Colony for the Top Bar Hive - Part Two

I usually put up some bait hives each year to possibly attract a passing swarm, but without much success.
Because of the generally quiet swarming activity and that a couple of them are difficult to get to, I haven't checked them often.
However on one of my regular trips to Scald End to check the nucs I thought I would have a look at the bait hive at the far end of the apiary.
It was stuffed with bees. And loads of comb.
As far as I could see without opening it up completely, it looked more like a feral colony than a swarm that had just taken residence. I had obviously not checked for some considerable time.

As I mentioned in the previous blog this gave me the opportunity to fill the Top Bar Hive at Ravensden.
However this means trying to combine incompatible hive types and having to deal with a lot of 'raw' comb.

The whole process was a bit intense although it worked out OK in the end.
However:-
 - I will check the bait boxes more frequently in future, and
 - I need to change the design of the bait boxes. A job for the winter.

To see the video of how things turned out click the button.

Hornets

The Hornets are here! Maybe

Its been a week for hornets.
Asian hornets, although not a threat to us, are a real risk to honey bees and they have the endearing habit of decapitating honey bees and feeding the carcass to their young. They can easily destroy an entire honey bee colony.

They have spread across Europe and have reached France and obviously the worry is they will get to the UK.
They are already in Jersey and this appeared recently.

A secondary nest is significantly more worrying as it contains a large number of queens and its the first time this type of nest has been found.

There have been two occasions in the last couple of years where the Asian Hornet has been discovered in the UK. On both occasions it seems to be dealt with.

SomersetLive recently printed an article about another possible Asian hornet sighting.

For the two previous sightings there was an immediate notice sent out by the National Bee Unit to all its subscribing beekeepers and other bee organisations issued press releases, but this time nothing.
As I went through the article it said the 'unconfirmed report' was

issued by a city-based barrister.

This gave the report more credence as its well known city based barristers are far more knowledgeable about hornets than say, country-based barristers.
Later in the article it stated it

was reported by barrister Matthew Scott on Twitter.

A barrister on Twitter.
Coincidentally this occupation was recently voted joint top of a poll of People You Trust Least' along with journalists, politicians and scientists.

Incidentally I  have heard of an unsubstantiated report of Elvis Presley riding a flying unicorn around the Houses of Parliament but its not on Facebook or Twitter so I don't think I believe it.

Although this report is unsubstantiated, there is a substantiated report of a European hornet nest at the bottom of my garden.
Last year I collected a bird box from a local school that the teachers thought had honey bees in it.
It actually had bumblebees but I took it away and put it at the end of my garden where they enjoyed the Summer and I enjoyed having them around.
A few days ago I thought I saw a hornet and tonight I saw one fly into the bird box.
I got the camcorder out and took a few clips.

For those of you who aren't city-based barristers with a Twitter account, the picture below shows the difference between Asian and European hornets.

This is what the RSPB say about European hornets

The hornet's life cycle is similar to that of the common wasp. Newly-mated queens hibernate during the winter, and emerge in spring to begin building a nest. They lay eggs that hatch into sterile female workers who take over nest building and collecting food for the developing larvae. Later in the summer males and fertile females hatch. These mate and the females become next year’s queens. The males, old queen and workers die in the autumn.
Hornets have an unwarranted fearsome reputation, but will only sting humans if attacked.

They are quite impressive and I think I will just leave them alone.

David Attenborough, Facebook and the dying bees.

I did this blog several weeks ago but couldn't be bothered to post it as I thought it would be taken as me just whinging again. However a recent bit in The Mail, or The Source of All Truth' as its known, changed my mind

----ooOoo----

I always thought my blog about honey and hay fever would be my most unpopular blog ever.

However, I think I am about to out do this but before I switch to a secret identify and disappear forever into the Witness Protection Scheme there are a couple of things I would like to say.

Firstly, I consider Sir David Attenborough to be the greatest English of my generation and probably nearly every generation.

To say his television programmes are wonderful is like saying Cadbury Wispa Golds are a bit nice. Can anyone say they haven’t been amazed, stunned, uplifted, thrilled by his programmes?

His programmes are visually stunning, educational, entertaining and numerous other good things all of which are underpinned by the man himself. His intelligence, curiosity and sheer love of his subject matter shines through everything he does, and he seamlessly switches from gravitas to a child like wonder in the subject matter. Something a smug egotist like Chris Packham will never manage.
I will never forget the clip of him with the gorillas in the jungle and his utter joy at being part of the group The clip is here - watch it from 5:40

Secondly, Facebook is a steaming pile of trivia, pointless videos, brainless aphorisms, lies and half truths, pedalling a fake 'community' of 'friends'
Yes, I do have a Facebook page that I was encouraged to start up when I started to sell our honey, but  I soon realised the horror of it all. 

I never look at it, have disabled all notifications and its only use is as a place that this blog is posted. If both of you would sign up to email updates on the blog site, I could put a bullet through the head of the Facebook page that it so richly deserves.

I have posted about the myth of 'if the bees die, we die', which is often attributed to Einstein.
Problem is:-
Einstein was a physicist not and entomologist and never studied bees.
He didn't say it, and
Even if he did, he was wrong.

Yet this gets repeated and repeated until its assumed to be true. Occasionally its discussed at farmer's Markets and I have said Einstein saying if bees die, we die is a bit like David Attenborough saying  E=MC² +1/2.

Then this appeared

A useful, if well known tip but then this:-

“In the last 5 years the bee population has dropped by 1/3. If bees were to disappear from the face of the earth, humans would have just 4 years left to live,” the group wrote in a Facebook post earlier this month.
The fan group shared a simple tip that anyone can use at home. The post said that bees can often look like they’re dead or dying, particularly at this time of year, when in reality, they’re just tired.
“They simply don't have enough energy to return to the hive which can often result in being swept away,” the group wrote.
For anyone who comes across an exhausted bee, the Facebook group recommends mixing a simple solution of two tablespoons of white, granulated sugar with one tablespoon of water. Bees require carbohydrates from sugars in nectar or honey to convert into much-needed energy.
They also suggest placing the mixture on a spoon within reach of the tired bee. Additionally, they asked readers to share the Facebook post to increase awareness. The post has been shared more than 455,000 times as of Friday morning.

Why a group of 'fans' would want to set up a Facebook page in the name of David Attenborough is beyond me - are their lives so empty?  Although the Facebook page is clearly in the name of Sir David Attenborough, there is nothing to indicate it is run by 'fans' , so the lie about us dying is spread nearly half a million times.
I waited for lazy journalists to repeat the lie.

Irish Times

And according to David Attenborough, if bees were to disappear from earth, humans would have just four years left to live.

Heart

The Blue Planet star warned fans humans will only have four years to live should bees become extinct.

Express

And time is of the essence. Earlier this month Sir David Attenborough revealed that if we don’t do something to save our bees, the human race itself will be at risk.
“In the last five years the bee population has dropped by a third. If bees were to disappear from the face of the Earth, humans would have just four years left to live,” he wrote.

Greenmatters

"In the last 5 years the bee population has dropped by 1/3," he wrote. "If bees were to disappear from the face of the earth, humans would have just 4 years left to live. This time of year bees can often look like they are dying or dead, however, they're far from it. 

Nottinghamshire Live 

"If bees were to disappear from the face of the earth, humans would have just four years left to live," environmentalist David Attenborough has said in the past.

And so on .....

However not everybody was fooled by this rubbish. Habitat Aid wrote:-

It has been shared half a million times (and counting!). Country Living, Heart FM, Old Uncle Tom Cobley and even Radio Four* are reporting the story as if it did actually come from Sir David. Blimey, the power of Attenborough, even pseudo Attenborough!

Still its been shared half a million times on Facebook so it must be true I hear people say, as well as 'you know better than David Attenborough do you?
Quite why people expect sound scientifically verifiable information on Facebook is beyond me and  a little like watching Love Island to get the latest in depth interpretation of the Brexit negotiations.
It enough to make you share Mark Zuckerbergs view of Facebook users.

-oooOooo-

However the Source Of All Truth published this:-

It seems the BBC asked for the page to be taken down "as it and posts were purporting to be from Sir David"
Interestingly it wasn't because 'as it and posts were purporting to be from Sir David and peddling ill informed rubbish"
The original fake "Attenborough" post repeated the 4 year lie but also advocated feeding 'bees' with sugar water.

The problem is that most people, particularly Daily Mail journalists [a text book oxymoron] don't know what a 'bee' is. 'Bee' is a word like 'fish', 'dogs', or 'birds'; something used to cover a huge range of animals with very different life styles.

Broadly there are three groups of 'bees':-
 - solitary bees
 - bumblebees, and
 - honey bees
and the issue of feeding 'bees' is very different for each type. Something that is never allowed for in the press.

So in the matter of the UK's favourite naturalist, the UK's favourite broadcaster and the UK's favourite source of trivia, who does The Source of All Truth put forward as the expert to resolve the issue?
Trevor Weatherhead, the Australian Honey Bee Industry Council executive director.
No, me neither, However it does set the basis for an Australian underpin of the article.

On the question of feeding honey to 'bees', 'I think it's sort of a bit misplaced' thundered Trevor in his most expert sounding voice. That clears that up then.

The Source Of All Truth continued:-

Honeybees, both domestic and wild, are responsible for around 80 per cent of worldwide pollination, according to Greenpeace.But bee colony collapses across the globe are threatening their vital work.

I think they are confusing their 'bees' There virtually no wild bees in the UK and the statistic applies to bees in the general sense, including solitary bees and bumble bees.
Greenpeace say 'up to 75% of our crops would suffer"
Also Colony Collapse Disorder is an American phenomenon but has been reducing for some time according to the American EPA

The article goes on:-

Above all, people should not feed their bees honey, experts have warned.'They have surplus honey they made to feed on which is nutritionally far superior than heavily processed man-made cane sugars

Who are these 'experts'? Why none other than bee keeper Chris Wyatt.
Yes, he comes from Australia.
Chris then proceeds to waffle on about how feeding honey to dying bees causes the spread of American Foul Brood, a nasty disease. In fact its prohibited by the Biodiversity Code of Practice.
In Australia.
It is undeniable the practice of feeding honey to bees to supplement their food stores is inadvisable due to the possibility of the spread of disease but the idea AFB is spread by a tiny amount of honey, which if bought from a supermarket has probably been pasteurised, is laughable.
In any event the bees people will most likely see in trouble aren't honey bees. Honey bees have a special digestive system where they store nectar so the probability of them starving to the point of collapse is virtually nil.
The foraging bees we see in our gardens are the oldest bees who only survive about a week as foragers so if you see a dying honey bee, assuming you can recognise it, its dying.

There are now numerous other inaccurate articles about this issue, most of which have 'fake news' in the headline to act as click bait, that suggests the Facebook page was taken down because the information is wrong rather than some sort of intellectual copyright issue.
iNews faithfully reproduces Wyatt's comments [I assume there wasn't a UK bee keeper available for comment],
The Telegraph manages to include a Tweet [the medium by which people who have nothing worth saying, say it],  from the Manx Wildlife Trust saying:-

Don't forget, if you come across a bumblebee who seems a bit dozy just mix a little sugar and water on a spoon and let them drink it. It worked a treat for this one in Santon the other day.

Three paragraphs later in the same article this appears:-

Manx Wildlife Trust on the Isle of Man also tweeted about helping a bee with water and sugar.The charity have since said it would be advising people “not to try sugared water at all” after it feared people were being too generous with their sugar offering.A spokesperson said: “It appears there is a risk that people make it too strong and it blocks the bee’s proboscis.

It seems the Manx Wildlife Trust don't want to deal with a bunch of torch waving, pitchfork wielding Twatterface users so have just gone with the flow.
I am booked in for corrective surgery to repair splits in my side caused by the last sentence of the quote about blocking a bee's proboscis.

The shame about this bit of 'fake news' is that feeding bumblebees sugar water to revive them is quite reasonable. Some bumblebees particularly the Tree Bumblebee whose males frantically chase females to mate, can become exhausted and can be revived.
The Bumblebee Conservation Trust says:-

These bees can be helped though, and the easiest way to do so is to make a sugar solution (50/50 sugar and warm water). Put this in a small saucer or plastic drinks lid, and place it near the bee’s head (see the photo below). She should then lap this up, and she’ll use the energy to heat her body up and fly off.

It may well be that the web site is run by 'fans' of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust and therefore this may be 'fake news';
Also, it may be written by someone who is not Australian and therefore not an expert.

Remy's Swarm: Into a nuc box and finding the queen

After successfully getting the swarm into the skep it was taken to Scald End. The swarm was very small and needed some time to build up.
The next stage for the swarm is to be transferred into a small bee hive called a nuc ['nucleus'].
It has half the number of frames of a full size hive


Once the bees had been transferred to the nuc I left them alone for a few weeks other than to keep the syrup feed topped up.
I then thought I would have a look to see whats going on.
Although as far as I knew the queen wasn't marked [she would have come from a bee hive managed by a bee keeper], you can tell if a colony has a laying queen by looking for open brood which will be less than 3 days old.

Click the button to see what happened.

The Good the Bad, the Entirely normal ....... and the bumblebees

Up till now I had only dealt with swarms from people I know but for some reason this year I decided to become a Swarm Collector for the local beekeepers association.

There are various swarm collectors around the county whose contact details are on their website.

The weather has been terrible for bees so far this year and everything has been pushed back by weeks, including swarming. So apart from a false alarm I heard nothing for a while and then within two days had to deal with situations at the exact opposite end of the collecting spectrum.

Good swarm

I got  phone call about 4 in the afternoon from someone who has a farm locally, near where my Scald End bees are kept, and we had met previously.
He had a swarm in his garden and I got my kit together and went to his farm. Eden had some friends round and we chatted about swarms and what I would do.
The swarm was in a tree about 10ft off the ground I was mildly alarmed when everybody came to watch me. 'Please let me get the queen', 'please don't fall off the ladder', 'please let me get the swarm in the skep', 'please don't let them get stung' I muttered under my breath.
The swarm was very small and had it been later in the season I would have said it was a 'cast' Colonies can swarm several times during the season and can produce small 'cast' swarms after the initial large primary swarm.

The bees were very calm and had collected around the trunk of the tree. I snipped a few small branches to get to them more easily and although I had my veil on to stop them flying up my nose or in my ear, it was an easy job to get handfuls of bees [no gloves!] into the skep.

Below the bees I laid out a sheet to make it easier for the bees to walk into the skep as they struggle to get through grass.. The skep was then put on the sheet and propped up with a small block so the bees could get in.
I had told everyone how if the queen is captured all the other bees will follow her into the skep and if she was left in the tree all the bees would go back to the tree.
By now I had quite an audience watching and I muttered under my breath 'Please let me get the queen', 'Please let me get the queen'.
The bees duly marched into the skep and the flying bees returning to the tree to find their sisters gone, duly joined in.
Eden's son Remy was very interested in the whole process and he put a suite on and went up the step ladder to have a close look look at the few dozen remaining bees. 'So cool' he said.
I got the bees still in the tree in a cardboard box and emptied them onto the sheet near to the skep and to everyone's delight they trooped into the skep.

To collect as many bees as possible I left the skep under the tree and came back at about 9 o'clock. As I was going  just down the road to Scald End Remy came with me and his Mum and Dad came as well.
It was getting dark and became quite windy and we took the skep to a part of the field where I will keep it for time being.
The swarm is very small and will need constant feeding and the bees will be moved into a small bee hive called a nuc. This will be the subject of another blog.

Bad Swarm

The day after this I went to the opposite end of the scale.
I had been contacted a week previously by someone renovating a house but the work was being held up by some bees. There was a corridor structure between the main house and an out building and there were bees coming from the roof of the corridor.

Jane was very knowledgeable about bees and appreciated the difference between a swarm which is a collection of calm, transient bees looking for a new home, and a colony which may have established themselves for some time and will actively defend their home.
I said normally association collectors don't do structural work but as Jane and Steve were very keen to try and save them, and that the corridor would be demolished anyway, we agreed to go along and have a look at what could be done.
We met at the house and tried to work out how far they might have got into the roof. I said the main problem is that we could find something like this:-

and it could extend some way into the roof.  With the bees on the comb, and queen could be anywhere in the roof, it was not something I could deal with.
It seemed the bees had been there for some time and weren't a swarm but an established colony.
We discussed the various alternatives and what could go wrong and as Steve and Jane were still very keen to try and save them, we agreed to come back and cut some holes in the roof to try and see if anything could be done.

When we came back the bees were still coming and going and were a bit irritable as we approached which is what you would expect from a colony protecting their home.
I had a prod around to see what I could see and ere was comb extending into the recesses of the roof.
Meanwhile Steve was investigating the roof from inside the building.
The difficulty with this type of situation is that its vital you find the queen because if you don't and try to get the other bees out, they will return to find the queen again and she could be hiding in the furthest, darkest recesses of the roof.

We came back again another day and as we uncovered parts of the roof, things got worse until we finally had to give up and called in a pest control firm.

Click the button to see some clips of the swarm.

Entirely Normal Swarm

While I was writing this blog and recovering from the Bad Swarm I had a phone call from a couple in Kempston who had a swarm in their garden.

I arrived to find a reasonable sized clump of bees conveniently resting in a tree at head height.

The bees obligingly were shaken into the skep which was collected in the evening and taken to Scald End

Bumblebees

Its quite common for bumble bees to be confused with honey bees. Its a bit surprising as most bumble bees are far bigger that honey bees and are round and furry. They also make a much deeper noise and do not swarm.

I was asked by someone I know to look at some 'bees' that were coming out of her roof.

I arrived to find a lot of swarm like activity but the 'bees' were too big for honey bees.

While we were talking to the neighbours [WHO WANTED THEM OUT!] one flew by and it was as I suspected, a Tree Bumble bee.

The 'swarming' activity was the males flying around getting quite excited and waiting for the females to emerge. 

Just like a Bedford pub on a Saturday night.

There was nothing I could do to get the bees out neither could the pest control firm we contacted so it was [grudgingly by the neighbours] agreed to leave it until the end of the season and then try to seal up the gap where the bees got in.

July News

Things still aren't great

After the cold wet weather has come a period of hot dry weather. The ground is hard with no moisture in it reducing plants ability to produce nectar for the bees.
For the bees 'its just one dam thing after another'.
For the first time ever I haven't taken any honey in May but perhaps the warmer weather, and hopefully some rain, will improve things.

Swarms

The swarm collection thing I mentioned in the previous blog hasn't produced nearly as much work as I thought. I have been told from May onwards, the phone won't stop ringing but so far I have only been contacted 9 times.
 - 1 swarm disappeared before I got there.
 - 2 were bumblebees
 - 1 was wasps
 - 1 might have been bees but he didn't get back to me.
 - 1 swarm absconded the day after I collected it.
 - 2 were honey bee swarms
 - 1 couldn't be dealt with.
I had put up 4 bait hives to hopefully attract a swarm and one has worked and will be the subject of a further blog.

Grass is a pain in the ......apiary

Ravensden is an enclosed copse so apart from pruning a few branches every couple of years to keep the bees' vertical exit clear, there isn't much maintenance to do.
Scald End is a different matter and as its an un-managed field the grass can be, as Rodgers and Hammerstein would say, 'as high as an elephants eye', and hives can dissappear into the vegetation.

Last year I used a petrol strimmer to cut the grass.The bees in the hive nearest me decided to take great exception to the noise and decided to make their view known in the most unambiguous way possible.
As did every hive whose peace and quiet I disturbed.
I soon decided I wasn't particularly enjoying having hundreds of bees attacking me so gave up.

This year I decided to take a less confrontational approach and purchased a hand scythe - there wasn't enough space between the hives to use a full length one.

I didn't have a good start as I whacked one of the legs of a hive stand to provoke a mass evacuation to see what was going on.
With the other hives there were a few bees checking me out but nothing too bad provided I left a hive alone if they got too interested and did another one.
However, it was hard work.

Before

After

Nuc station
To deal with any swarms I get, I thought I would set up an area in Scald End to house them while I decide what to do with them.
This is about 50 yards further down the field.

Before

After

Colony for the Top Bar Hive

I bought a basic TBH off eBay a few years ago but it was destroyed by woodpeckers.
I made another one and given my limited carpentry skills, was pretty pleased with how it turned out.
This type of hive is a bit of a curiosity for me and they operate in an entirely different way to 'normal' hives - see blog here.
In terms of honey production its not much good but I wanted it just to try another way of keeping bees.

I intended to populate it with what is called a package of bees - no frames just a box of bees with a queen in a small cage.
Eventually this didn't happen but an alternative way of populating the hive appeared, when a swarm took up residence in one of my bait boxes.

The software I use for this blog puts a limit on the size of  a video you can view directly in the blog so click here to watch the video in YouTube.

There will be another blog about the re-homing of the bees.