Catch up with previous news stories from the home page in 2008 here:
March 08
The
March meeting was held in our new winter quarters. We enjoyed an
excellent video presentation on the subject of Colony Collapse
Disorder, which outlined the spread and possible causes of CCD, as well
as the huge amount of scientific work underway to better understand
the issues. Rev.
Sam Millar collected information from members about winter losses, and
will collate and present this at a future meeting. The general view was
that losses this winter were greater than expected, although the
reasons were not clear, but are likely to include the effect of verroa
and the difficult weather conditions encountered in February.
April
For
those worrying about slippery decking boards, Dave provided the answer
with an excellent covering layer, so it's now safe for Billy to make a
return. The apiary is tidied, and we even had time to have a look at
the bees. Leo introduced a new nucleus hive: Next month he will begin a
series of inspections/ demonstrations for those who need a bit of
guidance on increasing colony numbers, using the nuc as the source. The
dates of inspections will be posted here.
Sam's
breakdown of our winter losses shows higher than predicted loss across
the club at all levels of experience. The circumstances varied but
Sam's analysis pointed towards Varroa as the most likely link along
with the effects of the poor season, including poorly mated new queens
which accounted for a disproportionate number. The full detail will be
here soon. Meanwhile if you need help with the ready reconer for varroa
level estimation, its on the Varroa link.
May
There
was a very full attendance during which everyone enjoyed the banter as
Leo provided advice to a theoretical problem that a friend of a member
(and his father) may possibly face in avoiding swarming if he had been
brave enough to face an audience of beekeepers!
The
problem presented was that in a healthy almost full hive with the queen
actively laying, a pair of sealed queen cells had been found in the
middle of adjacent frames. The beekeeper (and his father) would have
decided to remove the old queen and some frames of brood and bees
(effectively creating a nuc.). Their options were to split the
remaining bees into two half colonies each with its own queen cell,
thus creating three colonies, or hope that the requeening would subdue
the swarming instinct. Additionally the theoretical beekeepers were
also keen honey consumers (to keep them young) and wanted a harvest
this year. Would the colony still swarm even though the old queen was
no longer there? (Leo was emphatic in saying that this was a certainty,
and may even have been happening on the outskirts of Limavady as he was
speaking). His plan to avoid swarming and to ensure a productive colony
from this position was as follows: (you'll need to pay attention)
Remove both queen cells Wait five days and remove any further cells raised Do the same after a further five days and after a further five days remove any others produced since.
This would leave the colony with no material with which to create a new queen cell. At this point introduce a frame containing eggs and larvae. After five days remove any sealed queen cells Do the same after a further five days and then remove the remaining open queen cells to one or two decent looking ones. The
period of broodlessness would provide an opportunity to treat for
varroa, and the bees would focus all their activity on creating honey
whilst they had nothing else to do.
A
new queen would emerge and weather permitting would be fertilised and
would assume control. If the new larvae source was from a good strain
this would also provide an opportunity to alter hive behaviour.
You've
got to be impressed! Certainly the theoretical beekeeper would have
been, if he had been there with his distinguished father. (You needed
to be there as this does seem to have lost something in the translation)
The
discussion turned to the dilema of how much of the bee population
should be given over this year to bee production, and it did seem as
though most beekeepers would be attempting to grow their bee numbers.
The reports of major bee losses across the country were discussed. Some
discussion took place about the merits or otherwise of purchasing
imported queens, but there was some support for attempting to breed
local bees with viral resistance from the surviving colonies of native
blacks.
June 2008 Summer lecture, Sat 5th July Michael
Young introduced Robert Brewer & Keith Fielder to a packed
auditorium of members of RVBKA and guests from a wide area. Robert gave
an overview of the current knowledge base on Colony Collapse Disorder,
including the current lines of research. Amongst those that have
already been discarded are alien abduction and the laundry basket of
the fourth dimension where stray socks also disappear! He appeared
confident that the current strands of coordinated research would find a
cause, but suggested that in the meanwhile, the secret of avoidance of
CCD lay in good beekeeping husbandry, nurturing bee colonies and
avoiding risks including chemical toxins, infection and infestation. Keith
Fielder followed with a presentation on the Small Hive Beetle which is
not yet present in Europe but which has spread quickly across USA. The
beetle can withstand poor conditions, extremes of temperature and can
decimate weak and small bee colonies in a matter of days. The
combination of Acute paralysis viruses, Varroa, small Hive Beetles and
Colony Collapse Disorder makes American Beekeeping interestingly
challenging, and that's before you ring fence the apiary with electric
fences to keep the bears out! A collection of over £180 was raised towards our Zomba project.
June meeting
Rev.
Sam Miller lead a discussion on the abnormally high winter losses, and
his analysis of the causes. We intend to perform an annual colony loss
audit (See science section for a summary of 2008)
Notably
in this year's audit almost half of the respondents colonies had died
out (45% loss) in the winter or early spring. Sam linked this to the
fact that no-one had treated for Nosema as Nosema Apis has until
recently been seen as a minor problem. The emergence of the more
virulent Nosema Cerana, a varroa vectored gut fungal/spore disease
could account for the heavy loss, which seems to coincide with varroa
increase. As this pathogen is dispatched along with Nosema Apis using
standard treatments, it is clear that this should be recommended this
year during the autumn feeding regime. Interestingly Sam's conclusions
are supported by National Bee Unit research available via their website
and just published in Beecraft (July 08)
Billy
entertained everyone with his tale of a recent swarm that he assisted
with. He may have turned out with a little more equipment than he
actually needed, but the moral of the story was it's always best for an
old boy scout (or young beekeeper) to bee prepared.
There
was an excellent turnout including some new members, and a decision to
expand our clubhouse brood box rather than risk beekeeper swarming was
taken. You may need a spade or saw before the summer is out.
July 2008 at RVBKA
The RVBKA BBQ See
Dave's photos of the BBQ in our club photos section. He looked after
photography while Billy was in charge of car parking...! The
head count varies but we had in excess of 50 attending which kept the
chef (David) busy, he managed to provide a burger, a hot dog and a
chicken drumstick for everyone. This was accompanied by a good
selection of salad dishes, wine and soft drinks. and followed by the
essential for any good bee meeting .... a cup of tea with cakes and
biscuits. As
you will see from some of the photos it was a wet evening but the large
marquee (9m.x 3m.)made for a very enjoyable and "cosy" event. As well as enjoying an evenings craic, we raised £285 to add to our fundraising for The Zomba Project
August @ RVBKA
If you missed our most recent meeting (20 August) you'll need to catch up on the news Firstly
note the change of date for the next meeting which will be in the LCDI
building Limavady on 6th Sept. Our honey show is ready to go, and all
the details are now on the honey show page. Other beekeeping
association honey shows that we know about include Dromore on 6th Sept
and the first to be held at Randalstown & District (Wed 17th Sept).
What
you should be doing (apart from emptying the rain out of your wellies)
includes trying to get your bees a warm dry day or two before the ling
heather season finishes. If the season is finished then you will be
starting your autumn build up feeding regime. Rev Sam Miller suggested
that in addition to adding a little Fumidil B to the sugar/water
feeding mixture that it might also be worth considering making up a
stronger sugar/water/fumidil solution to be used in a rose sprayer to
spray onto the bees and frames. That way you'll get a head start on
clearing the residual Nosema. If your varroa colony is expanding
quicker than your bees you might want to consider reducing the burden
by the use of Apiguard now, so that your November Oxalic Acid treatment
will clear the remainder for winter. If you have turned this year to
increasing colony numbers rather than re-uniting after artificial
swarms etc, you'll now have small colonies which need to be built up by
intensive feeding (and you'll have nothing for the honey show!) .
Remember that you need to feed all your colonies not just the weak
ones otherwise they'll begin to rob. Arthur's suggestion is to equalise
colony sizes by giving the smaller colonies a frame or two of sealed
brood from the larger ones, assuming they are small because of weather
related slow build up and not because of disease. Leo showed members a
brood frame in which the queen had degenerated to drone laying, and
suggested that the sudden change in weather had resulted in reduced
mating opportunities. It probably affected the bees too. He also showed
us a lovely looking frame of sealed honey, which nearly disappeared
into the back row of the audience. Everyone tried to befriend Sid who
was also in the back row (see below), but as he comes from North Antrim
it would take more than us few beekeepers to wrestle a case of wine out
of his grip (Congratulations!). RVBKA Member scoops magazine prize
Sidney
Carruthers pictured with the nuc which he created from a used wooden
hamper box, (left) and which won a hansome prize courtesy 'Delicious'
Magazine, Sept 2008 (Also pictured is the winning entry) Suddenly he's our most popular member.
Of note in Sid's nuc is the half
frame arrangement designed by Henry which allows adjoining frames to
interlock for transfer into a full size box. You can see the top bar arrangement through the transparent lid.
September
RVBKA is fortunate to have contacts who can provide us with access to scientists at the cutting edge in Beekeeping research. Our
recent Autumn lecture on CCD by Dr Jamie Ellis, was both entertaining
and interesting. Dr Ellis Professor of Entomology at the Honey Bee
Research Laboratory at University of Florida, indicated that there are
around 2.4 million bee colonies in USA and that a substantial
beekeeping income source involves shipping bees extraordinary distances
to pollinate crops in California, Washington and Florida. He indicated that the number of colonies in USA has been declining since the 1940s
and that normal losses of 10-20% had been accepted until the present
crisis emerged in 2006, when reports of loss of >50% emerged. Not
all losses relate to CCD, although many beekeepers believe they are.
There has been a considerable hysteria about the disease, which is
characterised by loss of adult bees in a situation in which capped
brood and stores of honey and pollen are abandoned, and where predatory
robbing does not then occur. Dr Ellis postulated that the causes may be
found in a number of factors working singly or together. These include
Existing bee diseases like foul brood
Monocultured
queens lacking genetic diversity and being susceptible to disease (The
2.4 million Queens in USA apparently Originate from less than 500
sources)
The insectasidic properties of GM crops
The stresses on bees of travel across great distances
Lack of width in nutrition
The effects of varroa including beekeepers use of insectasides to eliminate them
The emergence of new pathogens like Nosema Cerena
Chemical toxins concentrated by bees during foraging.
He
indicated that it was likely that CCD was multifactorial, and raised
the interesting point that robbing did not occur, thus speculating that
the conditions inside the hive were in some way toxic. His
talk concluded with some possible future research and scientific
avenues including double strand RNA technology which may be harnassed
to switch off growth, maturation or vital developmental stages in
pathogens by using a detailed understanding of the predators own genome
to identify vulnerabilities.
Dr Ellis's talk can be found at this link to his University of Florida website http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/IN720 (click on the web address URL)
Dr
Ellis has also kindly suggested that if RVBKA members would like to
make contact with him that he would be happy to respond to email
questions. Amazingly he has given us access to his email address! If you want to make contact with him click on this link Dr.J.Ellis
Bee watch 2008
A Master class in building your colonies; Follow RVBKA build bee colonies starting with a 4 frame nuc in April
By
mid May, the club nuc had expanded from brood covering 4 frames to
eight. At that time the decision was made to add an additional brood
box. By the end of the first week in June the second box was almost
filled, and in mid June both boxes were full and ready to begin the
process. The Apiary Manager found the queen (no small task in a double
borod chamber with new beekeepers watching over his shoulder), and she
and several frames and a couple of 'shakes' of bees were placed in a
nuc box and removed to 2-3 miles away. The remainder of the hive was
reassembled. We now have a hive with plenty of eggs larvae and brood at
various stages, but no queen. The emergency queen cells created will
initially be sealed around older larvae, and these should be removed
after 5 days so that the younger larvae fed from the beginning on royal
jelly, will form the source of our new queens.
Soon the colony had extended into two brood boxes. The Queen was taken
out along with a couple of frames of sealed brood and attendant nurse
bees and removed from site to form a new nuc (2-3 miles away). The now
queenless colony was closed and left to realise they had no queen and
needed to make emergency queen cells. After five days any that were
being sealed were removed (as these would have been formed around older
larvae who would make poor queens. The colony neede a few more days
after which time the frames containing queen cells were taken out to
form new nucs with enough bees, brood and supplies of pollen and honey
to start them off. It's then just a matter of patience whilst a queen
emerges, destroys any other queens that are yet to hatch, matures,
undertakes mating flights and begins to lay. The net result should be
five or six new nucs with sealed brood visible after three weeks.
The result? six nucs with mated queens ready for autumn buildup and overwintering. November Meeting report
The
main items of discussion were the now annual RVBKA beekeepers survey of
winter loss. You can see last year's report in our Science section
(from the index on the left hand side of this page). The survey will be
repeated and extended, and the proforma is now in final draft. Billy
will circulate in due course (and of course it will also be available
here). It seems that other NI Beekeeping Associations will be following
our lead this year, with the intention of building a detailed base of
evidence to identify the trends and in the hope of learing some lessons.
David
reported from his conversations at the recent Institute of NI
Beekeepers meeting, on his conversations with Jim Nicholson MEP, on the
anticipation that exists that EC funds may be provided to assist
Beekeepers identify disease patterns. There is much anticipation of
this announcement when it comes.
David
also reported a successful handover of responsibility for the INIB 2009
conference which we will host on 31st October 2009, in Limavady. We
will be keeping a close eye on he buildup so keep RVBKA.co.uk
bookmarked.
Also of note was the news that James Houton our own
honey show champion has struck again, winning no less than six firsts
in class along with Best in Show at the Institute of NI Beekeepers
Autumn Conference. Congratulations once again.
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Archive pages:
September 
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