The season starts here

For no particular reason I take the bee keeping season to start on 1st March.
Its still too cold to do a full inspection on the hives but in the next week or so I might lift the crown boards [the roof under the roof of the hive] to see whats going on and how they have dealt with the winter. I'm always a little nervous about this after my catastrophic winter of 2011/12 when all five colonies starved.

Dead bees

I have been much better with the winter feeding this year and the Scald End bees scoffed the fondant I put on with Tillia 3 weeks ago and they were all replaced yesterday. The Ravensden bees have also been taking the fondant.
Speaking to a local bee keeper he said his bees never touched the fondant he put in the hives but except for one small colony the others seem OK.
Is this because my bees have eaten their stores or are they just lazy and prefer to feed on the fondant which is just above them?

The high winds were a bit of a worry. The Ravensden bees are in a copse and so protected from the wind but the Scald End bees are more exposed. When I got there one hives had had its roof blown off but other than that things were OK.

There is no rational reason for this but I've painted the hives and supers different colours. Its not uncommon to do this and there's suggestions it helps stop the bees from 'drifting' where bees go to the wrong hive.
Bees have colour vision although can't see red. [unlike me].

The swarming season doesn't start until May but I've been getting ready..
Last year I was only involved in 4 swarms. One in Stevington was at the top of a tall tree and I don't do heights so in case the same thing happens this year I have made a bucket on a stick. Its a water machine container with the bottom cut off and mounted on an extending pole.
Also, although in a way I hope I don't have to use it, I have made a bee vac which is what it sounds like, a modified vacuum that enables you to get to a swarm thats in a difficult place, under floorboards, chimney etc. The suction on the vac is reduced so the bees are harmed.
More as the swarming season approaches.

Cleaning the cocoons

Once the cocoons have extracted the next step is to clean them.

I then store them in plastic containers with a few holes in the lid for ventilation.
They sit on a bit of damp J cloth and kept in the fridge until they are ready for release which won't be until March.

Solitary Bee Cocoons and how to look after them.

As I said in an earlier blog, the problem with some commercial Solitary Bee Houses is that they can't be cleaned which leads to a build up of parasites and generally nasty stuff.
However the ones I now use improve the success rate of the cocoons as they can be taken out of the houses, cleaned and then stored so they can be released at the optimum time. The houses themselves can be cleaned to give a better start the following year.

This a video of my attempts with the cocoons I collected during the summer.
I'll do a second video on the cleaning and storing process.

Other bee news:-
 - In a previous blog I said that for the first time a bee [Rusty Patch Bumblebee] in American had been put on the endangered list.Think again. The day before this was due to come into effect Drumpf suspended the order. What a bastard.
To be put on the list means
Listing under the Endangered Species Act generally restricts activities known to harm the creature in question and requires the government to prepare a recovery plan.
As the Rusty Patch Bees' problems are primarily a loss of habitat in mainly agricultural areas where the Rednecks voted for Drumpf, this is obviously a problem for him.

 - I was contacted by a young girl from Sharnbrook who wanted to do a Duke of Edinburgh award and to include bee keeping as a skill. Unfortunately she wasn't able to sign up for it after all but we paid a visit with her Mum to Scald End anyway to say hello to the bees.
It was far too cold to take frames out of the hives but as the morning went on and it warmed up, increasing numbers of bees emerged to have what is politely called a 'cleansing flight' or as I would call it 'a dump'.
We had a good time and they want to come back when they can see the bees properly.
The main reason I wanted to go to Scald End was to switch their food supplement over to one that has pollen in it as the queens should now be laying and the larvae need pollen for food.. It gave me a chance to see how things have gone and their chances of surviving until Spring. I make Eeyore look like a hopeless optimist but things looked OK.
Next weekend someone is coming to Ravensden with their son to see the bees and will do a similar assessment on them then.

- the Wildflower Meadow thing isn't going to happen. Don't ask.

 - I had decided I needed to clear the area just behind my garden so I can site my solitary bee houses. Its very overgrown with some huge brambles.
Fortunately as part of his stewardship responsibilities, the farmer did the job for me.
I have started to put up the houses and get the bumblebee house ready

The battle against varroa

In the press there is endless discussion on the effects of climate, environment and pesticides on 'bees' but virtually nothing is said about varroa which is at least a big problem as the others.
Varroa is something that affects honey bees but not bumble bees or solitary bees.
They lay their eggs in the comb in the hive and the mites develop and attach themselves to the bees. They push a spike into the bee and drain proteins and nutrients from the blood weakening the bee and eventually the whole colony can die.

Varroa mite

Varroa is everywhere and there is no silver bullet to get rid of them and the best a bee keeper can do is try and control them.
A bee keeper should monitor the levels of mite infestation so if there are signs of a rapid growth in mite population, action can be taken otherwise the mites weaken the colony and it dies.

A common way to check mite levels is to use a varroa floor and sticky board.
I have just bought a couple of varroa floors for the bee hives that might be going to the Wildflower Meadow so I have done a short video about them.

Its thought you should check varroa levels four times a year, although I know some beeks who do it monthly and some who rarely do it at all. It can be time consuming and if you have a lot of hives it can be a pain.
Mite count can be a bit subjective as the colony size is much smaller in the Spring than it would be in the height of Summer although if you keep regular records, changes can be detected.
I will probably do my first check in March and will do a blog about it then.

Solitary Bee Boxes, Wildflower Meadow and Honey Bee update

I mentioned in an earlier blog that I was making some solitary bee houses and I have just making some small test units.
Solitary bees often nest in burrows or cavities and the solitary bee houses you can get from garden centres mimic this and are either collection of tubes [bamboo] or holes bored in blocks of wood.

When I started to get interested in solitary bees I came across someone who makes homes for solitary bees and bumble bees and I bought one of each.

Solitary Bee house

Bumble bee house

George said the problem with the commercial solitary bee houses was that they were impossible to clean out and so dirt and faeces build up and they became breeding grounds for parasites like pollen mites.
To overcome this his home was able to be taken apart and cleaned each winter.
Another advantage was that its sides could be removable so you could see the bees in action. They seemed quite disinterested in me.
It also improved the chances of the cocoons surviving as it was a fairly simple task to remove them, clean them and then store them ready for the following Spring so they can be released at the proper time. I will do a blog about this later.
Also in the tube of nests it can happen that the egg does not develop and the bees deeper in the tube could find it difficult if not impossible to get past the dead eggs and emerge.

I had been thinking of making a replacement Top Bar Hive and luckily my Son In Law is a joiner and was able to tell me what to do and what I needed. I mentioned making solitary bee houses and with his advice made some small test examples.

Type 1

This is the 'block of wood' type.
I drilled some holes in a small block of wood and so the cocoons can be removed I put some straws specially designed for the purpose in the holes. The straws have paper inserts .
The back of the house can be taken off, the straws removed and the cocoons extracted. The following year replacement paper inserts can be added or its easy to make your own using baking parchment paper.

Type 2

This is my attempt to copy the one I bought.
The internal cassette is removable and once the perspex sides are removed the cocoons can be extracted.
The bees can be observed by opening the side panels.
This type does not need the straws and the cocoons are removed by using a flat bladed screwdriver.

Type 3

This is similar to Type 2 but instead of having channels in a piece of wood, the 'nests' are lengths of clear tubing.
At the end of the season the tubes can be taken out and the cocoons removed with a length of dowel.

Cocoon release boxes

As well as the houses, I have had a go at making some small release boxes that the cocoons are put in when its warm enough for the bees to emerge.

I made these small versions to get an idea of what was involved and if something went wrong, I hadn't wasted too much wood.
I intended putting some at the end of my garden where I put the big hive last year and also to put some on the Wild Flower thing that has cropped up.

As with so many bee related things in the last few years, this happened purely by chance.
I have a few chickens in my garden and from time to time the local foxes pay a visit. After their last visit I found my usual supplier in Moggerhanger had closed down but found somewhere else in Sharnbrook.
On one visit I was chatting to the owner who told me he wanted to develop part of the farm that had a pond with ducks on it into an area where people can come and look at the chickens, sit around the pond and buy tea/coffee and cakes. '....and I really want to have some bee hives there for people to look at'.
In the distance I heard warning hooters and alarms going off and people shouting 'No!'
I ignored them.

It then turned out he had an interest in something he called 'bee sputum'. He is an inventor and is aware of the medical properties of the 'sputum' and wanted to try and produce a liquid sputum using bacteria but had struggled to get any help from local bee keepers.
I said to him 'I think you mean propolis' and proceeded to tell him about what I did with it.
In the distance the hooters/alarms and voices got louder.
I ignored them.
In Spring when the bees are active I will be helping him with this.

Next he told me he was setting up something so people could have a weekend on the farm, working with the chickens in an 'escape to the Countryside' sort of way and he was building some old style Romany caravans for them to stay in.
I had already told him I gave talks about bees and that people could come to my apiaries to see the bees and so he said 'could you do that here?'
The hooters/alarms/voices got even louder.
I ignored them.

He took me for a look around the farm and said there was a field that he wanted to plant a Wild Flower meadow as part of the Cafe/Escape to the Country project.
I said I had looked into this and had offered to set one up at Forest Centre and Bromham Mill but didn't get a response.
'Can you hear those hooters/alarms/voices?' he said.
'No' I said.

All this happened in early December but I phoned him again yesterday and he's still very much up for it and I will be going to see him in a week or so to get things started.
Some of my solitary bee houses will be put around the meadow as well as a couple of bee hives.

I also might take the solitary bee houses to Bromham Mill market to see if its worth trying to sell the full sized ones. They will never be as neatly made as the commercial ones but at least I know they work.

The honey bees
My purchases have arrived and I will now put together the various bits to make the two new hives.
I checked Scald End bees last week and all seems well and a few of them needed new blocks of fondant.
Nothing much will happen now for a few months until the weather warms up.

Who wants to buy some expert opinion?

In a galaxy far, far away when I was but a boy, I think the general view of scientists were of slightly disheveled elderly men in lab coats. Eccentric but basically trustworthy.

However, I now find myself in the appalling situation of agreeing in part with Michael Gove about so called 'experts'.
For years now the debate about pesticides; neonicotinoids and glyphosate, has gone back and forth, each side producing 'expert' and contradictory scientific evidence to the point where I have no idea who to believe.

There is far too much money being made in the food industry for companies like Monsanto, Bayer and Syngenta to let go of their profitable market share because of a few whinging eco warriors and it doesn't appear difficult for them to be able to find some scientific 'experts' who will churn out 'evidence' saying the pesticides aren't dangerous.
Conversely Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth are quite capable of doing the same thing to support their view that they are.
So, who to believe?

Louis Heren was a journalist at The Times who when interviewing politicians always had in the back of his mind the thought 'Why is this lying bastard lying to me?'
Apparently Jeremy Paxman also applied this principle and its one I go with as well.

Today the NFU published an article calling for a proper [holistic?] review of the neonic ban [they have long argued the ban should be lifted and disputed the evidence in support of it] and setting out the millions of pounds lost to farmers because of it.
With no sense of the possible irony the NFU also say

And with this drop in tonnage goes the source of food for bees, early in the foraging year, provided by this important crop

The expert report is produced by Berlin based consultancy HFFA Research and written by Steffan Moleppa.
According to their own web site HFFA's clients include Bayer and Syngenta. Another client of HFFA is European Technology platform whose clients include .....Bayer, Syngenta and Monsanto.

Meanwhile of the other side of the fence, and on the same day, Greenpeace issue a report carried out by Sussex University, which calls for a continued ban on neonicitinoids. This was done by Dave Goulson who is a prolific write on bee issues and founder of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. No doubt his report has lots of charts and graphs, endless footnotes and indecipherable jargon but I expect it wouldn't have taken too much to guess what he was going to say before he even started.

So the game of scientific Top Trumps continue and I still don't have a clue who is right.

I wonder what would have happened if the research briefs were mixed up and Monsanto asked Coulson to review neonics, and Greenpeace asked HFFA.
Would we see headlines like'
'Monsanto agree their pesticides are killing the bees and say they're really sorry' and
'Greenpeace admit they were wrong about neonicitinoids. These things happen. Frack it!

Rusty Patched Bumble bee

Last year I did a brief blog about the rusty patched bumble bee with a video you can see here.

It is an American bee and its population has reduced by 90% since the mid 1990's.
Attempts to protect the bee started in 2007 and in 2013 an application was made to the  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the bee as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act.
Finally, after failing to meet its statutory obligations in dealing with this request, protection was granted yesterday.
This is the first American continental bee granted this status although seven species of Hawaiian yellow-faced bee, decimated by invasive species and habitat loss, were given the same protection in October last year.

Listing the rusty patched bumble bee under the ESA will require that its needs be considered when federal actions—like the registration of new pesticides—are taken.
However this does not mean the future of the bee is secure not least due to uncertainty over Drumpf's view of conservancy issues.
After all this is the man who thinks climate change is a hoax and something made up by the Chinese and who apparently was considering appointing Sarah Palin, one of the stupidest people to walk this planet, to be Interior Secretary, of which U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are part.