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We start this month's newsletter with this clipping taken from Taylor's Monthly Bulletin for the month of May 1960. For those that do not know, E.H.Thorne acquired E.H.Taylors in August 1984. The identical "E.H"?.. merely a coincidence! Check out their timeless advice.
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Again, can we ask if you are yet to shop on our new website, please make sure you reset your password before putting any items into your basket. If you have any issues with this, you can contact us on Live Chat during office hours, or email sales@thorne.co.uk.
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When shopping online, please make sure you make use of the "Delivery instructions and other comments" box, even if you think you will be in!
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Special Offer
20% off Selected Uncapping Equipment
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We have a huge range of uncapping tools to make uncapping those frames an easy task. Check out these tools that have 20% off for the month of July!
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A razor-sharp blade provides the ideal tool for raking granulated comb back to the midrib. Alternatively, to stimulate early colony development, lightly rake the tool over capped stores.
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Simply roll over the comb and then extract in the usual way. The sharp spikes pierce the cappings but do not remove them. Most of the wax stays in place until extraction and can be filtered out of the honey at a later date. The roller comes in 4 different widths:
100mm, 150mm, 200mm and 250mm
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The uncapping slice neatly removes cappings in one swift motion. Simply pull the slice towards you to uncap each cell. We offers these with wooden handle, a stainless steel handle, or a plastic handle, in various widths.
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A handy tool with straight tines that bend at a 90 degree angle. Ideal for agitating and scratching the cappings.
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Equipment Focus
RoBo-Block
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The only entrance block you will ever need. Made for National, Commercial, Dadant, Langstroth and Smith hives. Opening must be at least 20mm high. Expanding Robo-block to fit entrances 360mm-425mm.
Made from 20mm aluminium profile, the same size as a regular entrance block. Developed, tested and manufactured at Rand.In its main position the block is either an entrance ventilator of 3mm holes on the right-hand side or an anti-robbing device of 6mm holes on the left-hand side, with a further row of 6mm holes off-set on the opposite side. Bees in the hive can find their way out and back again. Robbing bees or wasps find it difficult to negotiate both banks of holes. The adjustable alloy slide is used to close the entrance as required, exposing the ventilation holes.
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Also in this position, the slides can be extended outwards and tacked/screwed to the floor joists; thus the hive will be completely closed and secure if you are planning to move it any distance.
For those keen to examine the pollen the bees are collecting, turn the block away from you through 90 degrees and expose a 6mm entrance slot on the left-hand side (this also acts as a mouseguard) plus a bank of 5mm pollen stripping holes on the right-hand side with an alloy slide to expose either feature. Below the stripping holes is a shallow, removable tray which collects the pollen samples. This will only need to be set to pollen stripping for a matter of minutes as samples will build up rapidly.
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Ask the Expert
Drone Brood in Worker Cells
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Large amounts of drone brood, particularly in worker cells, should indicate that all is not well. The beekeeper needs to act but it is important first to discover the reason behind the abundance of drone brood. There are two reasons why there may be drone brood in worker cells.
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Drone laying queen
The colony may have a failing queen. This could be because she was not mated properly and the sperm has run out. If this is the case, there may be a lot of drone brood in worker cells, creating a bobbly texture. However, it should still be laid in a proper oval shaped brood pattern.
What to do – requeen.
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Laying workers
In a queenless colony, female workers begin to develop functional ovaries. They can start laying eggs but they will only ever be unfertilised, leading to an abundance of drone brood. Several eggs may be laid in one cell, down the sides of the cell or on top of pollen. Like the drone laying queen, eggs laid in worker cells will cause a bobbly, uneven texture. However, laying workers will lay eggs in random worker cells, creating an erratic brood pattern.
What to do – unite with a strong, queen right colony OR shake out remaining bees and let them return to other hives. Caution: these workers are likely to be aggressive.
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You may have noticed we were absent from last month’s newsletter – that’s because we have been so busy that we just didn’t have time to get a blog done! So, we are amalgamating May and June here.
Towards the middle of May we had some super hot weather. For us, this is when things started to ‘heat up’ and swarming began!
Here you can see a swarm that we missed. Luckily, it swarmed straight into the pine trees in the apiary so it wasn’t a problem to recapture. A perfect height in fact! You can also see here the wildflower meadow on the brink of flowering. It is a beautiful sight when the flowers finally open.
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Funnily enough, it was at the end of May that we had a big ‘June gap’. We found that many colonies had built up so much that when there was a gap in the forage, they struggled to bring in enough food to sustain themselves. This meant it was difficult at this point to make up nucs which would be able to survive until they reached their new home. Once the forage came back however, making up nucs suddenly became a lot easier as frames of stores were readily available.
May and June are our busiest times of the year, every year, because we spend so much of it face down in beehives and making up nucs! The majority of our nucs are British Standard which will fit National or WBC hives, but we also do a limited number of 14x12, Langstroth and Commercial nucs too. Each nuc is hand picked with enough frames of brood and stores to last it a while until it is rehomed in a full hive.
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After taking off the nucs, we introduce our own queens back into the remaining hives, however this is not always successful. For example, take this WBC hive. This picture was taken after it had a 6 frame nuc taken out of it and it is on a double brood 14x12. As you can see, it is still rather full! We are not sure exactly what happened but we do know that the queen and attendant bees were still in the cage with the fondant - there are a couple of scenarios that may have played out but mainly we think that the colony was just too big to accept a new queen. Next year we will be keeping the colonies at a smaller size as we find acceptance rates of queens is much better this way.
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Many of our colonies here are on double brood. Sometimes we get a build up of brace comb in between the two boxes but we leave this on until we want to take nucs off for a few reasons. We find this is a good way to check for varroa, as the drone cells come apart and we are able to see the contents. We find it is also a great way to check for swarm cells as the bottoms of the frames in the top box are a common place for bees to build them.
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Heading into July, we are hoping for no more swarms (as the old saying goes ‘a swarm in July isn’t worth a fly’!) and a quieter month in the apiary. We will still be busy though as we continue to make sure that queens have been accepted into the remaining hives so we can take the bees into the autumn nice and strong.
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Book Review
‘Food Safety for Beekeepers - Advice on legal requirements and practical actions’
‘Food Safety for Beekeepers - Advice on legal requirements and practical actions' written by Andy Pedley
ISBN:978-1-914934-37-7
£17.00
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In this new title, published in 2022 by Northern Bee Books, author Andy Pedley (an Environmental Health Officer for 46 years and a beekeeper for 30) explores the consumer protection law that applies to honey and other products of the hive. The book principally deals with food and food safety, also including beeswax-based products. The intention is to give a comprehensive picture of legal requirements and practical advice. Although the text relates to the law as it applies in England, it remains relevant where separate but similar laws apply in the other UK nations. The up-to-date text reflects the current (post-Brexit) situation.
The target audience for the book is beekeepers of all scales. The largest producers may find some of the material less relevant to their own context, but for the average-sized UK commercial operation, there is much of interest.
The 108-page book is well set out, the material is presented in an organised manner and the author's writing style makes for an easy read. There is plenty of illustrative material to break up the text, though the balance of photographic content is drawn from smaller-scale (hobby) beekeeping practice. Photographs of best practice within a commercial context would have added extra value.
Some subjects (eg, importation and exportation) are out of scope, so some may still need to refer to further sources of information depending on their product range and business model.
This book is an essential companion to the Bee Farmers' Association's own Guide to Food Safety, more thoroughly discussing the subject matter, though it lacks the exemplar templates of that publication. It is a worthwhile addition to all bee farmers' bookshelves.
- Review by Alex Ellis
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Blog
A Behind-the-Scene Look at Varroa Mite Treatments
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Each year, several thousand of you use treatments to combat Varroa destructor. These treatments are based on different active substances (amitraz, oxalic acid, thymol, formic acid, tau-fluvalinate, etc.) and offer several methods of action and administration routes (rapid action, long action, contact, trickling, sublimation, etc.). Yet, it’s often forgotten that a mite treatment is, first and foremost, a veterinary medicine. And that veterinary medicines must answer particular constraints and processes inherent to their status. This subject, although interesting, is often little known.
Let’s start with the basics: What is a veterinary medicine?
A veterinary medicine is a formulation based on an active substance that has received a marketing authorisation from the competent authorities (national veterinary agencies or the European Medicine Agency [EMA]). Several years are necessary between the start of Research & Development and the Marketing Authorisation. During this time the laboratory will complete various steps (search for an active substance, in-vitro tests, clinical data [test in “field” conditions]) to arrive at the marketing authorisation application phase.
To obtain this final authorisation, the future Marketing Autorization Holder must prove the quality, efficacy, and safety (non-harmful effect) of the formulation. To that end, it will have to submit a Market Authorisation application, a lengthy and costly procedure containing many studies:
- Efficacy studies: the medicine must show efficacy of at least 95% for a conventional beekeeping treatment and 90% for an organic beekeeping treatment.
- Toxicity studies on targeted species: the medicine must not harm the worker bees, the queens, or the brood.
- Residue studies: as the hive products are destined for human consumption, the “MRLs” (Maximum Residue Limits) have been defined at a European level.
- Proof of safety for the user (beekeeper) in accordance with the recommendations for use.
Once these steps have been completed, the national or European agency validates a “SPC” (Summary of Product Characteristics) which summarises all the drug’s characteristics (posology, instructions for use, precautions, secondary effects, etc.) and which also defines its framework of use (in particular posology, precautions, and duration of application).
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Manufacturing a varroa mite treatment: the Apivar® example
The commitment of Véto-pharma for honey bee health started 25 years ago, when the varroa mite treatment Apivar® was first registered back in 1995. Apivar has been made in France from the very beginning, and more precisely in the center of France, where the Véto-pharma plant is located.
Manufacturing a varroa mite treatment is not an easy process and cannot be made in any production site. The Véto-pharma manufacturing plant is GMP certified (Good Manufacturing Practices), which guarantees compliance with European directives and their quality standards. Indeed, it is only possible to manufacture a drug in structures that hold a pharmaceutical manufacturing authorisation. GMP are the principles and guidelines to be followed for manufacturing drugs for human and veterinary use. During manufacturing, the same standards are applied to the drug, whether it is for human or veterinary use.
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Figure 1 - A pack of Apivar contains 10 strips to treat 5 hives © Véto-pharma
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Each batch of Apivar is subject to many quality tests at each production step:
- Verification of the conformity of the raw materials. Their quality must be compliant with the specifications stipulated in the Marketing Authorisation dossier validated by the competent authorities.
- Verification of the conformity of packaging and labels
- Verification for each batch of the concentration of amitraz and the appearance of the strips
- Verification of the finished product's integrity (for example, we check that the packaging is correctly vacuum packed to ensure the good preservation of the amitraz).
All these checks are noted in the “batch record” as production progresses. At the end of production, the Qualified Person reads the entire record and validates whether the batch will be sold or not. If the batch is declared non-conform, it will be removed and destroyed.
After “releasing” the batches, we will ship the packs all over the world since Véto-pharma distributes Apivar in more than 35 countries. In this way, more than 5 million colonies are treated each year with this French medicine, and we are very proud of the positive impact that a human-sized company (we count 80 employees worldwide) can have on honey bee health.
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Figure 2 - Apivar vaccum packs, ready to be packaged and shipped worldwide © Véto-pharma
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Oxybee®: an innovative formulation of oxalic acid
Oxybee is the most recent addition to our portfolio. It became apparent that beekeepers needed an organic mite treatment that they could especially use in winter (use in brood free colonies only) as a complementary treatment for the hives presenting a high infestation. We were committed to meeting this need. To make this product available to European beekeepers, a centralised registration was carried out through the European Medicine Agency.
The key advantage of Oxybee is its innovative formulation. The combination of sucrose and glycerol in the Oxybee formulation enables a better distribution of oxalic acid solution in the colony.¹ ² The formation of small droplets of solution that last longer in the colony (increased hygroscopy) is assumed to be the cause of this effect, enabling a better distribution of oxalic acid solution in the hive.1-2 As a result, field data have shown a higher efficacy of Oxybee compared to a standard formulation of oxalic acid and sucrose.³
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Figure 3 - A box of 888ml of Oxybee contains one bottle and two sachets to mix. After mixing, the bottle can be kept in the fridge for 1 year © Véto-pharma
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Figure 4 - Application of Oxybee in a hive by trickling method with a syringe © Véto-pharma
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The future of mite treatments: the screening of new molecules
How will varroa be treated in the future? There are few products currently available that combine a satisfactory level of effectiveness with limited use constraints for beekeepers. But we are aware of the urgent need to develop new active ingredients that will make it possible for varroa to be sustainably controlled, and for treatments to be rotated risk-free.
To achieve this, Véto-pharma has invested in innovation for many years. We created the Véto-pharma’s experimental apiary five years ago, along with a bee laboratory. This laboratory houses one of the company’s major innovation projects: screening new active ingredients to fight varroa. For this purpose, the innovation team developed a unique screening method, which makes it possible to evaluate active ingredients and identify the ones that would be effective against varroa, and safe for the colonies. Not an easy feat! Molecules effective against varroa, whether chemical or organic in origin, are often highly toxic for bees. This is particularly true for many essential oils, which only achieve optimal effectiveness at levels that are very harmful to bees.
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Figure 5 - The varroa mites and infested bees are then exposed to the molecules in a controlled environment, and their mortality is monitored to evaluate the effectiveness and toxicity of the active ingredients © Véto-pharma
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Over the past years, we evaluated 38 new molecules, and some of them showed promising results. These molecules are currently being re-evaluated and will probably lead, if they pass all the tests (efficacy, safety, residues), to the new treatments of tomorrow.
To learn more about Véto-pharma and our products, please visit www.veto-pharma.eu
References and legal notes at bottom of email
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These are busy times at Bees for Development. In Afram Plains, Ghana, work is underway on the honey harvest and beekeepers are delighted to be gaining desperately needed income. Transport costs are high to reach this isolated area, while conversely, because of their remoteness, local produce gain very low prices. Charcoal has until now been the main source of income, resulting of course in habitat loss.
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We aim to change this by making honey and beeswax viable and worthwhile sources of income. Our Project Manager, Dr Giacomo Ciriello has recently spent six weeks working in Donkorkrom, opening up our new processing centre, testing out our traceability system and providing training to people involved in the new market chain.
Beekeeping is certainly not the same everywhere! Here is a short and good video created by Giacomo and his partner Brighde: https://youtu.be/BjtSg5Zoak4
Today, Sunday 3 July, we are running Monmouth Bee Festival – if you are in this region – do come and say hello – it would be lovely to meet you!
More details here: https://monmouthbeefestival.co.uk
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Among the new classes for this year’s show is a new junior class which is great fun:
139: A National Honey Show Calligram Poem: A shape poem, where the design and layout of the letters creates a visual image related to the meaning of the words themselves.
Great scope for imagination and will make a great display at the show. Check out the schedule of classes on our website
https://www.honeyshow.co.uk/download-schedule.php
encourage the younger generation to enter, and do also have a go at entering some of the classes yourself.
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The Friday 1st July 5.15pm lecture release on The National Honey Show Youtube channel from our 2021 show will be Torben Schiffer’s "How modern beekeeping enhances nectar competition and contributes to species extinction of wild pollinators"
https://www.youtube.com/user/nationalhoneyshow
Look forward to seeing you at the show 27 to 29 October 2022 at Sandown Park Racecourse, Esher, Surrey, UK www.honeyshow.co.uk
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Upcoming Events
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12th & 13th August – Thornes of Scotland Sale Day
3rd September – Thornes of Windsor Sale Day
17th September – Thornes of Stockbridge Sale Day
24th September – Thornes of Devon Sale Day
8th October – Rand, Lincolnshire Sale and Open Day
27th - 29th October – The National Honey Show
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