This month will see the start of our annual Sale Days, starting with our Newburgh branch. The Scotland Sale Days will be running over Friday 11th & Saturday 12th August. Following this event, our next Sale Day will be at our Windsor branch Saturday 2nd September.

The National Bee Unit have received many credible reports of sightings of Asian Hornets. These sightings have been all over England, predominantly in the south of the country. If you spot an Asian Hornet, please report it by using the Asian Hornet Watch app available free on both Android and iphone or alternatively you can fill in the online form.

Equipment Focus

Wasp Out

Wasp Outs are a simple entrance block to help prevent robbing.

The Wasp Out comes in many sizes, including; National, WBC, Langstroth, Warre, Smith & Adapta.

Prices start from £9.50

Watch video of how to fit correctly here

Wasp Bane

Highly effective trap for eradicating wasps, and nothing else. We use this outside our wax plant and despatch. The results are always amazing: the Wasp Bane is surrounded by wasps (no bees whatsoever). Hang 10 metres from the hives. When the base is full of wasps, replace with the refill.

Ask the Expert

Soft set honey and seeding

Soft set honey is sometimes referred to as creamed honey – however, this implies that something has been added to it, so we try to refer to it now simply as soft set. This kind of honey has a smooth, silky texture unlike some hard-set honeys which can be grainy with large crystals. To achieve a soft set honey, we could leave it up to the natural process of granulation and hope that it does this itself. Some honeys may do this, but often the granule sizes are too large for it to become silky smooth soft set.

With that in mind, there are two simple ways to create your own soft set honey:

1. Stirring method

The stirring method is when you keep your honey at a certain temperature and simply stir it at regular intervals. This breaks up the crystals until the consistency you desire has been achieved. Often this is done using a creamer (yes, the name is outdated) but can be done by hand with a bit of determination!

2. Seeding method

The seeding method is perhaps more popular although it takes a little preparation. You will need a bucket of liquid honey that you want to make into soft set and a small amount of honey that is already soft set and of the consistency you want to achieve. You will use this to ‘seed’ the liquid honey. The ratio of liquid to seed honey is about 10:1.

If you do not have any soft set honey, you can use a pestle and mortar to grind large granules out of a jar of hard-set honey into the consistency you would like. Add this jar to 3lb of liquid honey, mix well, leave it to set and then use this to seed a bucket of about 30lb honey.

The seed honey will need to be warmed up ever so slightly and then all you really need to do is mix the two honeys together until they form a uniform colour and consistency. This could take a few days, depending on the temperature, the type of honey and how long it takes to set. Ideally, mix it together, then leave for 12 hours at 14°C. After another 12 hours, stir again for a couple of minutes and repeat for up to 4 days.

The honey is ready to jar when crystals have begun forming, and the honey has thickened considerably. You need to ensure that it is not too thick to pour so do not leave it for too long. Once jarred, leave to set at no higher than 14°C. You should see a difference in colour overnight and within a few days, it should have a lovely smooth and uniform consistency.

An article from Veto-pharma

Want an extra boost for your Apivar efficacy?

It’s all about scraping and repositioning

Many of you are looking for tips to optimize the efficacy of your mite treatments, especially when facing a high mite load before treatment. Here you will learn a simple tip, validated by two field studies, allowing you to boost your Apivar treatment efficacy.

Let’s get back to the basics: Apivar is an amitraz-based varroa treatment working by contact. The more bees get in contact with the strips, the more amitraz they will collect from the surface of the strips.

That is why the strips always need to be placed in the center of the brood: this is where we can observe the highest activity in the hive, resulting in the highest number of potential contacts, and it’s also here that varroa mites will merge from the brood cells.

During a long action treatment like Apivar (6 to 10 weeks), it is not rare to see the strips covered by wax and propolis after several weeks. However, the propolis/wax will decrease the accessible surface on the strips for bees and therefore reduce the number of potential contacts. Moreover, after a few weeks, the bees’ cluster may have moved a little bit within the brood box. Thus, during your visits at your apiaries, we advise scraping the strips systematically at mid-treatment (with a hive-tool) and repositioning them at the center of the bee cluster.

Before: Apivar strips after a 4-week treatment
After: Apivar strips cleaned with the hive-tool

Can we really see the difference by scraping and repositioning the strips? Yes, two efficacy studies with Apivar indicate a significant positive effect on the treatment efficacy.

The first study was conducted by the ADAPI (French association for the development of beekeeping) between 2008 and 2010 (Figure 1). They have compared colonies with scraping and repositioning of the strips to other colonies in which strips were neither scraped nor repositioned. In conclusion, they have observed a difference from 1 to 4 percent in treatment efficacy between the two groups.

The second, more recent study has been conducted in Germany, in two different apiaries in Kirchheim and Hohenheim (Figure 2). On each site, researchers have measured the average daily varroa mite falls of 10 colonies, from the beginning until the end of the Apivar treatment period.
The researchers applied the strips on the 24th of July (the usual treatment period for many German beekeepers after the summer honey flow, where you can observe a peak in fallen mites (see Figure 2) Then, they scraped and repositioned the strips on the 24th of August (Kirchheim) and the 5th of September (Hohenheim), around the mid-treatment, where you can observe a second peak with significant daily mite falls (see Figure 2).

Figure 1: Compared efficacy of Apivar with and without scraping and repositioning the Apivar strips mid-treatment. Data collected in France between 2008 and 2010.

Figure 2: Compared efficacy of Apivar with and without scraping and repositioning the Apivar strips mid-treatment. Data collected in Germany in 2018.

We can conclude from these two studies that the systematic scraping at mid-treatment (and eventually repositioning if necessary) increases the bee’s direct contact with the strips, and in turn optimizes the overall efficacy of the treatment.
—

It is essential to understand each varroa treatment’s mode of action to identify the factors that will influence its efficacy. An evaporation treatment will be influenced by the temperature, ventilation of the hive, and air humidity. A treatment working by contact will be influenced by number of direct contacts between the product and the bees. Even though the scraping and repositioning are additional manipulations, they can be included during a hive visit easily, and they make a noticeable difference in the final treatment efficacy. Think about it for your next treatments!

To download the Apivar “instructions for use” document and learn other tips: Click here

References:

1 – ADAPI – Efficacité des médicaments AMM dans la lutte contre varroa, focus sur L’APIVAR®.
La lettre du développement apicole en Provence N°23 Janvier 2012
Pour chaque année d’expérimentation, 2 ruchers de 20 ruches ont été suivis en Vaucluse. Dans chaque rucher deux lots de 10 ruches ont été constitués pour chacun des 2 modes de traitement (classique et repositionné.). Différence statistiquement significative (P<0,05)

2 – Bienen&natur (08.2019). Feldtest mit Apivar. PD Dr. Peter Rosenkranz and Thomas Kustermann. Moyenne des chutes journalières de Varroa observées pendant 10 semaines de traitement Apivar avec un grattage et repositionnement des lanières après 4 semaines. Un second pic de chute est observé après cet usage

Bees for Development launch new campaign – Motorbikes for the Queens of Bees

Join the Bees for Development campaign to buy motorbikes for Rejoice, Florence and Clara to do their vital work supporting trainee beekeepers. Meet Clara, Rejoice and Florence - trainee Beekeeper Extension Agents in Ghana.  They need motorbikes so that they can more quickly and regularly reach the beekeepers they are supporting.  Lightweight, economic and rugged, the motorbikes are a lifeline for the team, enabling access to very remote areas. These bikes are essential for reaching and transforming the lives of the poorest people through beekeeping. Please help Bees for Development raise £10,000 to buy motorbikes for the Queens of Bees.

Bees for Development is a specialist beekeeping charity with a unique purpose – to make life better with bees. All their work is aimed at unlocking the benefits of beekeeping to help people out of poverty and working to increase biodiversity, to benefit all, and this includes ensuring that bees have plenty of good quality forage. The images are from one of their tree planting projects in Aluehay, Ethiopia. Last week the local women were transporting seedlings from a nursery to the plantation site, a watershed area previously denuded of vegetation, and now protected by the Community's Committee. These local people have created rules for everyone in the village to ensure that all trees grow to fruition. Bees for Development are in the third year of this work and people tell them that already there is less flooding, more streams, and more bee forage. As one community elder explained:  "Even if we were told to stop protecting this site - we won't stop - protecting our environment is too important". The ability to earn a living from selling honey motivates beekeepers to plant and protect their forests for the future. To learn more about their work visit www.beesfordevelopment.org

- Jenny Handley and the team at Bees for Development

We have two video releases this August from the 2022 lecture programme, showcasing the work of UK beekeeping charities in developing countries, encouraging and supporting beekeeping as a sustainable way of life.

Their dedication and enthusiasm is amazing, and to explore even further, you will be able to visit their stands and talk to them at the 2023 show.

Going forwards, we have an interesting and informative programme of lectures planned for this year’s Centenary show, and are featuring introductions to some of these in our news site www.honeyshow.info, starting with Andrew Abrahams and his Hebridean Colonsay Black Bees.

Of course if you are too busy during the show to make it to some of the lectures, you will be able to catch up when the video is released next year.

Entry Classes for the 2023 Show

We hope you are planning your entries, and look forward to a bumper Centenary display this year.  Do browse the Schedule, consider the special centenary classes and encourage your junior bee enthusiasts to take part as well. You can find details at:

National Honey Show Leaflets

Do let us know if you would like leaflets for your local, district or county events.  We also have available a leaflet to encourage junior entries.  Contact Val: publicity@honeyshow.co.uk

Planning your journey to Sandown Park in October 2023

Please note, there will be major roadworks at the M25/A3 junction making delays likely. If your journey to Sandown Park takes you via this route, please allow extra time.

London’s new, expanded Ultra Low Emission Zone (ULEZ), to 'help clear London's air and improve public health' will, from end August 23, cover pretty much the whole of Greater London ie the area within the M25. The entirety of the M25 road itself will not be covered by the charge.

Esher is not within the extended ULEZ. However, please check your vehicle is compliant if you will be travelling through or into London boroughs: check here

We look forward to seeing you at the show, 26 to 28 October 2023, Sandown Park Racecourse, Esher, Surrey, UK.

Book Review

‘Roman Bee Lore’

by L.E. Snelgrove

Published by Northern Bee Books, 2023

ISBN: 978-1-914934-57-5

182 pages, £15.95

“An historically interesting manuscript by a great Somerset beekeeper that has only
now, after 101 years, been published.” - Jeremy Burbidge, Northern Bee Books.

This is a somewhat unusual book on Bees. Surprisingly, it was written by the eminent expert Apiarist, L.E. Snelgrove who is most famous for his book on ‘Swarming: Its Prevention and Control’ (1935), which has never been out of print and is included in Northern Bee Books’ current catalogue. Though Snelgrove’s book on ‘Swarming’ is almost a hundred years old, it remains a very useful guide and the Snelgrove Board is still recommended and used for swarm control today. However, the book under review is a great contrast with the practical beekeeping of ‘Swarming’. It was actually written a decade before ‘Swarming’ and never published in Snelgrove’s lifetime. In fact, it is based on the thesis which he wrote to obtain his M.A. degree, having already achieved his M.Sc. from Queen’s University in Belfast.
I feel that Roman Bee Lore is quite a personal book, with a strong presence of the author evident throughout. I very much enjoyed Snelgrove’s scholarly interest in his thesis topic - yet I can also see exactly why he did not choose to publish it. It isn’t quite a book of ‘Lore’ in the ordinary sense - he is far too scientific to flirt with any nonsensical ideas about bees, even if they come from Ancient Authorities like Aristotle or Virgil. At the same time, he is fascinated by their very errors, since they were in fact so observant and intelligent about their bees. All the way through, he continues with a sort of double narrative: on the one hand, exploring and explaining what the Roman authors wrote about beekeeping; while on the other hand, he is constrained to correct their misconceptions, in the light of modern beekeeping knowledge of 1922. So this effectively places the reader in a slightly invidious position, since a hundred years after this book was written, a good deal of new beekeeping knowledge has been achieved, which Snelgrove could not have known or anticipated. So I found myself in the absurd position of doing rather what Snelgrove himself was doing - having to ‘correct’ my author at the same time as appreciating him immensely.
An example of this would be our knowledge of Queen Substance (Queen Mandibular Pheromone), which was unknown in 1922. The mystery of the bees’ attraction to the queen is explained by Snelgrove thus:
“It is possible that the bees recognise their own queen by the sense of smell. They examine strangers with their antennae and invariably fall upon and destroy a new queen indroduced to them unless they are deceived by one of the various artifices known to modern beekeepers, most of which depend on securing that she first acquire the scent of the hive, or at least that her own characteristic scent be destroyed…. The writer has devised a simple method of introducing queens which depends on the destruction of the scent of the queen by immersing her in water for a few seconds. Thus treated, she is readily accepted by a strange and queenless colony…” (p37)
You may imagine how alarming I found this ‘method’ of queen introduction, since we now understand more about queen pheromone. At the same time, my reaction was quite like Snelgrove’s own attitude to mistaken ideas of the Roman beekeepers: like him, I found it intriguing to see how difficult it can be to untangle complex hive behaviour without the benefit of modern scientific investigations.
This is really the object of Roman Bee Lore: in it, Snelgrove examines an enormous number of Latin writers on bees, giving a comprehensive analysis of their knowledge and theories in the light of his excellent knowledge and theories of the early part of last century. Sometimes he is quite impatient with the persistence of absurd theories, like the theory in Virgil, that bees are generated in the carcass of an ox. He devotes almost a whole chapter to this, taking the oppotunity to criticise Carl Osten-Sacken in particular, who apparently still gave some credence to the idea in 1894: “Osten-Sacken has written a long paper on the subject in which he maintains that the supposed honey-bees of the ancients were really drone-flies (Eristalis tenax). This explanation is the one commonly accepted today … but to the present writer it appears to be an extremely doubtful one.” (p164)
However, most of the book is actually highly readable, especially if you don’t mind skipping Latin quotations which are not translated for you. Most of the Latin quotations are either translated, or alternatively given in a general way, so that the reader is not overly hampered by a lack of classical eduation. The most interesting aspect of this rather arcane topic is that the Ancients achieved so much excellent knowledge without any of our modern scientific equipment. For example, their observations about AFB are quite helpful, I believe: Columella considers that a lack of bees to keep the brood warm is to blame, because “these parts (of the brood) begin to decay and this evil gradually spreading and the honey being corrupted, the bees themselves die.” Of course, we now understand that the honey is the main source of the infection, as it is fed to the young larvae which die in the cells. Snelgrove’s own research into Isle of Wight disease is evident when he lists the symptoms (p76) and says that “no doubt some of the diseased conditions now popularly know as ‘Isle of Wight Disease’ were prevalent in Roman times…”
There is also a great deal of interesting discussion about hive construction, tools and manipulations, comparing the Roman ways with those of the early twentieth century (‘modern’) beekeeper. There are surprising similarities: for example, the Romans used a form of smoker - “a conical earthenware vessel provided with a handle. At the pointed end was a moderate-sized hole from which the smoke issued; at the wider end was a larger hole into which the operator blew with his mouth….” (p99). Even more remarkable is the fact that the Romans would clip their queens’ wings to control swarming. In some cases, “the wings were to be plucked out - a cruel proceeding…” (p107) but “Didymus however gives the best directions, for he advises that only the ends of the wings be cut off.” As Snelgrove points out, this is a delicate operation that many beekeepers hesitate to try even now.
Snelgrove is remarkably thorough in his coverage of beekeeping, as well as his knowledge of the Romans’. Each chapter deals with a familiar topics, such as ‘Management, Honey, Wax, Pollen, Propolis’ etc. and I found the book very refreshing - almost like reading a kind of handbook again. The twist of following ‘Roman Lore’ gave it freshness and extra interest. I feel that Roman Bee Lore is a niche interest among bee enthusiasts, and I am very glad that Northern Bee Books have decided to publish it. It is really more scholarly than practical, but no beekeeper could read it without learning a good deal of real, solid beekeeping science, thanks to Snelgrove’s method of running a critical commentary alongside the Roman authors’ descriptions of the methods which they used so many centuries ago. I found it quite illuminating myself, because there is something enormously enriching in understanding just how old the craft of beekeeping really is, as illustrated by a vast amount of written evidence from the Latin writers.

Review by Mary Montaut

Friday 11th & Saturday 12th August - Thorne of Scotland Sale Days

Saturday 2nd September - Thorne of Windsor Sale Day

Saturday 16th September - Thorne of Stockbridge Sale Day

Saturday 23rd September - Thorne of Devon Sale Day

Saturday 7th October - Thorne Open and Sale Day at Lincolnshire Head Office & Factory

Thursday 26th - Saturday 28th October - National Honey Show - Sandown Park Racecourse, Esher, Surrey, KT10 9AJ

Summer

OPENING HOURS

Rand

Monday to Friday - 9am to 5:30pm

Saturday - 9am to 12pm

Windsor

Monday to Saturday - 10am to 5pm

Scotland

Monday to Friday - 9am to 5pm

Saturday - 9am to 12pm

Stockbridge

Tuesday to Friday - 9am to 5pm

Saturday - 9am to 4pm

Devon

Monday to Saturday - 10am to 5pm