BOURNEMOUTH AND DORSET SOUTH BKA BIBBA DAY.

Transcription

1 BOURNEMOUTH AND DORSET SOUTH BKA BIBBA DAY. SATURDAY JANUARY 30 TH On Saturday 30 th January Roger Patterson from BIBBA, the Bee Improvement and Bee Breeding Association, and his dog, Nell, came to West Parley Hall to give us a day on Bee Improvement For All. BIBBA was founded in 1964 to promote native and near native bees. His mission was to persuade, not dictate; saying that we all were different, have different interests, time and knowledge, but we all want to improve our bees. Roger wanted us to change our attitudes; look critically; work with others and enjoy our bee-keeping. He said that he spoke from experience, had tried many bee-keeping methods, hives and bees. Bees should be cheap to run, suit the local conditions, be easy to manage, pleasant to handle and all colonies should produce the same crop. Imported bees are too prolific, need too much food, don t survive long in the wild, noting that swarms are not yellow (and thus imported) bees. We need good queens for breeding that are happy in standard national hives and that need simple management techniques. He would give suggestions and ideas, not say what you should do and would not rubbish other methods. He also said that we should always challenge what we are told, some of which has simply gained strength through repetition and does not stand up to scrutiny. We should remove mental barriers, have a open minds, see what fits, and we must plan our season. Using single national hives, Roger also can use a brood box as a super, getting better comb, foundation that does not go stale, gives comb for the brood chamber and can be moved down for a food comb. To be better bee-keepers we need to be knowledgeable about pests and diseases, manage queen problems, learn, and we need good bees. There are a lot of poor bees out there, we need to cull poor queens, there are many opportunities to improve our bees and it is not difficult. If you look at the first frame that you take out and it is healthy, then the rest of them are likely to be healthy. Bees build queen cells naturally, when we choose one, we are bee breeders. We should assess select cull propagate, that is bee improvement. If you mentally divide your colonies into an A set and a B set, OK and not OK, then replace the B queens with A queens, you will soon build up a stock that is locally adapted and suitable for where you are. 1

2 Roger then went on to discuss what he called Myths in bee-keeping and queen performance. Queens from swarm cells perpetuate swarming. Emergency queen cells give inferior queens. You can t improve mongrel bees. Bad tempered bees give more honey. You need a lot of colonies to improve your stock. You have to work from a docile queen to see an improvement. On queens; a queen should live for 3 to 5 years. She should swarm 0 to 3 times in her life. Supersedure is at the end of the season. Failures are usually in the Spring. Colonies can swarm on supersedure cells. An enthusiast for native or near native bees we were asked why keep poor stock on expensive equipment? We now have poorer quality bees because we import unsuitable queens, we don t cull for disease and we mollycoddle our bees with additives, supplements and insulation. Natural selection gives good bees. Why rear our own queens, why not buy imported queens? The imported queen may have been banked, i.e. not new raised. Imports can be difficult to introduce. They are untested with no laying history. They may be physiologically poor. They may introduce viruses. To start your own queen rearing, which is not difficult you need; To know the life cycle of the bees and the queen. Be able to find the queen. Be able to mark and clip the queen. See eggs and larvae. Know the age of eggs and larvae. Assess colonies. Keep good records. And have a positive attitude. Take care how you count days, is the laying date day one or day zero? For example is a 2 day old larva 5 days in? Decide how you wish to count and stick with it. Roger s method is; have a plan; carry out on-going assessment; every year cull 50% of your queens and raise new queens from the best 50%; be critical; keep it simple. Non prolific bees, i.e. native or near native bees need less work and less feeding, you will find food stored in the brood frame. In a good summer the prolific bee will do better, but 2

3 taking into account feeding, non-prolific bees are best. Colour is a guide to stock, yellow queens mean more prolific, drones and workers are also a good guide. In an outline of bee stock traits, Roger opined that the western honey bee spread from Africa in several directions until isolated by physical or weather barriers and developed sub species. Ligustica. Italian bees. Developed in a warm predictable climate with long summers and short winters, has a long forage period, produces large colonies up to two and a half times as big as the British bee. Carnica. Carniolan bees. From mountainous areas with long cold winters and short warm summers giving plenty of forage. It has small winter clusters, develops very rapidly in spring, is prolific in summer, is swarmy and needs half the food of ligustica. Mellifera. British black bee. Is north of the Alps and the Pyrenees and stretches from the Atlantic to the Urals. Long winters, cool, predictable summers, copes with variable conditions, is non prolific, adaptable, long lived and frugal. It regulates the queen s egg laying rate, flies at lower temperatures, mates in the apiary and is a dark bodied bee. In the UK now we have mongrel bees, but they can be improved if we work together to do so. Your bees should suit your hive, your locality, and your management. Don t buy in exotics. On queens and queen cells. The queen will take 15/16 days to emerge, but can be up to 4 days overdue. She will take 5 days to mature sexually and 3 days to come into lay after mating, but may take longer. Judge a queen not by her size or the amount that she lays but by whether she lays as she should, and use the colony characteristics and performance to guide you. Don t panic if you find a queen cell, look on it as an opportunity. Swarm and supersedure cells are the most found, emergency cells are rare, but the bees can swarm on any type of queen cell. Roger s advice was not to leave two queen cells as the bee may swarm on the first, but to leave only one and to carry out the reduction before the queen cells are sealed. The queen may have emerged and the bees may have sealed the cell post emergence. There is generally a peak queen cell number; that s the number of queen cells a colony will build at point of swarming. The more queen cells the more swarmy the bees; do not use a queen where the colony builds more than 10 to 12 queen cells. Swarm cells can be anywhere on the comb are started in optimum conditions. Queen rearing is good for the ordinary beekeeper as no artificial cells are required. There are usually one to three supersedure cells and they tend to be close together. Emergency cells are built on worker larvae, are rare in the wild, can be difficult to cut out and are often on new comb or the comb edge. When the queen is lost the bees will realise it in about one hour; will get frantic in two hours and start to build emergency queen cells in 8hrs to 24 hrs. They will then build queen cells over the next two to three days, usually from the comb midrib and usually using young larvae. They will build up to their peak queen cell numbers, see above. By using young 3

4 larvae they can raise poor queens which is possibly why emergency queen cells have a poor reputation. A panic cell is often waisted and will give a poor queen. A colony used for cell building should be prosperous and have unsealed food. The colony size is less important than the number of bees on the comb. There will generally be one queen cell per frame and the colony may need feeding. Bees build smooth queen cells and then work on the cell to make it dimpled. The time between removing a queen and introducing a queen cell should be about two hours, beginners should leave about eight hours. Kitchen foil can be used to stop the bees breaking down a queen cell, but ensure that the tip is left clear. So remove the queen, wait about 8 hours, introduce a ripe queen cell, protect it and remove all other queen cells. If A colonies and B colonies both have queen cells, remove the queen cells in the Bs and put in As. If you are not sure if a colony is queenless, put in a frame containing eggs; if they don t build queen cells, they have a queen, even if you have not found her. In the last session of the day Roger went into the more advanced side of queen rearing but he said that it was not a queen rearing talk. Here you would use artificial methods. Using these methods you can raise a greater number of queens; you know their age you can get the timings to suit you and you have more control. Roger mentioned the cell punch ; the Miller method; the Jenter method, the Cupkit and grafting, where you do not need a 000 brush, a 00 or 0 will do as well, but chose a method and get proficient in it. It is prudent to raise twice the number of queen cells that you need. On hive records, keep it simple and, if possible, have everyone use the same format. On queen mating Roger s thoughts are that the queen is mated where she will lay. It avoids dangers and saves time. On drones, expect to have drone comb in 10% to 15% of the laid up area. Roger recommended the Dave Cushman web site, dave-cushman.net that he now manages and the book Principles of Bee Improvement by Jo. Widdicombe. (From 6.38 on Amazon. PD) and the BIBBA web site bibba.com. The day was long but very interesting, We had 70 guests, quite a number from other BKAs and the whole day was conceived and excellently organised by our membership secretary, Alla Neal and her husband, Dave. The charge was only per person, they organised professional caterers, and made a modest profit on the day shared by BIBBA and BADS. Our grateful thanks to them both. 4 PD 12 th Feb 2016.

5 5