This month we attended the Welsh Spring Convention, and as usual, it was lovely to see your faces there! We are now getting geared up for the last show of the season - the BBKA Spring Convention.

You have until Wednesday 10th April to order for collection from the show. As well as being there all day on Saturday 13th April from 9am - 4:30pm, you will be able to collect your orders and take advantage of the wax exchange on the Friday too, 3pm - 5pm.

The Life of Bees

A beautiful and educational selection of six stamps celebrating the life of bees

A beautifully designed set of six stamps, focusing on the life of bees, giving detailed insights to the life within a beehive and the job of a beekeeper to celebrate 150 years of BBKA.

In this 150th anniversary year of the British Beekeepers Association, Isle of Man Post Office is delighted to present a set of six stamps celebrating the life of bees. We are all aware of how important bees are to our ecosystem, to agriculture and to our enjoyment of nature; as well as being an integral part of food production through pollination, honeybees provide us with a surplus of delicious honey and useful wax. Throughout recorded human history there is evidence of beekeeping in many cultures and it remains one of the few livestock industries that can be enjoyed by hobbyists with as little as one single hive.

Special Offers

ApiVar

Hurry and take advantage of the reduced price of £31 for your Spring treatment! This limited-time offer provides an excellent opportunity to prepare for the season ahead. Expiry date: 11/2024

£36 £31

VarroMed

Varromed is a liquid treatment which contains both formic acid and oxalic acid dihydrate. Each 555ml bottle will last for up to 30 days after opening. The treatment is trickled onto bees along the seams between frames and can be used in winter, spring or autumn. Expiry date: 5/2024 

£32.60 £27.50

OxyBee

Distributed by the French pharmaceutical company Véto-Pharma, Oxybee is an easy and organic way to apply oxalic acid during broodless periods for the treatment of varroa. Expiry date: 6/2024, however once mixed will last up to 12 months in the fridge. Get it now ready for Winter!

£45 £20

TempQueen

Improve queen rearing success, hold queenless splits and nuclei or use as a temporary queen replacement. Store in a freezer. Complete instructions provided. Expiry date: 30/4/2024

£15.65 £7.82

Equipment Focus

ACJ Cloths

These ACJ beehive cover cloths are very useful during inspections, clearing supers and harvest. They are also very useful when carrying out training type demonstrations when the colony is likely to be open for longer than normal inspections.

The rods can be removed and the cloths washed. They come with full instructions.

Manipulation Cloths

Similar to the ACJ cloths.  Heavy canvas with stainless steel rods sewn into the edges to weigh the cloth down. The centre section can be folded over to close or folded back to allow a frame to be taken out. Slide across to expose other frames.

Ask the Expert

Bailey Frame Change

The best way to get bees going in the spring is with a bailey comb change. This process should be done at least once every two years, to keep the bees on clean healthy comb. As always, this manipulation is dependent on the weather. The start of April (before drone production starts) is usual.

Put a fresh brood box with fresh frames and foundation on top of the existing brood box. Help the bees by feeding with a 1:1 mix of sugar/water to encourage the wax workers.

They can build comb on wet days. Only feed until the comb is drawn. You don’t want the bees storing sugar. I have had eleven frames drawn, and the queen up in the second box in a week… sometimes it takes longer (2-3 weeks). I have had one hive do nothing for 3 weeks, only to catch up and pass the hives on either side of it within a week. Like children all hives are different. Once the Queen has started the nest in the upper box it is time to introduce the Bailey Board. Shut the bottom box entrance. Put the Bailey Board (Queen Excluder on the underside) on top of the bottom box. Put the top box back on ensuring the Queen is present in the top box. The bees returning to the now closed old entrance will move up and find the new entrance above. The bottom box containing the old nest will hatch out in the next three weeks. If you have left this procedure a little later in the season, and there is Drone brood present, you will have to let the drones out every few days, or you will get a lot of dead bees stuck in the Excluder (as the Drones will not be able to get through the Queen Excluder). Once all the old brood has hatched in the old nest, the bottom box and Bailer board can be removed. At this time add a cleaned Queen excluder, and a super or two to keep the workers busy! This process is less draconian than a shook swarm but should only be done with healthy bees.

Here are some diagrams taken from our "Bailey Frame Change" Poster:

You can purchase the informative poster explaining the Bailey Frame Change method following the button below. If you are going to order both the bailey board and the poster, make sure you buy the bundle to save some money!

Cleaning your beekeeping equipment can be hard work and requires quite a lot of kit, so make sure you have what you need before you get started.

March 2024

Well, March was a bit wetter than we had hoped! The ground is still completely sodden and there have been quite a few days where it has been rather windy too. This has made for a slow start to the active season, and one where we are anticipating an explosion of activity on the first days of decent, sunny weather. 

It is difficult to get going at the moment because we know from quick checks this month that the bees are building up and using stores but we also don’t want to fully open them up when the temperatures aren’t high enough. We can tell they are using lots of stores from the cappings and debris underneath the hives. In general, the bees seem to be producing lots of brood but not expanding outwards yet, presumably because it has just been too cold. Hopefully with a few sunny days they will be able to start migrating out into the rest of the hive. 

One of the reasons we think the bees are building up so well now is due to the pollen supplements we gave them last month. They have eaten up all the Vitafeed patties and seem to have devoured the syrup with the SuperBee liquid supplement. We can see they have stored some of this rather than eating it straight away, from the clean-up job they are doing in the picture here. This is not nectar as there is no flow and the bees have not been able to get out of the hives enough to collect anything anyway.

Some colonies have also received this month an extra brood box underneath if they need the space. The reason for placing it underneath is so that we are not disturbing their access to food as, given the weather, we are still feeding from the top. It just gives these expanding colonies extra space to move into should they wish. 

As always, there are housekeeping jobs with beekeeping that are actually not to do with being in a hive and this month’s job was to start stocking the cabin with frames and boxes ready for taking off nucs and replacing frames. We use a trailer to collect everything up and take it down to the cabin, although we have to be careful not to get stuck in the wet ground. As you can see from the photo, we did this on a day which was a bit grim and grey, because at this time of the year there are always jobs to be doing with beekeeping.

Next month will be time to take nucs off, we’re hoping anyway! 

SAVE THE DATE – Green Match – Help Beekeepers Nurture Trees

The Green Match takes place this month and is open to charities working on environmental issues – Bees for Development are fundraising to help solve the problem of forest loss in Zimbabwe through tree planting, natural regeneration, and fire protection. We will help 100 rural landless women to earn money through beekeeping and our team will establish a nursery for bee-friendly trees and raise 15,000 seedlings. Please donate below between 18 April and 25 April and your money will be DOUBLED - you can be confident that your money will reach the people who need it most.

Hot off the press – signed copies of Professor Tom Seeley’s new book

Your chance to own a SIGNED copy of Bees for Development Patron, Professor Tom Seeley's new book. In this wonderful new text Tom Seeley explains more about how bees communicate – the well-known waggle dance is just one of 20 mechanical and chemical signals used by them. Please support our charity’s work by buying your copy, signed or unsigned from The Bee Shop online. The perfect gift for everyone who admires bees, with all proceeds going to Bees for Development. If you are attending the BBKA Spring Convention on 12-14 April, do not miss Tom Seeley’s talk (virtual) on Nature-based Beekeeping at 5pm on Friday 12 April.

Hot off the press – The Honey Bee Solution to Varroa

In this excellent new book Steve Riley explains the science behind the bees’ own solutions to control Varroa mites, the big challenge facing European honey bees.
As Professor Stephen Martin writes in the foreword:  “During the past 10-15 years there has been a quiet, mostly hidden, revolution in UK beekeeping. This involves increasing numbers of beekeepers managing their colonies without the need for any type of Varroa treatment. In the UK, it was the late Ron Hoskins that led the way and maintained his colonies for decades without treating for Varroa. Currently there are an estimated 1,800 UK beekeepers that have not treated for Varroa for six years or more. So, what is going on and how can you save money and time by becoming one of the growing number of beekeepers that do not need to treat for Varroa?”

Steve Riley is generously donating all proceeds from this excellent new book in support of Bees for Development’s work. Please support our charity’s work by buying your copy from The Bee Shop online . And if you are attending the BBKA Spring Convention, Steve, Stephen Martin and Rhona Toft are running a Workshop Transitioning to Varroa-treatment-free, 15.30 on Friday 12 April.

Do come and see us at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show!

We are excited to announce that we will be at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show 21-25 May - find us in the Discovery Zone, Stand GPA007. Please do pop along if you are visiting and say hello, as we love to meet our supporters and share with you about the work we are doing, thanks to you!

Come and see us for a chat at the BBKA Spring Convention Not-for-Profit area, Saturday 13th April, where you can collect copies of our Show Entry Programme with details of the 2024 classes; and our latest leaflet for this year's show.

Our first Friday in April Lecture release from the 2023 National Honey Show was Michael Palmer’s "How I make and use my beekeeping equipment": 

To raise the best queens possible in the harsh environment of his apiary in Vermont, USA, Michael produces all necessary ancillary equipment in his wood shop. He found many years ago that he could build the woodenware needed at a much reduced cost when compared with the prices from the equipment manufacturers. He takes the listener from Eastern White Pine timber (Pinus strobus) through the construction process, to apiary use. Each hive appliance is highlighted with photos of construction and use in the apiary. 

Looking forward to this year's show, in addition to our fantastic lecture and workshop programme (more details in next month's newsletter), there will be an exhibition by Alex Hirtzel, artist and bee activist: 'Displays Decoded'. Based on research from Bristol University, she links science and art, exploring the interaction between pollinators and flowers.

This picture by Alex Hirtzel is about temperature and is called ‘By Varying Degrees’.

We look forward to seeing you at this year's great show, Thursday 24th to Saturday 26th October 2024 at Sandown Park Racecourse, Esher, UK.

Book Review

'FIT2FIGHT -  A Practical Guide For Managing The Asian Hornet'

by Alan Baxter

"The most recent text on how best to protect your honeybees.” Jeremy Burbidge

Northern Bee Books (1st Edition 2024) Paperback, 66 pages, £15

Reviewed by Ann Chilcott of The BeeListener (Scottish Expert Beemaster)

FIT2FIGHT: A Practical Guide For Managing The Asian Hornet is a short compact book full of practical advice on dealing with the Asian hornet when it arrives in your apiary. Alan Baxter has practical experience managing this predator from his days of beekeeping in France, and he is positive that beekeepers in the UK can deal with the new threat and continue beekeeping.

The key to success is adjusting practical beekeeping management over the active season in relation to the life stages of the Asian Hornet and to when they are most threatening. Baxter explains exactly how to achieve this through notes, bullet points, and tabulation. A traffic-light system of colour codes indicates high risk points. The book is well illustrated with many clear colour photographs and some cartoons.

The writing is casual and crafted in the style of a blog which may appeal to readers who like to find practical information quickly and in once place. However, for more in-depth reading on Asian hornet the reader will find references listed. In addition, the definitive work by Professor Stephen Martin, The Asian Hornet (Vespa velutina) Threats, Biology & Expansion, which is based on his experiences studying this hornet in Asia, and is a must-read. 

Keeping colonies of honey bees strong and healthy is paramount to keeping on top of Asian hornet and there is good practical advice on apiary hygiene, disease monitoring, swarming, and other aspects of good beekeeping practice.

The controversial topic of trapping hornets is addressed. Baxter keeps an open mind explaining that no traps can guarantee 100% avoidance of capturing and damaging other insects. He points out that ideas on management will evolve and change as we learn more about how to deal with Asian hornet in the UK. Current deterrent methods, and track-and-trace tools are explained in this useful handbook.

FIT2FIGHT… achieves its goal to provide good practical advice on managing Asian hornet. However, Baxter’s use of acronyms such as NBU is puzzling. An explanation would be a helpful consideration for beginners, and readers in other parts of the world, who may not be familiar with the jargon.

BBKA Spring Convention - Saturday 13th April

Harper Adams University, Newport, TF10 8NB

Thornes of Scotland Sale Days - Friday 16th & Saturday 17th August

Newburgh Industrial Estate, Cupar Road, Newburgh, Fife, KY14 6HA

Thornes of Windsor Sale Day - Saturday 7th September

Oakley Green Farm, Windsor, Berkshire, SL4 4PZ

Thornes of Stockbridge Sale Day - Saturday 21st September

Chilbolton Down Farm, Chilbolton Farm, Stockbridge, Hampshire, SO20 6BU

Thornes of Devon Sale Day - Saturday 28th September

Quince Honey Farm, South Molton, Devon, EX36 3RD

Head Office & Factory Open & Sale Day - Saturday 12th October

Beehive Business Park, Rand, Lincolnshire, LN8 5NJ

National Honey Show - Thursday 24th to Saturday 26th October

Sandown Park Racecourse, Surrey, KT10 9AJ