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.

Hay fever and honey - my final and most unpopular blog ever

Last week someone contacted me via the web site asking about my honey. He wanted it for his hay fever and needed 'raw' honey.

As he lived in Luton, the postage made it pointless and I told him how to find a local bee keeper in the area.

However it was a reminder that the hay fever season is soon upon us.

There's quite a few things I enjoy about bee keeping, watching the bees, being outside, not having to deal with people. etc
One of the spin offs from the bee keeping has been the unintended and unplanned involvement in selling honey and bee stuff at farmers markets, and there's a lot about doing markets I don't like.
I'm not bothered about making money [I don't, anything we make is spent on the bees], I don't like the preparations I have to make before hand [bottling honey, making marmalade, fudge, honey comb, propolis etc], packing everything into the Jeep the day before isn't great, unpacking and setting up is a pain as is the packing  way afterwards which consists of throwing everything into the back of the Jeep and sorting it out the next day.

After the initial enthusiasm for doing markets died off I now limit myself to one regular monthly market [Bromham Mill], one quarterly market [Potton Four Seasons] and a few 'one offs' like Kempston Fun Day and the Bromham Show.

Gone are the days when I would sit in a draughty village hall and not take enough to cover the cost of the stall and petrol however worthy the cause.

So why do them?  I have to something with the honey. I used to give it away to friends, family and people in the village but the amount I could potentially produce now is far greater than I need to do that.

Surprisingly for a black hearted misanthrope like me who completely agrees that 'Hell is other people' I quite enjoy the social side of the markets.

Bees have a back story and people are interested in them mostly because of the media coverage they get about their, and potentially our, imminent demise. In the three years I have been doing markets I have only had to deal with only two nutters and a handful of irritants and even I can manage to be polite to people for a couple of minutes. Just.

So I have lots of conversations about 'bees' and there tends to be three main topics - 'the bees are dying', 'local honey is good for you' and 'hay fever and honey' for which I have disappointing opinions on all three.

Most people cannot identify a honey bee so don't really know what is meant by a 'bee'. and although honey bees face huge problems with habitat, pesticides, disease etc, as long as there are bee keepers they will be OK. They are not endangered and the numbers of colonies have increased in recent years.

I am often asked if my honey is 'local'. I have no idea what is local so I just tell them where my bees are and they can make their own mind up. I did a market in Milton Keynes once and someone wouldn't buy the honey as it wasn't local.

Some farmer's markets require any produce to come from within a 30 mile radius which is a bit extreme for honey bees as they only travel up to 5 miles to forage.

The fact that New Zealand is about 11000 miles away doesn't stop people buying Manuka honey and all honey has antibacterial and antiseptic properties, wherever its from.

 I am also asked if my honey is 'raw', 'organic' or 'natural'. I try to resist the temptation to ask 'exactly what do you mean by that?'

'Local', 'good for you' and 'hay fever' all seem to be intertwined.

I have lost count of the number of times I have been told that 'local honey is good for hay fever' Neither I nor any of my family suffer from hay fever. so I can't comment from a personal point of view and have just accepted it.

The 'local' thing never made much sense to me. It seems a lot of people suffer from a reaction to Oil Seed Rape. Admittedly OSR is far less common this year but isn't pollen from OSR in Scotland the same as OSR pollen in Bedford?

My fees could forage on plants that are not to be found say 10 miles away but still be considered 'local'

A fellow bee keeper told me a friend of his had streaming eyes and nose and wanted his honey to deal with the hay fever. He told her she was too late [it was May time] and she should have started taking a spoonful of honey every day from January. [what I call the Mary Poppins method]

I have re-told this story numerous times and also repeated the theory behind the honey and hay fever  is that the sufferer is having an allergic reaction to pollen and if you take a small dose regularly it helps your immune system to develop a resistance.

Because I had so many conversations about this I thought I would try and find some definite proof/research to back it up.

And found nothing.

There were a few vague reference to some very general work done a long time ago but nothing that could be called proof.

So I contacted two UK allergy charities

Action against Allergy said:-

Dear Mr Reed This country remedy has been known about for a very long time - but we don't know of any medical evidence to support it - though we are trying to find out and will let you know if we are lucky.

AllergyUK said:-

Hi Martin,

Thanks for getting in touch with us.In regards to your email, unfortunately there is no evidence to suggest that local honey will improve symptoms of hay fever. Local refers to honey that is sourced from bees local to a specific area, so pollen from nearby flowers would be present in that honey. The majority of people with hay fever will react to grass pollens and as bees only pollinate flowers, using honey as a treatment would have no effect. Even those who react to pollen from flowers would most likely see little to no improvement with this symptoms.

So I thought I would look at the NHS web site to see if there was anything there.

They had this

Lots about things to try but nothing about honey but it does mention immunotherapy and treatment with pollen but 

The allergen can be given to you as:

• an injection into your skin – this is known as systemic injection immunotherapy (SIT)

• a tablet that dissolves under your tongue – this is known as sublingual immunotherapy (SLIT)

 It also says

Immunotherapy is only carried out in specialist medical centres, in case a serious allergic reaction, known as anaphylaxis, occurs.

 Nothing about local honey from a farmer's market.

Honey bees are not the best pollinators, Bumble bees and solitary are far more effective.

However they are efficient pollen collectors and they can collect large amounts in their pollen sacs.

Therefore the amount of pollen that is on their bodies that could possibly get into the honey is apparently infinitesimally small and far below anything needed to develop a resistance.

Apparently 80% of people who suffer from hay fever are reacting to grass pollen which is wind pollinated and won't be collected by honey bees. Pollen from things pollinated by bees is sticky so it adheres to the bee so difficult for us to come in contact with.

So as far as I can see its an urban myth, so why do people believe it?

Its said that if you repeat something enough people will believe it and certainly the press drag this up every Summer and recently this article about what to do if you suffer from hay fever  appeared in Hello! magazine.

'Local honey'? - check

'Limits effect of hay fever'? - check

'Honey builds up a tolerance? - check.

I was interested to see that Chloe Parker the author claims 'there is some strong evidence' and thought the two allergy charities, who told me there is no evidence and we don't know of any medical evidence might be interested. 
I couldn't contact the author of the article, who is writing daily celebrity news stories as well as fashion, beauty, travel and lifestyle features   and who is probably very busy using her obvious knowledge of immunology and entomology at the Hello! Institute of Scientific Research who I understand are about to issue some strong evidence that avocado, sun dried tomatoes and fairy dust cures cellulite. OMG!
I also left a comment on the web page but oddly it never appeared. I wonder why

There will be numerous articles in comics like Hello! spinning the latest hippy snake oil remedies in their lifestyle sections and the daily press isn't immune to some half truths.
When I was checking the postage of the honey to Luton, I talked about this issue with the local post master who said 'but this is in the papers all the time!'.

When I met the Two Apothecaries at Wrest Park over the weekend.who reenact medieval medicines and use my propolis for their display, Julian told me about a condition called scrofula ['???] that could only be cured by touching a coin called an Angel that had been touched by the King.As there is never a King about when you need one our conversation turned to  placebos.. The conversation then turned to honey and hay fever.
Valerie is involved in running clinical trials has experienced the placebo effect many times.

I found some scientific research that suggested it may be a placebo.

In the study, published in the Annals of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology in 2002 in America, the scientists followed dozens of allergy sufferers through the springtime allergy season. The subjects were randomly split into three groups. One consumed a tablespoonful daily of locally collected, unpasteurised and unfiltered honey; another ate commercial honey; and a third was given a corn syrup placebo with synthetic honey flavouring.
After tracking the subjects’ symptoms for months, the scientists found that neither of the honey groups saw improvements over the placebo group.

So, lots of people say it works and the Great British Press says so too but there doesn't appear to be any evidence supporting it.

May is fairly busy for me from a market point of view, I'm doing four markets and giving three talks.

I'll let you know how many people mention hay fever and local honey

And how many punch me in the face when I say its probably a myth.

Whats the best thing about bee keeping?

From time to time I am asked about bee keeping and what its like and my typically disappointing reply is that its more time consuming, hard work physically and more expensive than people think.
The Beds Beekeepers web site says:-

One person in Bedfordshire wrote, “After the first year, I knew everything. By the end of the second year, I knew some of what I needed, and at the end of the third year, I realise finally that I know nothing. I could have easily given up on several occasions… support at that difficult time was appreciated enormously.”
A beekeeping magazine says, “We have a duty of care to our bees and if we don’t try to understand their needs, treat them properly and relate to their behaviour and maladies, we really should not be in charge of them.” [I particularly agree with this]
An international journal quotes, “75% of beginners give up beekeeping within three years.”

Although well intentioned people often want to keep honey bees to 'save the bees and save the world'.
This is despite that fact that  two-thirds of people cannot recognise a honey bee, honey bees are not very good pollinators [we worry about the wrong bees] and .in this country at least, despite growing pressures, honey bees are holding on OK and have increased in numbers.

Honey is what seems to interest people and I often think if it wasn't for honey most people couldn't care less about honey bees.
To go to the effort, time and expense of keeping bees just to produce honey for yourself  is a waste of time and effort - its much cheaper and easier to buy it at a supermarket or farm shop.

So, why do it?

Apparently you can now get the internet on computers which has led to the growth of forums [fora?]
This supposedly involves people with a common interest exchanging views and advice. Supposedly.
In reality it often involves sad lonely angry people who consider themselves experts and are patronising rude and offensive to people asking reasonable questions, saying things they would never dare to say face to face.
The main bee keeping forum is possibly the worst example of this I have come across so I don't post anything but occasionally just look at the thread titles to see if there is by some chance something of interest.

Recently there was a thread 'Whats the best thing about bee keeping?'
The most popular choice was honey and its production. Fair enough. I have no interest in honey other than to the extent it affects the bees ability to survive the winter, but most bee keepers sell their honey through a variety of outlets.

The next most popular reason is the idea of being able to 'outwit' the bees. Beekeepers have this conceit that bees are contrary creatures and its a constant intellectual battle to try and anticipate what they will do next..If they want contrary they should meet my spaniels and chickens

There were numerous other suggestions but only one person said what I would have suggested.