The Basingstoke Beekeeper

Spring 2007

Contents

Apiary Update

I took a few days during the winter to cut back some of the encroaching plants in the apiary. If you haven't visited during the winter, when you do you'll find things a little tidier and more spacious. I've cut away a few hazels, some assorted dead, broken or fallen branches, brambles and so on.

Both of the Association's colonies have been flying and David Purchase took Varroa drop papers to one of the bee course evenings for training and also for a count of the mite drop. The counts were quite low and presently give no cause for concern.

I've changed the apiary meeting dates to Saturdays as they're more convenient for me. I hope that isn't too inconvenient for others. The first of these is planned for April 7th and, all being well, will include a first shook swarm of one colony for comb renewal. I'll save the other colony for the beginners' course the following weekend, where we'll do the same and also look at the progress made by the first colony. Time I waxed and wired some frames, I think!

This year, they'll definitely not be left a super to get into and set up in independence.

As we have only two Association colonies at the moment, I will look towards making an increase, probably at the May meeting by either a split, or by artificial swarm if that's the way things look on the day.

The year has started very mild again, but also gone cool as it did last year. Hopefully this time, a short cool spell will check the bees a little, but will not go on for several weeks as it did last year. It rained quite a bit over the winter, so hopefully more plants will yield nectar during the coming year than did during last years cold-spell then desert-spell.

The beginners' course over the winter went well as usual, with a full house of students throughout. Most or all of whom are now raring to go for the forthcoming year, so it'll be good to see yet more new faces looking at bees.

Yet another reminder seems reasonable that Apistan resistant mites cannot be long away now. We've done extraordinarily well to avoid them so far, but it can't last forever. By the end of last year they were on Salisbury plain and in parts of the south of Hampshire. Be ready for them. Don't risk losing your bees by being complacent.

Remember the tenets of Integrated Varroa Management ... monitoring and treating when and as appropriate for the time. Remember that open floors seem to offer far more benefits than disadvantages in the UK. The cooler open hive in winter gives a greater chance of the queen stopping laying and as a consequence, the mites having a much harder time surviving.

If you're planning to use ApiGuard, don't leave it too late. ApiGuard really needs some warmth to work well. Whilst you may well get away with treating in September with Apistan, the risk with late treatment with ApiGuard is a poor mite kill. As with Apistan, Early August is about the optimum time, but now for two reasons ... effectiveness of kill and giving time for the colony to rear sufficient healthy winter bees.

A quick reminder of some methods that work to a greater or lesser extend ... Shook swarms, modified Pagden and similar artificial swarm, open mesh floors, drone trapping, queen/brood trapping, ApiGuard, Exomite, talc, icing sugar, some acids, natural brood-rearing breaks like swarming and June gap. There are plenty of methods and techniques to choose from.

Don't forget that the Central Science Laboratory has an on-line Varroa calculator and online advice about managing Varroa. Their new Bee Base website offers lots of useful bee-related information and advice. http://beebase.csl.gov.uk/. You'll find the Varroa stuff under Bee Diseases. You'll also find here information on the foul-broods, other bee diseases and "Exotics" risks.

Gordon

Chairman's Notes

by Eric Denton

My apologies for missing the February meeting, however we were on a study tour in New Zealand at the time.

Our tour consisted of farm visits intermingled with Tourist Venues. Our first visit was to Rangitoto Island, in Auckland harbour. The island is an uninhabited non-active volcano where wildlife and natural vegetation are encouraged. We rode on a trailer around the island and eventually climbed to the crater. Much of the vegetation is the Manuka, a plant that looks similar to our Blackthorn and has small white flowers. The guide told us that about 16T of Manuka honey is produced annually from this small island about two miles in diameter. An interesting project transporting the hives, which are only there for the flowering season, as with around 50lb of honey per hive, that would need over 600 hives. Not really a job for the tourist ferry.

We travelled on both islands and spotted hundreds of hives, usually in groups of 12 to 20 and looking very commercialised. Many had three to four brood-box supers. I went to look more closely at one such group after first discussing with the farmer whether the two bulls sharing the same field were friendly.

All the tourist stops had large displays of bee products -- honey, royal jelly, propolis capsules, polish, candles etc.. Manuka honey sold at about \pounds 10/lb. We were often provided with Manuka honey for breakfast -- it is a very pale runny honey with a pleasant flavour.

On the home front, the oil seed rape seems well advanced, but the colonies are not yet large enough to gain full benefit. Perhaps the forecast of a cold week will slow things down a bit.

We have some leaflets about Hampshire Beekeepers' Association's 125th Anniversary Show at the Sir Harold Hillier Gardens, Ampfield, nr Romsey. I hope we have enough of these leaflets that everyone will get a copy, but if not and you're one of the unlucky ones, there's a display in this newsletter, giving the essential details. Ed. Last Autumn the Committee decided that we would attend with a stand, but we had great difficulty finding details until quite recently. We have chosen for our display "Pollen and Pollination". David Purchase is the co-coordinator of our display on one table about 6ft/2m long, which will be under cover. Other Associations are putting on other themes. We are in need of a teams to man the display especially on the Saturday. The county is also in need of volunteers to man communal display, car parking, stewarding, etc.

If you are able to help for a few hours on either day it would be much appreciated, so please let us know:

David Purchase
David Coppock
Eric Denton 01256-882244

Many thanks,

Eric

Small Ads

EC Bee Regulations

Standards and Regulations in Apiculture

You may already have heard a little about the new Standards and Regulations in Apiculture, though it has received rather sparse coverage. Neither DEFRA or the BBKA have been able to to make any clear announcements on the matter until recently, when the final draft was scheduled for ratification in Brussels early next month.

The regulations have a number of aims and have a number of aspects that will directly affect the way British Beekeepers manage their bees and their bee products.

Some of the regulations are aimed at standardising equipment across the EU and reducing the huge number of variants of equipment that currently have to be produced. In the future, getting MD frames to fit into National brood boxes will become a thing of the past.

Bee stocks will be standardised at 40,000 worker bees per colony and not more than 500 drones per colony. Worker bees must not exceed 20mm in length whilst queens and drones will have a maximum length of 25mm. Colour will be standardised to shades between Pantone 101 and Pantone 130 (a group of soft yellow/brown colours), except in the case of Appellation class bees, which may may have "distinguishing features peculiar to the geographical area".

Hive capacity shall be limited to not more than one cubic metre (about 1½ cubic yards) including supers. Hives shall be standardised around that of the Belgium National hive, which is similar to, but has 6mm smaller floor-plan than the Langstroth, whilst being 44mm higher, similar to the MD.

To reduce both overproduction of honey and over-pollination of certain crops, the regulations now require that hive entrances be kept closed except between the hours of 09:30 and 18:30 each day during daylight saving, i.e., in the UK when we are on British Summer Time. No such restrictions are required during the winter (GMT) period.

Imports of queens from non-EC countries will stop and only strains from EC approved breeders will be be authorised for general sale within the EC. At present the only approved strain is the "Strasbourg Queen", an F1 hybrid at present produced by only one breeder, MEP Monsieur Porfallio.

Honey will at last be sold in true metric quantities. The label must now bear the words "Produce of the European Community", except for appellation areas, which may use their official "Origine" designation. Unfortunately, the UK is excluded from the Appellation system, being constrained to the designation "table honey" until such time as the British people accept that French is the only true international language.

Recipe

Banana, Walnut a Honey Loaf

Butter a 1kg Loaf tin and line it with a strip of baking parchment.

Preheat the oven to Gas mark 4 or 180\degree C.

Mix together the brown rice flour, cornflour, baking powder and nutmeg in a bowl and rub in the butter until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs.

Add the remaining ingredients to the flour mixture and beat until smooth.

Spoon the mixture into the loaf tin and level the surface.

Bake in the middle of the oven for 45 minutes, then loosely cover it with foil to prevent it going too dark and cook for a further 15 to 20 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

Remove the cake from the oven and leave to cool for 15 minutes, then transfer it to a wire rack and allow it to cool completely.

The cake is best eaten within a couple of days, or can be wrapped in a freezer bag and frozen for up to three months.