June Newsletter

Dear Members

This year seems to be flying by! We’ll soon be half way through it. The practical classes have now finished. We had 20 people attending including an 8 year old and 3 enthusiastic young men under 14. They were a lovely crowd again, a pleasure to teach. 11 of them are going to take the basic assessment and we wish them every success. We must thank Chris Stephens and Cliff Rose who gave up their weekends to help with the teaching. It meant we had three groups around hives which is more manageable. The first weekend was beautiful and they got into the hives straight away which was lucky as this weekend was a total washout weatherwise.

This provides an ideal opportunity to see how other members keep their bees, discuss problems and pick up and exchange ideas and see our beautiful countryside as well.

Dave Williams will accompany you and will be looking at the hives with you so it should be a fun day but also informative.

We are going to the North of the region this time. Andrew Gilliat is kindly inviting us to Shobdon. We will then go to Dan and Suzanne to see their hive and we will have a Bring and Share Picnic at Bearwood. We will then go a couple of miles up the road to visit Geoff Hardy. If you cannot make it to Shobdon but want to go straight to Suzanne or Geoff the phone nos are Suzanne 01544 388302 and Geoff 01544 388089

From Hereford, take the A4110 through Canon Pyon and past Kingsland to its junction with the B4362 at Mortimers Cross.

Turn left onto the B4362 at Mortimer's Cross and take the 2nd turning on the right at top of the hill and follow the signs to

Shobdon Church and Arches.  This takes you to a cross roads which you go over and continue to follow the signs to the church. Carry on past the cricket field on the right and church on the left. Go straight ahead into the "industrial" area and past the car park. At the end of the car park and opposite a large industrial building turn left; you will

see a white cottage 80 yds ahead and Garden House is just beside it on its left.

 From Leominster, go past Kingsland on the B4360 in the direction of Knighton. About 1 mile after Kingsland you come to Mortimer's Cross, then follow the instructions as for route from Hereford.

 Coming from any other direction,get to Shobdon, carry on towards Ludlow on the B4362 and 0.5 miles out of the village you will see signs to Shobdon Church, follow these and the last bit is as shown above. Andrew

Thank you for those Andrew, I am really impressed!

As far as we know this event is still on and we will be taking the Association Stand. To find out further details please ring Suzanne on 01544 388302.

Dave and Chris Stephens will be showing you how to extract your honey, subject to us having any honey. Someone has told us they will bring a super or two. Hopefully there will be more honey around than the last two years!

This was a very well organised day but unfortunately the weather was abominable and things closed down earlier than expected. We were very pleased to attend however and hope things will be better next year. Jane’s candle rolling for children was very popular. Thanks to David Bannister for collecting and returning the stand.

Okay here we go again! All too often we have seen good starts to the season then subsequently turning bad later on. I think we are enjoying one of these at the moment.

The bees seem to have had quite a good time up to now. There seems to be quite a bit of swarming; many people ringing to say they have them. We have reports of bees

doing odd things; bees coming out and resting for a while then going back into the hive. We have seen this in the past. It is quite a good idea to place an empty hive in your home apiary. If bees do strange things there is always the chance they will go in that empty hive. Place it about 7 feet off the ground, they seem to prefer that and you will stand a good chance they will go in. Try to keep swarming to a minimum and under control if possible. We have all met the beekeeper who does not have them! I would take that with a pinch of salt! It is quite natural. What about that odd swarm which you collected? Do you put it with your bees or do you keep it separate? Yes! I hope you do - swarms can be a source of disease. Keep them isolated till you have seen your brood and checked for disease. This is where records can be of great assistance. I have said before it is a good plan to have what I call a ‘movement’ book so that you can keep a check on them. It need not be too elaborate but it is an immensely valuable tool to have at your elbow. If you are a person with three or four hives at home and you do not move them around you do not have the same problems, but it is still good practice to mark individual components from each hive to try to keep them separate. Of course once you are experienced and can recognise disease this takes away some of your concerns. I use ordinary chalk to mark my components- it can be removed with a damp cloth without permanently marking it. With a bit of luck the weather will come good and you will all have full supers. It seems many beekeepers are turning to medication thinking this is good practice. I personally would urge all beekeepers to refrain from this way of supporting our bees. We do not want our bees to become reliant on various treatments to survive. In the long term it is far better to let them develop naturally, we have all seen what happens when we interfere too much. Of course if you have a specific problem then it is quite normal and justifiable to help your bees. Most problems can be overcome if you are prepared to work at it. New Queen's will go a long way to putting things right. A colony of bees may be poor one year and quite good the next year. We have seen this many times before. I hope this has given you a few things to think about

If you are interested in a site near Ross please contact:-

They are in the Rudhall Valley close to J3 M50. They have 2 acres altogether with a mixture of habitats ranging from the brook itself and 2 ponds that drain into it in the front garden/ wild flower area, 40 odd metres of ‘wild’ hedgerow and a small orchard and field at the back of the property.

Last month there was adverse criticism about the Government deciding to continue to allow the use of neonicotinoid pesticides, despite there being some evidence that these chemicals could be harmful to honeybees. Their use had been stopped in Germany, France, Italy and Slovenia.

On 27 April I wrote to Hilary Benn, the Secretary of State for Environment Food and Rural Affairs about this and have had the following reply from Edward Heywood at the Chemicals Regulation Directorate. Hilary Benn passed on my letter to him for reply, the CRD being the Government body responsible for regulating pesticides in the UK.

"Controls on pesticides work at a number of levels, initially by identifying and managing risk. Pesticides can only be sold or used after they have been approved by Government Ministers following review by the independent Advisory Committee on Pesticides. As part of this approval process, CRD carries ouit checks to ensure the risks which can arise from the use of these products are reduced to acceptable levels. This will include an assessment of the toxicity of each product and the ways in which spray operators, the public or environment (in particular honeybees) may be exposed to it. We routinely restrict the way products can be used (eg specifying dose rates, timing and place of application) to ensure protection of human health and the environment. Section 3.8.5 of the Code of Practice for using plant protection products also sets out measures to be taken by spray operators to protect bees.

There were very specific circumstances in Germany which led to the incidents of significant losses of bees last year, including the use of insufficient sticker and the timing of sowing of treated seed (at the same time as neighbouring flowering crops). Initially the German authorities withdrew approval for 8 products used on maize and oilseed rape but since then, Germany has re-instated the use of 4 products containing imidacloprid (one of this group of pesticides) for use on oilseed rape. Later in the year, Italy and Slovenia took action on similar products. The Slovenian action followed incidents similar to those in Germany, but the Italian action, as far as we are aware, is based on the German experience and is a precautionary measure while it develops a monitoring system similar to the Government's Wildlife Incidents Investigation Schenme (WIIS). France has had its own restriction on sales and use of certain neonicotinoid pesticides since the 1990's. However, some neonicotinoids are still approved for use in France. Acetamiprid is approved as a foliar treatment on a range of crops including orchard fruits, vegetables, flowers and tobacco. Imidacloprid is approved as a seed treatment for cereals and sugar beet and as a foliar treatment on orchard fruits. Thiamethoxam is approved as seed treatment on maize, whilst Thiacloprid is approved as a foliar treatment on orchard fruits and flowers.

These restrictions and the reasons for them have been discussed at European meetings and other international flora, such as the 10^th International Symposium of the International Commission for Plant-Bee Relationships (ICPBR) on Hazards of Pesticides to Bees in Bucharest on 8-10 October 2008. This meeting considered information on the systemic insecticidal seed treatments that have been implicated in incidents involving honeybees. There was no new scientific evidence presented to suggest a need for action with regard to UK authorisations of such products. There have not been any bee incidents reported to date under WIIS which could be connected to the use of seed treatments.

CRD will continue to be involved with the development of bee risk assessment methodology, particularly through the revision of the European Plant Protection Office risk assessment scheme and guidelines which were also discussed at the ICPBR. CRD would, of course, act on any substantive evidence should incidents occur in the UK and we will also continue to keep abreast of research and developments in other EU Member States and elsewhere to see if they are relevant to the UK."

For the first time in many years we have found American Foul Brood (AFB) in an apiary in Mid Shropshire, an area which has been free of this problem for a long time.

This was directly attributable to the beekeeper (in this case unknowingly) feeding a jar of 'foreign' honey bought from a local shop and put on a hive as a bit of a fillip’ for his bees.

Many of you will have heard me several times in my presentations, warning about the dangers of feeding your bees with 'foreign' honey i.e. honey bought from your local shop or supermarket that is labelled 'produce of more than one country' or 'a blend of EU honeys’.

Nor 'honey from the sunny countries of the world' or similar, as well as non-EU speciality honeys,

Please don’t do this, not as a treat for your bees or even as an emergency feed. Most of these honeys are produced in countries where they do not have the same strict disease control methods that we enforce in the UK, and foulbrood spores can readily be found in all of these honeys which are often blends of honey from several countries.

If you do feed your bees with honey, do ensure it is from your own disease-free colonies, or from a known source which you are confident is disease free.

Very sadly, as required, we have had to destroy this beekeepers’ bees, together with some of his equipment, and a thorough examination of all the known apiaries in the area will now have to be carried out.

Interested in beekeeping as a means to reduce poverty in developing countries?

Looking to learn more?
Join

Bees for Development’s

One Day Training Programme
Friday 19 June 2009 Monmouth

Further information info@beesfordevelopment.org

tel 016007 13648

If you are looking for a swarm then please let me know as obviously we are the first people who are contacted when swarms appear.

Even if you do not really want a swarm would you be willing to help members of the public by removing one in your area. Would you be prepared to help a new beekeeper to collect a swarm? If so, again please let me know.

Association Extractor for hire.

Deposit of £40 plus a hiring fee of £10 for the first hire, but only £5 for subsequent hire in the same season. The Extractor is usually kept at Golden Valley Apiaries and is available to members. Give us a ring if you would like to hire it, likewise if you would like to borrow any books from our Library.