team, which consisted of the 33 members who contributed to the sessions. We have had fun learning and exchanging ideas. We have engaged in group problem solving and deployed some solutions that were not necessarily by the book, but they worked. Fortunately bees do not read books and between them and us we have done well, with six good hives going into winter. The attendance represents about one third of the membership, and delivers the basic training and experience that new beekeepers require. There is networking and mutual support, which is the essence of a successful society. I look forward to 2019 and thank you all for your enthusiasm and effect contributions. Basra's Blog A beautifully fresh morning greeted us at the apiary session today. The autumnal sun peeped through the clouds and the chill in the air around us ensured that we were in fine form to work…and what an impressive work force turned out – 13 beekeepers! I continue to ponder a collective noun for such a group – A colony? A hive? A nuisance? The bees were left snug and warm in their hives today – not a creature stirred, although talk of bees still being active this week filled the air. Hopefully, the weather will return to its usual seasonal norm in the not too distant future. A wasp-like insect in a jar greeted us this morning and a discussion ensued as to its identification. We final settled on a queen wasp and the pros and cons of its existence – answers on a postcard please! Now, down to business… Our aim today was to prepare resources for the following beekeeping year. We’re going to be extra ready this year! We’re going to be organised! Honestly, we really are! We aim to run four hives in the apiary, and therefore needed to prepare an additional four hives (each with three supers.) This will ensure that when swarming preparations begin – a very distant memory (currently), but it’s surprising how quickly the year slips by – we will be ready with clean and complete kit. We learnt the value of inspecting a box for its quality before starting the cleaning process. Ken’s Top Tip: Always select good quality boxes with no holes or gaps. A brief exchange of ideas took place regarding the runners inside the supers. As the majority of the runners were made from plastic, these needed to be removed before nuking. The suggestion was to replace them with metal ones. However, be mindful, that when treating varroa later on in the year with oxalic acid, steel will react with the chemical treatment. As we crept cautiously into the apiary, all was quiet on the Western Front. We talked about the advantages of moving boxes in the depths of winter, when the bees are not flying. These need to be moved either three feet or three miles away to enable the bees to reorientate themselves successfully and we contemplated the eventual move of Hives 8, 9 and 10 to give a little extra space between them. The spirit of Evil Edna continues to reign supreme in Hive 10, and although these hives produce a good honey crop, it’s perhaps not the best idea to have anything close by to her. After all, we don’t want that sort of behaviour catching on! We talked about the dreaded wax moth and the trail of destruction of its larvae and discovered that they don’t particularly like foundation, as it has not yet been drawn out to house brood. Wax moth devour the debris of the larvae, and as we had learnt from a previous apiary session led by Stephen, bees do not remove evidence of defecation after the larvae have emerged – they simply polish down the cell and carry on. It’s all perfectly sanitary, but over time, the drawn comb darkens as a result of this and will need to be replaced. Ken’s Top Tip: Treat with Certan to reduce the capability of wax moth. The benefits of storing drawn comb over winter were shared. As beekeepers that love their bees very much, we always like to give them a helping hand at the beginning of the Spring. Drawn comb enables the queen to begin laying and bees storing pollen and nectar without using up vital energy reserves in drawing out foundation.
Ken’s Top Tip: Assess the drawn comb for it’s quality and keep it for the following year. Whilst we were all asking questions, the subject of extra pollen came up. The suggestion was to freeze the frame over winter, as it is surplus to requirements and return it to the hive around February/March time in preparation for the OSR crop. Ken’s ‘chain gang’ quickly organised themselves, and small groups were formed to complete the following tasks:
A busy chatter about our experiences, problems, and advice from the outgoing beekeeping year made for light work, with a hilarious anecdote coming up top trumps where Ken and Clive were extracting honey and were unsuspectingly followed into a room by an inquisitive bee. Little did they realise that she had called 12,000 or so of her closest friends and relatives to come and join her. Who needs social media to get the word out when you’ve got bees? Ken’s Top Tip: Try to clean kit immediately (in the ideal world.) And so our beekeeping year slowly draws to a close. We thank Ken for giving of his time so generously and being dedicated to maintaining the teaching apiary and assisting us mere mortals in our quest to be better beekeepers. We thank all of our experienced beekeepers that led sessions to share their passion and expertise with us and all those who attended throughout the year to make it such a worthwhile and camaraderie experience. We haven’t finished yet… We look forward to a newly established Apiary Team taking the reigns and continuing this vital work and… …Our next session will focus on further tidying and organisation and removing varroa treatments on the hives. Happy Beekeeping! All quiet and calm on arrival, temperature around 12c and all bees indoors at 10am. Eight members of the Society attend this session. We were very pleased to meet another new member to the Society. The objectives being the removal of feeders, and the installation of mouse-guards. The weather was cool and initially dry but rain commenced about half-way through. All the six feeders were effectively empty (some residue but not much). They were removed to be cleaned will and then stored. Inevitably the rain appeared but umbrellas were at the ready We then practiced hefting the hives. Individual beekeepers can use this method to judge the state of winter stores without breaking into the crown board, preserving the seal made by the bees with propolis and maintaining the temperature in the brood box. Mouse-guards were fitted. The threat from wasps and hornets has receded, but now is the time for rodents to consider warmer accommodation for the winter, which should not include our bee-hives! We discussed the threat of wood-peckers and we looked at the wired frames that will be deployed later in the winter as the risk develops in very cold weather. There was a lengthy Q&A session amongst the members where individual experiences of their own bee-keeping were shared and we all benefited from that shared knowledge.Thanks to everyone who attended and for their help in sharing the cleaning of the feeders. Also to Clive for the Photography
Ken Gallagher Apiary Supervisor Seven members attended this apiary session on a cool day, but temperatures sufficient to check the hives for brood and stores as we move into the autumn period. All hives had been set up with feeders two weeks ago, and varroa treatment put in place. I had replenished the feeders two days ago. During this session rain progressively came into play and we completed the work using umbrellas. Hive 4 is a reduced hive using dummy boards, slightly more than a polynuc but less than a full hive. There were stores on 4 frames and brood on 1. Hive 5 remains a strong colony with stores on 9 frames and brood on 3 frames. Hive 7 looks strong with stores on 8 frames and brood on 2 The red queen seen. Hive 8 had 8 frames of stores and 2 frames of brood The red queen was seen Hive 9 had 8 frames of stores and 2 frames of brood The red queen was seen Hive 10 had 9 frames of stores and 2 frames of brood. The weather precluded detailed searching for queens but examination of all hives indicated they were queen right. Ken Gallagher This is the link to the National Bee Unit (NBU) guide to feeding bees. It gives the correct ratio of sugar to water and also explains the benefit of dissolving some thymol crystals and adding this to the syrup to prevent the feed from going mouldy. It has an added benefit of helping to reduce the risk of the bees suffering from nosema. drive.google.com/open?id=1swbNIO-pT6EnNX1f6XGpRlhA3TiA5-w8
Seven of us, including Jim and Don, had a busy morning on this cool and overcast day at Fulmer. Ambitions were high. All honey had been harvested before and the supers were already gone. Queen excluders were removed and all the crown boards opened up for ventilation. The food reserves and brood patters were assessed in all hives. Jim showed us the way and then we all got stuck in. Queens were spotted - eventually. By hefting the brood boxes and the often angry response when we opened them up - all the hives desperately needed feeding (down to only 1-3 frames of honey reserves!). Most hives were down to 2-4 frames with brood. Feeders were installed ready for Jim to fill with heavy syrup – it looks like quite a few refills will be needed before all the broods are well stocked with stores for the winter. |
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