The Swarm returns home

After about 10 days at Ravensden,  the Scald End swarm returns home to its nice new full sized hive.
At Ravensden it developed quickly and consumed large amounts of syrup to help make the foundation the colony needs.

I am beginning to run out of space at Ravensden so decided they should go back to Scald End.
Its not a complicated job, just transfer the frames into the new hive with some new frames for them to expand into and add more frames as they need them until they have filled the hive.

Catching bees with Bait Hives

However much a bee keeper tries to prevent his colonies swarming,by doing an artificial swarm, regular adding of supers, removing queen cells etc,  its almost bound to happen and half of the colony disappears over the horizon,
However this can be an opportunity as well as you can collect these swarms from the various places they decide to stop at.
A bee keeper can put out bait boxes and try to attract swarms to the box. To help the process you should try to make the box as 'bee-y' as possible and put a couple of old smelly frames in the box and  smear wax around the inside.
When bees have found their new home some bees will be outside excreting a pheromone. The bee sticks its bum in the air, excretes the pheromone from it  and spreads it by fanning it with their wings. The pheromone tells the other bees 'this is our new home come inside'

This pheromone, known as the Nasonov pheromone, can be synthesised and is sold in phials or swabs.

It is put near the entrance to the bait hive to try and attract the swarm.It has a lemony smell and lemon grass oil can also be used.

At the moment I have two bait hives, one at each apiary.
When I checked them the Ravensden one needed some repairs and the Scald End one was home to a birds nest with some chicks!

I will have one at both ends of both apiaries that could either catch swarms from my hives or other passing swarms.
They are not sophisticated things, the most important aspect is there's plenty of open space and 40ltrs is considered suitable. I make them out of pallets I scrounge from the local farmer.

They are put in trees or along hedgerows.

I would like to have a swarm in my top bar hive.

The problem is the frames that fit 'normal' hives don't fit the TBH so I have made a bait hive with frames that are suitable for easy transfer between the bait box and the hive.

Finally, the swarm I caught at Scald End and took to Ravensden continues to thrive.
I had a quick look this morning and the frames are virtually full.
I will take it back to Scald End early next week and put it in its new home.

Swarming and the rubbish newspapers print

Its started. The swarming season
The three readers of this blog will know I collected a ridiculously early swarm a couple of weeks ago and other swarms are appearing locally.

Queens start laying eggs in March/April and the colony builds up rapidly to about 50,0000 bees at the height of Summer reducing to a few thousand in winter.
The colony itself reproduces and does this through a process called swarming. The swarming season starts in May and can go on until July and essentially the colony splits in two.
For bee keepers it can be a stressful time. Losing half of a colony affects the honey production [assuming they are interested in that, I'm not] and also its considered good practice to try and manage swarming so neighbours don't find a clump of bees hanging from a tree in their garden and have a nervous breakdown.
A colony can swarm many times during the season and late season swarms have little chance of surviving.

Swarming has become a fertile source of 'news' for hack journalists writing for rags like the Mail, Mirror, Sun etc. and the ill informed rubbishy articles are beginning to appear.
This is particularly true of the online editions. Here the function of journalism is to trigger as many 'clicks' as possible as clicks mean advertising revenue. So the headline is crucial to make someone click the article. Whether the article is accurate or actually read is unimportant - its the click that counts.

In the same ways its impossible for anything to be written/or broadcast about motorbikes without some reference to this, its impossible for hacks to write anything about bees without one or more of the following ingredients.

The Pun

When writing about bees journalists have to comply with the Wildlife Reporting Regulations 2010. This places a statutory obligation on them to include one or more childish pun.
To include the words 'buzz' and 'buzzin' [the 'g' must be missing under the Regulations] is considered the minimum acceptable standard under the regulations.

One of the unexpected consequences of this barrage of comedy gold is that A&E departments all over the country have to deal with a sudden influx of people who have been laughing so much at the puns, their sides have split and they need emergency surgery.

The Swarm

Often reference is made to the '80's cult classic The Swarm'
Despite being directed by Irwin Allen ['Poseidon Adventure and Towering Inferno] and having a roll call of Hollywood A-Listers ['Michael Caine, Richard Widmark, Olivier de Haveland, Katherine Ross, Henry Fonda, Richard Chamberlain] it was in fact an absolute stinker, losing millions and considered one of the worst films ever made Its thought by Michael Caine to be one of the worst films he has been in.

Wrong picture

As most people cannot identify honey bees, expect to see pictures that are wrong.
Last year I particularly enjoyed the photograph of the honey bee in the Express. Its either hand knitted or only available from Toy'R'Us.

How crazy can things get when the Police try to deal with them using POLICE TAPE? - everybody know bees can't read POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS.
Also there is no nationally organised count of swarms.

Although not about swarming the picture below is typical of the care journalists take.

An article about honey harvests. With a picture of a bumble bee.

Recently Wales on Line had an article about swarms but showed a picture of a bumble bee. Bumble bees don't swarm. I left a comment and they changed it but left my comment there
Power to the people.

Ludicrous scare mongering

As people seem to like to be scared, articles about swarms are routinely packed full of hysterical nonsense. Again the Regulations operate here and hacks are encouraged to use use words like 'apocalypse', 'biblical', 'terror'.
Here's a slide I use in the talk I give on bees.

As you can see the bees in Ormskirk are so violent these angry, tattooed, baseball wielding stinging insects are even involved in bank robbery.
But by far and away the most disgusting piece of junk journalism has been produced by the Star.

Difficult to know where to start. 'Killer bees' is a favourite of the Star, Sun and other cat litter substitutes.'Killer bees' if they exist at all, are an American phenomenon and not found over here.

If I can be bothered I might do a blog on them.

'Barricades', 'deadly', beasts'. Emotive? Click bait.

I'm always impressed by the hacks ability to judge the size of a swarm. I expect this skill with big numbers comes from having to deal with their bar bills.

The 'And Finally' bit

After the hysterical puns, misleading photos and silly inaccurate scare mongering, the hacks normally finish up with a 'and a local beekeeper came to the rescue.....' paragraph.
Here a local bee keeper risks the wrath of the angry, biblical, apocalyptic, terror bringing, bank robbing killer bees to save the local community. By putting the bees in a box.
Usually there are photos of our hero such as:-

Although the three at the top are all suited up, none of them are wearing gloves and the one in the middle is wearing flip flops.
None of the three at the bottom are wearing any protective clothing at all and the old boy on the left is putting handfuls of bees in a box.I risked instant death from my swarm without gloves or my hood up.
In the right hand photo you can see how classy honey bees are as they are outside Pizza Express and not Pizzahut.

But aren't  bees ' angry, biblical, apocalyptic, terror bringing, bank robbing killer bees.....'?
Here is a video of someone handling ' angry, biblical, apocalyptic, terror bringing, bank robbing killer bees'

Even I have handled swarms without gloves if they are clustered. I do suite up if they are flying as I don't want them flying up my nose or into my mouth.

So what is happening?

Essentially its a simple process. The bees are aware the hive is becoming overcrowded and start making queen cells, where new potential queens develop. A new queen emerges and flies away to mate and returns to the hive

The old queen has been starved, losing up to half her weight, to get her down to a flying weight and she leaves the hive with half of the colony.

The Queen possibly hasn't flow for a couple of years and she won't go far [in my swarms case about a yard!]. The swarm settles down while scout bees look for a new home. When they have found something suitable the swarm moves in so one colony has become two.
The way the bees decide on where to go is an extraordinary process based on the Waggle Dance and possibly the subject of a future blog.

When the bees leave the original hive they are aware it will take time to build comb to store honey in their new home so gorge themselves on honey which they store in their honey stomach.
They become drowsy and increase their weight by about a third, making flying more difficult.
When a bee stings you the stinger is in its 'tail' which curls under to sting you. However the bees are now so large they probably can't bend their abdomen.
Also bees are only defensive when they are protecting their hive and are very docile when swarming. However if people try to set fire to them, spray them with water or attack them [as they do], they may get a little bit irritable. So would I.

So swarms are not dangerous, the bees are not violent, killing psychopaths/ Undeniably when a swarm is flying it can be slightly intimidating and a couple of years ago there was  a huge swarm flying around the road where I live. I suggested, in a Michael Caine voice 'Everyone get inside!'

When I was a wage slave some of us tried to alleviate the boredom of meetings by playing Bullshit Bingo as we would try to spot bits of silly jargon, tired cliches etc.
This Summer amuse yourself by playing Beeshit Bingo with this cut out and keep bingo card.

Today the Express produced this

Honey, varroa and bees

Wot no honey?

Last year was a poor year for honey and for a while now I have been trying to eke out the honey I have until the girls produce some more.
And failed.
I am doing a dog show in Blunham next week and that's it for the time being
In the past I have been able to get local honey from people I know who produce it in commercial volumes but they don't have any either.
Normally the first honey extraction is during the middle of May so I have cancelled some markets until this arrives
However on Sunday I received an email from my bee keeping association saying:-

After a promising start to the season the weather has been unkind to bees yet again. Some of my sites are winter and spring bean and both crops are suffering. The winter bean is not yielding due to lack of moisture and the the spring bean is not growing for the same reason. The forecast for next weekend offers some hope but forecasts are not always correct. Here's hoping they are right this time.

Anyway, due to the lack of a good honey flow some colonies may be struggling, especially strong ones. We have not had many good flying days days so food supplies may be running low. Do check your colonies have enough stores. Colonies in some parts of the county have brought in honey and others haven't. It is a patchy picture.

The Empire expands

I don't normally blog about market stuff but last week I was contacted by Country Fayre, a flower shop in St Neots.

Sandra wanted something different for her shop. Apparently she had come to my stall when I did the market in St Neots and thought it might be an idea to have some local honey on display in the shop , so I am supplying her with honey, marmalade, fudge and honeycomb.
Her website is here

All honey granulates and turns from runny honey to set honey which is quite hard. The process can be reversed by gently warming the set honey although some people like it and prefer its grainy texture.
Recently I was asked by someone I know who also does the Potton market to make creamed honey.
This is half way between runny and set honey and has a buttery texture without the graininess of the set honey.
You need some creamed honey as a seed and you mix it with runny honey making sure you don't get any air in the mixture.
I use a simple paddle attached to an electric drill.

The mixture is left for 5 days.

I took it for Charlie to taste and she's happy with it so expect to see if on my stall at some point in the future. 

Assuming I have any honey to make it that is

Charlie's website is here

Varroa Count

The public demand for the full results of the recent varroa count has been overwhelming, so I am pleased to announce that I have completed checking the varroa boards and that they all have a minimal mite count - all less than 2 a day over the 3 day period I checked them.
One colony had a count of 10 per day, itself nothing to worry about too much but I will check again to see what's happening. If the count increases I may need to apply a varroa treatment.

Since the first trial of my new varroa counting device, I've made changes to it and had Leonardo da Vinci not died 500 years ago and was around to see it, would probably be impressed.

Or possibly not

Bonkers Colony.

During one of the few warm periods I checked Ravensden and they were all busy, however the WBC hive was going bonkers.

It has always been a vigorous colony, feeding well on the autumn feed and was the first colony this year to have a super added to try and reduce itsr swarming tendencies.
I could have just added another super but it seemed likely I had a very good queen and she could use the extra space to lay eggs. This would in turn increases the size of the colony who would then fill the supers more quickly.
I thought I would do a video of this but yet again my camcorder started acting up and turned itself off when it felt like it. Despite working in IT for many years I don't trust it and agree with Douglas Adams that 'technology is a word that describes something that doesn't work yet'
However I have stitched together the bits it felt like recording with some text to fill the gaps.

Propolis and the Apothecaries

Last year I met Julian and Valerie who were interested in the propolis tincture and cream I produce.
If either of you don't know what propolis is, there's a leaflet I give out here,
They reenact medieval medical practices as the Two Apothecaries and they were interested in propolis as an ancient medicine. Their Facebook page is here
I met them again at the St George's Day event where they had my propolis on display.
Valerie and I had a long conversation about honey and hay fever that persuaded me I ought to publish the hay fever blog I did recently.

The Blue Tree

At this time of year I am often asked what sort of flowers people should plant.
There are a couple of leaflets on the web site here. We have a Ceanothus shrub  in the garden and the bees love it.

Swarm Update

Yesterday I had Chloe, the daughter of some friends who live in the village helping me with the bees.

This is the fourth tour of the bees I've done this year with some more provisional bookings.

I understand the English Tourist Board now consider this to be the third most important tourist attraction in the village after the bench outside the church and the house where the second smallest pub in England [the Case is Altered] used to be.

As it was Chloe's first visit we kept to the smaller better mannered colonies and started with the swarm I brought back from at Scald End.

It had consumed two pints of syrup within three days and when I had a quick look yesterday it had nearly gone. When we looked today it had gone completely and Chloe gave them another two pints.

They have got through half a gallon of syrup in less than a week.

They have built up very rapidly and in the gap where I should have put a frame they made a nice little sheet of comb that Chloe had for a souvenir.

As we were looking at the frames the queen very obligingly decided to have a bit of a wander and we both saw almost simultaneously.

In case Chloe hadn't seen her she emerged on the other side of the frame in clear view.

She had a white dot on her back that confirms she had come from one of the hives in Scald End although I'm not sure yet which one.

She now holds the record for the shortest ever swarming flight.

A swarm in April........

There is an ancient bee keeping saying that goes:-

a swarm in May is worth a load of hay; a swarm in June is worth a silver spoon; but a swarm in July is not worth a fly

To which the only reasonable response can be 'Eh??'

What this means is that a swarm at the beginning of the season is good news. The swarm containing the old queen has plenty of time to establish itself in its new home whereas the new queen in the old hive will hopefully have mated properly with the many male drones that are around at the beginning of the season.
The reverse is true for a swarm at the end of the season.

Each year a local bee keeper I know breaks one of bee keeping's Golden Rules - 'You don't go on holiday in May' as this is the start of the swarming season and if a colony swarms when you are not around you could lose half of the bees.
He asked me if I could check for the signs of early swarming in some of his hives and as we at last have had some warm weather I did it yesterday [30th April]. There was nothing to worry about but as I had to go past Scald End on the way home I thought I would have a quick look to see how they were getting on..
As I have only just got another 4x4 I have only managed to make one short visit to put supers on all hives to try to delay swarming.

As I approached the first hive there were a few more flying bees than I expected. Less than a yard away from the hive was a swarm hanging in a bush. Blimey

Update 4th May

I put two pints of syrup in their feeder and after just three days its all gone.
Also bees are bringing in pollen which is a sign she's laying.