ECBKA Newsletter November

Transcription

1 ECBKA Newsletter November I see that when I did the October newsletter I commented that the ivy had finished here and my bees had resorted to foraging in my garden. Well, I don't think I have seen it happen before but the ivy had a second flush of flowers, more than the first and the bees have been foraging on the ivy right up until the last day of October. From the activity at the hive entrances and the orientation flights I have seen I would guess that there are still decent sized brood nests in all of them. Good news for winter bees but I will be keeping tabs on how the stores are lasting through the winter. We had quite a heavy frost last night, with more forecast, so that may put the brakes on the brooding for this year. There was a good attendance for our October meeting a talk on a natural approach to beekeeping from Quaerina Chorley and Christine Morgan from Teifiside BKA and I have had positive feedback from members who came along. Probably, most of us will never take the 'natural beekeeping' route but I think the talk showed that it wasn't all or nothing and that elements of the natural approach could be incorporated into any type of beekeeping. Don't forget that we have a Top Bar Hive and Warré Hive at the apiary if you ever want to see one in action (or not in the case of the Warré at present). Our November meeting is on Thursday 10 th and will be a quiz with Frank as the question master. Teams of mixed experience will be formed on the night from those present and team members will be able to confer on all questions so nobody will be put in the spotlight. Even if you are a new beekeeper you will be able to contribute so please come along. Dates Thursday 10 th November 8.00pm Quiz in the Llangadog hall Monday 28 th November 7.30pm Committee Meeting Thursday 8 th December 8.00pm Making cosmetics from hive products with Catherine Jones (Honey Bee Beautiful) Thursday 12 th January pm - AGM The Association Apiary Unfortunately, we have received notice from the owners of our apiary site at Salem that, due to a forthcoming change in their circumstances, we will have to vacate the site by October This does mean that we will have one more full season there but we can't delay in starting the process of finding a new site. The committee does already have some feelers out but if any member has any thoughts, comments or suggestions please let the committee know. committee@ec-bka.com Members are always welcome to attend a committee meeting there's nothing secret going on there. We will be discussing the need for a new site at our next meeting at the end of this month.

2 MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT A CUT-OUT A cautionary tale by Doug Taylor, Part One After seeing a request from Anne Cowell in the ECBKA Facebook Group for help to remove some bees from under two flat roofs that were about to be renewed, I waited for a few days to give anybody keener than me or with any experience of doing cutouts the chance of making contact, but when nobody did I offered to go round and have a look, encouraged by the fact that the house was only ten minutes from home. There were two colonies, one above a one- storey extension and one above a two-storey extension. The nest above the single-storey extension: it looked like it would be an easy entrance to block up, by pushing a sponge into the gap at the end of the fascia board, next to the soil pipe. The nest at the corner above the two-storey extension Some of the fascia board was rotten and, although there was one main entrance at the corner, the bees also had other ways in and out. The position of the guttering and the soil pipe made it more difficult to close the whole area. I decided in the end to use a combination of sponge in the main entrance and plastic damp-proof membrane stapled along and round the fascia, overlapping the asphalt at the top and folded under and stapled to the soffit board at the bottom. I thought duct tape would do to seal the two ventilation holes (with broken mesh) in the soffit board near the nest. The dust extractor, now washed and with a new filter and back in the workshop. After my visit (which turned out to be the first of many over the next two weeks) I formed what I hoped would be a cunning plan to remove the bees and presented it to the house owners, Vinny Ness (now a member of ECBKA) and her partner, Malcolm: Block up the entrances on the evening before the scaffold was to be erected, so that the scaffolders could work without being stung. Then unblock to let the bees out again. After the scaffolding was up remove both nests during the week before the building work was to start. Remove the lower nest first. The procedure planned for each nest was as follows: o As a preliminary step, suck a few bees from around the entrance into my workshop dust extractor to check that they would survive the journey along the 100mm dia. flexible hose into the extractor drum. o Cut a series of 70mm dia. holes in the stirlingboard above the nest (it was going to be replaced) and insert the hose fitting into the holes to suck out as many bees as possible from that part of the nest

3 and keep them safe until it was time to put them into the hive. I reckoned this would give a greater chance of keeping the bees contained than removing the fascia board. o If this didn t work, remove part of the fascia boards to expose the nests and suck as many bees as possible into the drum. o With the nest exposed and most of the bees gone cut out all the comb in the nest, suspend it inside empty deep frames using elastic bands, concentrating on taking comb with brood (and the queen????) and stores. o Put the frames into the hive erected close to the nest. o Transfer the bees from the extractor drum into the hive. o Let the hive settle down a bit (!) and hope that the bees would start fanning at the entrance, suggesting that the queen had been successfully transferred and that the whole colony would follow her and the brood into the hive. o If the bees were collecting/fanning elsewhere suck them into the drum again and pour them into the hive. o After a couple of days close the hive, tape it up for transport and transfer it from the roof to a site a few miles away. o Bring the hive back after a couple of weeks, as Vinny wanted to keep the bees, having done an introductory course a few years ago. o Success criteria would be: a) nests removed from the roofs, b)honey saved and most importantly, c)bees safely transferred to hives. I estimated the chances of getting the queen into the box undamaged as probably less than 50%. Given that we were doing this all in October (a bad time to be doing cut-outs?) if she was killed or damaged during the process the colony would be doomed unless I could find a new queen from somewhere. I mentioned this to Vinny. I also told her this was my first attempt at doing a cut-out. As she was keen to give the bees a chance, rather than pouring petrol into the nest, and as I was the only one to respond to Anne s request, I guess she had no choice. Well that was the plan. Next month I ll report on what went to plan and what didn t and where we are now. Many thanks to Doug (braver than me) for this account and I m looking forward to the next instalment. Marriage, birth or burying, news across the seas, All you re sad and merry in, you must tell the bees. Tell them coming in and out, where the fanners fan, Cause the bees are just about as curious as a man

4 My apologies to Fred for omitting his recipe for his First Prize show winning mead in the October edition. I managed to file it away a bit too enthusiastically and have only now managed to locate it. Fred's mead recipe. To make 1 gallon. 2 1/2 lb honey or 3-3 1/2 for a sweeter result 2 teas. Yeast nutrient. (Double normal amount) 1 Vitamin B1 tablet 4 teas. Acid blend. 8 parts malic, 4 parts tartaric, 2 parts citric. 1/4 teas. Wine Tannin Wine yeast Follow standard wine making procedures in conjunction with these notes. I use honey rinsings from cappings, extractor, tank, etc and then adjust the SG to using a Hydrometer. Do not boil or even heat the must, add 2 campden tablets and leave for 24 hours before adding the yeast. This will do all the sterilising you need. Adjust the acidity to just over ph 3 using test papers. The acids listed are not essential, citric acid or lemon juice can be used. Initial fermentation can be vigorous, so keep a close watch on it and move to a cooler place until it calms down. Rack after 2 weeks to remove wax, pollen and other bits in case they affect the taste. New beekeepers: Don t forget to remove queen excluders for the winter. You don t want your queen getting left behind on her own.

5 Frank s November Notes 2016 I had a look at some of my hives on the last day of October as it was so warm in the sunshine, I could smell the ivy just standing in the apiary and was pleasantly surprised that they were still finding plenty of ivy pollen and presumably nectar as well to forage on. It s a distinctive, fragrant smell and not surprisingly produces a strongly flavoured honey. I ve never taken any off but beekeepers sometimes do, it has a reputation for granulating hard and fast and for that reason being an unreliable winter honey store but I ve not had a problem with it clogging up the hive. My hives have held their weight since I finished feeding and I ve been round putting polystyrene insulation under the roofs, taking off the last feeders and cleaning the inserts under the mesh floors As we managed to make hay this year rather than silage, I can t say that the summer has been a washout but we didn t get enough warm, settled weather after the first week in June and before the end of July to produce a good crop of honey. The haymaking weather in August was too late for most forage unless your bees were on the heather. The largely dry October but has been welcome and I m happy with the strength of my hives going into winter, I ve not fed huge amounts of syrup this autumn and hefting the hives now I can feel that they ve mostly held their weight OK. Whilst they don t all feel like they re nailed to the floor I m confident that they have enough stores to get them through to the spring. I ve had a look in a few of them to see how much late brood rearing is going on, and there s a small brood nest on two or three frames throughout the ones I looked in. It s always reassuring to see a healthy brood nest even if it is only on a few frames now. As it s forecast to get colder with northerly winds, there will be a lot less activity outside and a tighter cluster forming around the diminishing brood nest. Of course the less brood there is, the less heat that the cluster has to provide. While there is brood in the nest the workers need to keep the core temperature at 34 C. That means they have to work hard vibrating their wing muscles in the thorax to generate heat. They can cluster in a more efficient shape when the queen stops laying and allow the cluster temperature to drop down to 20 C, also making for less heat loss. Their main aim is to use as little stores as possible and survive. The cluster will lose less heat if it remains undisturbed, so it s not a good idea to open the colony up or have creatures such as mice or woodpeckers disturbing it. As I ve said before, my hives are on long stands about 450mm above ground level with small entrances and mesh floors so I don t have problems with mice getting in. Green woodpeckers are not that common around here and will only cause problems in cold, snowy weather, however they can make a mess of a brood box if they want to! The roofs are either weighted down with bricks or tied with baler twine, possibly a bit over the top seeing as they are all 6 or 8 roofs, but it s a habit from my WBC days. All we can do is leave the hives as well prepared as possible for the winter and not disturb them any more than is necessary. I ll be going round clipping back the vegetation and oiling the woodwork at some point, but more about that next time.

6 Have you joined the ECBKA Facebook group. For access to the closed group go to the page and click on 'join'. This will notify Doug Taylor or Sharon Davidson who will then add you to the membership. If you are not a Facebook user you can get advice by e mailing memberhelp@ec-bka.com To borrow Association extraction equipment or the Varrox contact Terri equipment@ec-bka.com 2016 Committee committee@ec-bka.com Margaret Watson - Chair Sharon Davidson Secretary Huw Jones Treasurer Paul Davies Frank Gellatly Keith Hall Terri Kill Stephen Smith