John Chapple’s talk

Posted on July 10, 2010 by Emily Scott

Today one of our local super-duper experienced beekeepers, John Chapple, gave a group of us Ealing beekeepers a talk on varroa control and general hive management techniques throughout the year. John has a big beard, several hives around London and is even the Queen’s beekeeper.

Here are my notes on what he had to say…

July
Believe it or not, despite the current odd situation of a hot British summer, autumn is coming and the bees know it. They observe the days getting shorter and the Queen responds by laying fewer eggs. However for now, the bees are still pinging in and out of the hive entrance frantically bringing lots in. You should be aiming to get your honey off by the end of July, when the main nectar flow will be over. Once the flow stops the bees become aggressive. Don’t touch your bees in August!

Once your honey is taken off, put your varroa monitoring board on the bottom of the hive and tape it up so it’s airtight. You can now treat for varroa with Apiguard, a natural thymol (from the plant thyme) based gel product which comes in trays. The worker bees will try to remove the foreign smelling Apiguard from the hive, in the process distributing it throughout the colony and disrupting the varroa mite’s cell membranes. Put one Apiguard tray on your crown board, leave for a fortnight, then put another in for a further fortnight. You should aim to do this in the first-second week of August. Don’t use Apiguard while your honey supers are still on unless you want thymol flavoured honey!

Autumn
In our last feed of the year, beekeepers at the Perivale apiary treat against nosema using Fumadil B. Nosema is a parasite that multiples in the gut of adult bees and has been found in hives within the apiary previously. It is linked with dysentery, so brown smears of bee poop on a hive are a tell-tale sign. Nosema spores can withstand temperature extremes and persist on contaminated comb, another good reason to change brood comb each year. Fumadil B is a naturally occurring antibiotic which is dissolved into sugar syrup and fed to the colony.

December
During winter beekeepers at the apiary treat for varroa with oxalic acid. You take the crownboard off, squirt 5ml down each frame you can see bees on and quickly replace the lid before they get too cold. Warning: even though this is a quick visit the bees may not be happy, wear your beesuit! One of the local beekeepers didn’t bother with a suit last year and got stung right on the nose.

Saving money
A subject very dear to every beekeepers’ heart…

  • Entrances: entrances can be reduced (to help prevent robbing) using strips of rubber foam found in skips – though someone pointed out that the foam may have been used for construction purposes and sprayed with all sorts of nasty chemicals
  • Varroa monitoring boards: cut up estate agent’s boards
  • Swan/goose feathers: perfect for brushing bees off frames. Someone reported that using a turkey feather made his bees angry! At Christmas time your butcher may be able to give you a feather, or a trip to the local park, poking around by the duck pond, might pay off.

Edit: recommend this blog post – 25 really simple beekeeping tips – for further money saving advice.

From left to right: John (holding the smoker), Andy, Don, Cliff. Beekeepers in the snow!

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26th June 2010

Posted on June 27, 2010 by Emily Scott

Yesterday I combined our two hives back into one. For this trick, I used some special equipment: two sheets of newspaper.

The two hives had previously been one before back in May, but were split because queen cells were found. Queen cells were soon discovered in both hives, and after about a month of no brood one hive finally had a mated laying queen. After some false starts of hatched queens who seemed to go missing, the other hive had a hatched queen cell this week. However, we decided to combine the two as both hives were getting weak after so long without brood. A new virgin queen may take up to two weeks to go on her mating flight, navigate back past birds looking for a tasty meal and start laying her eggs – from which new female workers take 21 days to hatch. So losing your queen causes a great gap in colony production.

Combining hives goes like this: brood box, sheet of newspaper with a few nicks made in it with a hive tool, other brood box, super and roof on top. The newspaper will be chewed through by the bees in about 24 hours, giving them time to accept each others’ scent. The two queens will fight it out to the death – I’m hoping the slightly older one already laying will win, but that may not be the case.

The flying bees from the second hive, now on top of the first hive, came back to where their hive used to be and circled round in confusion, poor things. Must be frustrating to come back from a hard day’s nectar collecting and find your home vanished.

Another hive in the apiary has some very aggressive bees at the moment, and while I was in the separated off area where we all drink tea one went for me. It burrowed into my hair and after some attempts to get it out it predictably stung me. My head now has a sore lump 😦

Bee fact of the day: a queen in her prime is capable of laying over 2,000 eggs a day.

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5th June 2010

Posted on June 27, 2010 by Emily Scott

Went beekeeping today. The bee inspector came to the apiary three weeks ago; she split our hive into two as it had queen cells. Last week I frantically made frames to fill up the hives, not my favourite task as it involves lots of noisy hammering, usually of my fingers.

Today I lit my smoker easily for a change, using scrunched up newspaper and sawdust. The trick seems to be to light the newspaper in multiple places and then add sawdust whilst slowly puffing the bellows. I opened the bigger hive first and found: some honey, no brood, no eggs, no queen, an opened (hatched) queen cell and a closed queen cell. Exactly the sort of thing you don’t want to see.

Luckily Andy, one of the apairy bee experts, was there to help me. He asked one of the other beekeepers if we could take a frame of eggs and larvae from their hive. The idea is that if something went wrong with the two queens in reserve (the one out and one in the cell), for example they died, the bees would be able to raise a new queen from the fertilised eggs from the other hive. But hopefully the hatched queen will have been out mating in the lovely weather and we will see eggs by next week. If the other queen hatches the new queen will probably kill her; the colony is too small for the queen to go off with a swarm.

A minute or so after putting the new frame in I noticed the tone of the bees’ humming changed, became higher pitched and more intense. I may be guilty of anthropomorphism here, but they sounded…excited! They now have brood to care for, little bees to bring up. Next I moved on to the next hive, a smaller colony of about five frames. Again, they had only honey, no eggs or brood, and FIVE hatched queen cells, an enormous number. There must have been some vicious fights going on in the darkness. One cell had been chewed open from the side, which Andy said was a sign the worker bees had done this to kill the developing queen, as no further queens were needed. An execution!

Again, hopefully the surviving new queen, who must be super tough to have dispatched all her sisters, will have mated in the last couple of days and start laying eggs soon. Both colonies were very calm and sweet, a good sign. On Tuesday night I have my first revision course session for taking my Basic Beekeeping exam in early July, exciting! I want to do really well, as being younger than the other beekeepers I feel under pressure to prove I’m not completely young and ignorant. Alternatively I will settle just for passing the thing. The exam lasts an hour and is a practical exam. I will need to demonstrate that I can use a smoker, open up a hive of the examiner’s choice, answer various questions on the hive and disease control, and make up a frame.

The new hive set up:

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