May Roundup
May has flown by and the beekeeping season is certainly in full swing. We are working seven days a week to get your orders despatched. Most orders are leaving us within two or three days (some quicker). Orders with foundation, frames and hive parts are taking a little longer but we are catching up and hope to reduce this time very soon.
We are still taking orders over the phone but would ask you, if you can, to order via our website www.thorne.co.uk.
In the midst of the Covid-19 outbreak we are all observing social distancing. Our Rand, Windsor, Newburgh and Devon branches are operating a click and collect service during their normal opening hours. Our next click and collect service at Stockbridge will be on Thursday 4th June, 9am – 1pm. We hope to re-open our stores (apart from Stockbridge) sometime during June, in line with government instructions.
We would like to say a huge congratulations to Bees for Development on the news that HRH The Duchess of Cornwall has graciously agreed to become their President. As many of you may know, Paul Smith – our Managing Director - has been Chairman of the board of trustees for Bees for Development for over 15 years. It is fantastic news and we would like to say well done to all those involved.
Finally, we would like to share this poem with you. It was written by Dougie Andrew who works in our despatch department, and put together with some photos by George (instead of doing his school work…..). Dougie has been with us almost 25 years, most of the time working in the workshop. Over the years we have been treated to many of his fantastic poems but I think this time he has really done us proud. Thankyou Dougie!
Equipment Focus…
The QCC Cage
The QCC Cage is a simple way to produce a broodless time in the hive without removing the Queen. The cage is best used around mid-summer, as any eggs laid after mid-summers day will not contribute to the current season’s crop gathering, and a lull in brood production is not of significant detriment to the colony at this time of the year.
The cage can be introduced to a central brood comb, by shaking off the bees and cutting away a block of brood just below the top bar (be careful of the wires when positioning the cage). Or you can position the cage on a frame with blank foundation and let the bees build around it as part of rotational comb refreshment, or as part of a Bailey or Shook swarm treatment. On or around mid-summer find the queen and put her in the box and shut the door so she can’t get out. As the box is too small to have comb built in it, there is nowhere the Queen can lay. The workers can still attend her, and because she is still in the heart of the colony the bees will not get the swarming or supersedure impulse as she is still present and pheromonally active. The Queen will go off lay.
The queen should be left “trapped” for around 30 days. At the end of this period you can apply one treatment of your choice to treat the phoretic mites, as there will be no others hiding in the brood, as there is no brood.
The Queen can be released to resume her laying to build up the numbers of bees for winter. It was found if the Queen was trapped a lot longer than 30 days (i.e. 60 days) when the Queen was released the workers produced many Queen cells, possibly they felt the Queen was failing and this was too long to be without brood. Thirty days is naturally about the period the colony is without brood when swarming so acceptable to the bees.
The QCC cage costs £6.50.
Beekeeping Blog
May 2020
May has been a busy month, as always! As well as the usual swarm control checks and general inspections, we have been taking off nucs for sale. Here you can see some of the ones that are ready and waiting to be collected by our customers.
This month has also been a time of planning and looking forward to what we would like to achieve for next year. In addition to the British Standard and 14 x 12 nucs, we are preparing a small line of Langstroth hives so that we can supply Langstroth nucs next year. This has taken some thought and effort, as with starting any new line, the frames are different sizes and the foundation needs to be drawn out before the frames can be used properly by the bees for storing food and rearing brood. This means that the bees need to be put onto the foundation and only a strong colony of bees would be able to draw this out and really get going on them this year. Artificially swarming colonies onto foundation is one way we have started to achieve this. As you can see, we have got all the equipment ready to put the bees into Langstroth hives, we just need to set the hives out in a way we would like them and get the bees in!
On a totally different note…despite the best laid plans, sometimes the bees decide to do their own thing, as you can see from these two pictures. Although they have a lovely fresh frame of foundation, the bees have decided to draw out an entire side of the frame in drone brood, parallel but separate to the actual foundation. This is now unusable in a nuc - quite interesting but a little annoying!
May is probably the busiest month for us here at Thornes; it is when we get to do proper beekeeping! Going into June, we will continue to take nucs off and we will also keep a special eye out for the amount of stores per colony, as the dreaded ‘June Gap’ might rear its ugly head. This may mean we need to feed the bees just to get them through the month, but we will assess that over the next few weeks
Bees for Development Update
HRH The Duchess of Cornwall becomes president of Bees for Development
We are very pleased to announce that Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Cornwall, is now our President. Her role will help us enormously at a time when growing hardship is expected in places where we work. Read more: http://link.beesfd.org/hrhduchess
Event: A Sundowner in the Garden with Bill Turnbull.
We are delighted to invite you toa special online event on Wednesday 10th June at 6.00 - 6.40pm.. You are cordially invited to grab a drink and join us. Bill will be hosting the event and will be talking with a number of people including well known gardener Monty Don, Martha Kearney and the City of London’s Lady Mayoress, Hilary Russell. Please register here http://link.beesfd.org/10june
The event is free so please do extend the invitation to your friends.
Monmouth Bee Town
We're also pleased to unveil new signs to welcome vistors to our home town of Monmouth http://link.beesfd.org/beetown
