This month saw the National Honey Show, and what a show it was! It was amazing to see so many people attending, and the organisation of the event was exceptional. We hope to see you all next year when they will be celebrating 100 years of the show.

Our flash sale is still running until the evening of Monday 7th November, so make sure you head over and grab some last minute bargains! Sale orders may take longer to be shipped.

If you have made an order to be collected from one of our branches, please wait to be contacted before collecting.

From Friday 25th to Monday 28th November we will be offering 10% off all first quality National, WBC, Smith, Commercial and Warre hives in flat or assembled, including painted hives.

Equipment Focus

Protek Paint

These paints are very low VOC, made in Somerset and importantly are bee friendly. Suitable for both wooden and polystyrene hives, but only paint the hive exterior. We can paint any of our Canadian Western Red Cedar assembled hives with these paints. Requires two to three thin coats and is suitable for smooth or rough timber.

Features:

• Safe and easy to use
• Low maintenance weatherproof coating that contains UV filters to protect colours from fading
• Long-lasting protection
• Low VOC (Volatile Organic Compounds)
• Low odour
• Water-based with linseed oil – natural renewable resource
• Translucent – allows wood grain to show through
• Rich long-lasting colour
• Water resistant with mould and fungal protection
• Microporous high-build coating
• Coverage: 1 Litre will cover approximately 8m²

Why not finish off your freshly painted hive with new cone escapes? We now have copper, galvanised or chrome plated options.

Need to fill any cracks or splits in your hive? Try Apistop! 

A multi component and multi-use hive paste for sealing cracks, splits, knots etc. It effectively protects from rain, is frost and high temperature resistant and is suitable for sealing leaking feeders.

Simply warm a portion of paste in your hand to soften and press into offending crack. Remove excess with a hive tool or other sharp instrument.

Ask the Expert

Propolis

What is it?

Propolis is a sticky resinous mixture that bees use to seal unwanted open spaces in hive parts. It can be anywhere from yellow to brown, depending on the source of the sap that the bees collect to make it.

The name propolis comes from the Greek ‘pro’ (at the entrance to) and ‘polis’ (community or city), meaning that it is used as a defence against the outside. This could be from external invaders such as mice or wasps or simply from the wind and rain.

How do bees collect it?

Bees do not actually collect propolis – they make it. They collect sap from plants or trees such as poplars and conifers or from wounds in the plant itself. This sap is piled into their pollen sacks and taken back to their colony. Saliva and wax are mixed in with the sap and the result is propolis.   

What do they use it for?

Bees coat the inside walls of the hive and the comb with a thin layer of propolis – this gives strength to the structure. Larger amounts are used to fill small cracks in the hive or between hive parts (the main reason beekeepers use a hive tool!) and even larger amounts are used if they find the entrance to the hive too large. This is called a propolis curtain.

Bees also use propolis to ‘mummify’ foreign bodies inside their nest to stop the mould from spreading. For example, dead insects or mice that they cannot remove may be coated in propolis to contain the decaying body and keep the nest clean.

Can it be used for anything else?

Propolis has been used for thousands of years due to its antimicrobial, antiviral and antioxidant properties which have numerous beneficial health effects on humans. The Egyptians, Romans, Incas and ancient Greeks all used propolis in different ways including embalming, reducing fever, as an antiseptic, as a wound healer and many more. In later years, the sticky substance was used as a violin varnish and even as a treatment for tuberculosis by the Soviets during World War II.

Nowadays, propolis is still a popular self-remedy which can be found in health food shops (or in your beehive!) in the form of capsules, creams, lozenges or powders. It is used for common colds and other flu-like infections as well as on skin for wound healing, burns and acne. Propolis mouthwashes and toothpastes are also popular because they help to combat cavities, mouth ulcers and gingivitis.

Despite all these benefits, propolis is also highly allergenic which means some people are susceptible to an unpleasant rash. Therefore, it is advised to wear gloves when handling propolis if a rash appears.

Blog

October

This month’s blog is written mid-way through the month as we finally enjoy a long-awaited holiday after a busy season! Although it has only been a few weeks since the last blog, we have been busy with the bees, making sure they are well fed and set up before we leave them.

On our rounds we have seen that most of the fondant we have given the bees has been eaten. We even put some fondant in some English feeders, which we wouldn’t normally do but because it hasn’t been too cold yet, the bees still managed to find the fondant up in the top. You can see here that these bees must have been hungry because the packets are completely empty!

The pollen patties we placed on top last month are going down a treat too. You can see from this picture that they are nibbling their way through this pack and it just gives them a pollen boost at this time of year when there isn’t quite as much to forage on naturally.

This month we have found that the bees have been a bit of a mixed bag. Some seem to be bringing in a lot of stores, while others are hardly finding anything. Perhaps this is because some colonies are seeming to be quite large, while others remain smaller. One particular hive which is doing really well, has expanded right through the hole in the crownboard, creating burr comb under the roof and creating quite the clean-up job for us!

On our return, we will be checking again for stores but mostly leaving the bees to it and packing them down completely for winter.

Book Review

‘Pollen Grains & Honeydew:

A guide for identifying the plant sources in honey’

by Margaret Anne Adams with

Christine Coulsting and Alan Riach

Northern Bee Books 2021

350 pages

£28.95

Between 2019 and 2021, Margaret Anne Adams was sent honey samples from across the UK and other parts of Europe and has featured images of the main pollens found in most summer honeys in Britain, as well as some honeydews, in this copiously illustrated and weighty book, the introductory chapter includes practical step-by-step instructions for a range of pollen-related microscopy activities, including collecting pollen from flowers, extracting pollen from honey, setting up and using a microscope and making and examining pollen slides. Subsequent sections delve further into how to analyse the solids found in honey, including all sorts of things you might prefer not to know might be there, such as soot, hairs, fungi, nematodes and assorted insect parts.
The bulk of the book comprises detail of more than 100 flowers visited by bees, with images and information about the plants themselves and the pollen and nectar that they produce, as well as honeydew. Perhaps the most uniquely fascinating aspect of the book is the analysis of honey samples supplied by beekeepers in the UK and Europe, revealing the variety of plants visited by bees in different locations.
It's a great book to pick up and browse with bite-sized chunks of text that combines interesting anecdotes with hard facts. There are lots of photographs (not always the sharpest) that provide a much-needed reference tool for those wanting to identify pollen under the microscope. Especially helpful are the images showing how different some pollen grains can appear when seen from alternative angles -
something that can be rather confusing for anyone new to pollen microscopy. The lack of an index makes it a bit frustrating when trying to
find specific examples.
One interesting section by Christine Coulsting (BeeCraft's Beginners series author this year) shows how a beekeeper can identify pollens not already in their library of slides. It involves some smart detective work and shows that pollen analysis can pose mysteries and reveal surprises.

- Richard Rickitt, Editor of Bee Craft. Article from Bee Craft June 2022.

How to control Varroa mites with Oxybee

Oxybee is an oxalic acid-based veterinary drug to control varroa mite population. To better explain to you all the key stages for using Oxybee correctly, the Véto-pharma team made a tutorial video at the apiary, in which you will find the safety precautions and instructions on when to treat, how to prepare the solution and how to dribble it in the hives.

Oxybee: an innovative formula based on oxalic acid and glycerol

Oxybee is a veterinary medicine for bees based on oxalic acid, a natural active substance present in very small quantities in honey, and effective in treating varroosis caused by the Varroa destructor parasitic mite. Oxybee consists of a bottle (containing oxalic acid, water and glycerol) in which you mix two sachets (containing sugar (sucrose) and essential oils). Glycerol is a key advantage of Oxybee, as it increases the solution’s adhesiveness to the bee’s body, thus maximising treatment efficacy.1 Oxybee can be used in conventional and organic beekeeping,2 and the 750G bottle is sufficient to treat about thirty hives.

Safety precautions

The Oxybee treatment is sold in a premixed liquid formula, thus avoiding the beekeeper’s exposure to oxalic acid fumes. It is therefore administered without any need for a cartridge respirator, unlike other oxalic acid-based treatments. However, there are a few safety precautions to be observed:

• In order to prepare and handle the product, the beekeeper must use suitable protective equipment (acid-resistant plastic gloves, safety glasses and protective clothing) to avoid contact with any splashes.
• The Oxybee treatment is administered to brood-free colonies (mainly in winter) for maximum efficacy.3
• Outdoor temperature must be over 3°C.
• Oxybee should never be applied during honey flow (i.e. no honey supers present)
• The treatment can only be done once per generation of bees.

Preparation instructions

Before starting to make and apply the solution, the beekeeper needs to provide himself with the following items:

• A pair of acid-resistant plastic gloves
• A protective overall and safety glasses
• A graduated syringe (with a small piece of flexible plastic tubing to extract liquid from the bottom of the bottle) or else a syringe gun
• A container of water at a temperature around 30-35 °C

1. First place the bottle of acid and glycerol mixture upright in a container of warm water (between 30 and 35 degrees Celsius). The warm water helps heat up the solution, speeding up the dissolving process and making the treatment more pleasant for the bees.
2. Then pour the contents of the two sachets containing sucrose into the bottle, possibly using a funnel.
3. Close the bottle again securely and shake it until the sugar is completely mixed in.
4. Once the mixture has been made, the bottle can be stored in the fridge for up to a year. We advise you to write on the bottle in marker pen the date the product was mixed and make a note in your beekeeping records of the date any treatments are given.

Application: action to take

Once at the apiary, you apply Oxybee in drops, i.e. trickling/dribbling it drop by drop into the spaces between the frames in the hive. If you have stored your bottle of Oxybee in the fridge, we recommend to first bring it back up to temperature by placing it upright in a container of warm water (30-35°C) again, so the product’s application is more pleasant for the bees. You then need to extract the product from the bottle, either using the graded syringe with flexible tubing attached to the end (more practical for reaching the bottom of the bottle) or by means of an automatic syringe gun.

The maximum dosages must be strictly observed: 5 to 6 millilitres of solution per inter-frame space occupied by bees, with a maximum of 54 ml for the entire colony.

After applying the treatment, you will observe varroa mite drop for several days.

Watch the video to see a tutorial from the Véto-pharma team, explaining how to use Oxybee:

N.B. References and Legal notice can be found at the bottom of this email

Bees for Development are taking part in The Big Give Christmas Challenge to raise £50,000 in just 1 week, that could be doubled to £100,000!

If you want to be more involved and make an impact why not ask your friends to help by organising a coffee morning, honey sale, or lunch to raise funds together? We know that these are hard times for everyone, so every action really does help.

These funds will be used to help young people in Ethiopia to create livelihoods from beekeeping – they will be able to continue without any support from us and have useful skills for the rest of their lives.   There is always strong demand for honey in this part of North West Ethiopia, where honey is considered a precious tonic and medicine, rather than an everyday food.

Please help us to train more young people - beekeeping provides them with a livelihood for life.

From 12 noon on 29 November, all donations to Bees for Development will be doubled by Big Give’s Champions - meaning your money will support twice as many.  You can be confident that your money will reach the people who need it most.

So, we are not asking you to donate quite yet - instead, we ask you to save any contribution you can make until our Christmas Appeal during the week 29 November - 6 December. There are champion funds available - and while they last - your donation has twice the impact!

- Jenny Handley

Mulu began beekeeping with the support of Bees for Development two years ago 

The National Honey Show

This year’s show was a great success with over 2,000 competitive entries, and the sun through the Sandown Park windows enhancing the usual stunning display.

We experimented with bringing you snippets from the show ‘live’ on Facebook last year, and this year expanded on this with several videos showing aspects of the show over the three days. Bob, our chairman started us off during the setting up; Enid, our Judges Referee took us through judging in action; we chatted with our Wax Chandler sponsors, their ‘Grans on the Make’ and ended their interview next to their spectacular float which has been all over the country. Eric Tourneret, whose fabulous bee photographs will be staged as a super exhibition next year walked us through the show; we visited the skep making workshop; and then had a final walk through the trade hall on the Saturday. These videos are still available to view on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.

Some of the winning video entries are also being shown on these platforms and you have the videos from this year’s lecture programme to look forward to during the coming year.  They will be released on the first Friday of the month, starting from December or January.

Next year will be our centenary: 100 years since the first National Honey Show held at the Crystal Palace, Kent, in 1923.  We look forward to seeing you for a spectacular show next year: 26 to 28 October 2023.

Upcoming Events

25th - 28th November - Black Friday offers

Late December - Winter Sale

25th February - The Beekeeping Show* -  Telford International Centre, Shropshire, TF3 4JH

*not to be confused with the British Beekeeping Show (formerly known as BeeTradex) which we will NOT be attending