New for Old

Spring is a time of rebirth, renewal, and regrowth in Nature, and this of course includes the honeybee.
Having survived the winter, bee colonies are now increasing in size, with queens typically ramping-up their laying rate to 1500-2000 eggs a day. At this time of year, some of these will be drones, the males produced to mate with virgin queens from other colonies. It’s also the beginning of the swarm season, when colonies make the decision to split with up to 40% of the bees plus the queen flying out to a new home.

April was an extremely busy month; the weather was perfect, and forage for pollinating insects was plentiful, so we received several calls to collect swarms.

The Three E's

Easy, effective, and economical…what’s not to like when talking about swarm control methods?! For a couple of years now we have used the Demaree method (I agree, it should be Demareee!) to manage the swarming behaviour of our bees with the added benefit of increasing the honey production of the colony in question. The
knock-on advantage too is that colonies that have been managed in this way seem to survive the winter months more successfully.

Rain, rain, go away…

…Come again another day – maybe overnight during the inevitable heatwave in July, please?! We’ve had quite enough of this wet and cold start to the year, thank you. During the winter months our primary concern is how we can best protect our bees, with insulation and ventilation being of supreme importance. Damp is actually a worse problem to have than cold, as mould and bacteria can thrive and lead to colony health issues. Hives can become damp when condensation forms due to the humidity caused by the bees’ breath meeting cold surfaces (e.g. the underside of the crown-board). It’s astonishing to learn that a colony of bees can produce up to 26 litres of water over the course of the winter months! Even though bees are experts at controlling the temperature of the colony, beekeepers might need to take measures to help provide a healthy environment.

Catch One, Prevent Thousands

Even though it may seem early to be thinking about protecting our bees against Asian Hornets, we’ve

learned over the years that being prepared is (almost) everything. As the daylight hours lengthen and the temperatures hopefully rise, we’ll be on the lookout for emerging Asian hornet queens. 

Microscopes and Melissopalynology... what does a pollen grain look like?

Before ‘hayfever season’ begins, and while there is still frost on the ground, let’s talk about pollen. Pollen is a key component of bees’ lives, so we find it an interesting topic to research. It’s often seen
on the legs of our foraging bees, and our cats who come in from the garden in the spring and
summer with a fine dusting of it on their fur. Plus, of course, anyone sensitive to it will begin to
sneeze and/or get itchy eyes.

Pollen is vital to our world; every year thousands of different species of plants produce millions of
pollen grains. These are designed to be specifically distributed to reach their female counterparts
and so help proliferate the species. Thanks to Robert Hooke who invented the compound
microscope at the end of the 17 th century, the true nature of pollen was seen for the first time, and
instead of it simply being a fine dust, the grains could be individually identified. 

Beekeeping and Occam’s Razor

Looking back on bee-related articles that I’ve written during the summer months, it’s no surprise to me that they all deal with similar themes: honey, queen bees, and swarms. This year is no different in that the work is the same as ever; we are marking new queens (blue this year), checking that the foraging bees are bringing in plenty of varied pollen for the ever-increasing amounts of brood, and dealing with swarms. We have been pro-active with our swarm control methods this season, especially with the colonies we are raising in Dadant hives – read on to find out about the bees in the Warré hives! It seems to us that there are more swarms around this year, or perhaps the general public is more aware of them, as we and other beekeepers have been contacted a lot more than usual with requests for help where unwanted bees are concerned. Sadly, we haven’t been called to any ‘easy’ swarm captures. Instead the calls are usually from homeowners who have bees in the chimney or under the eaves which makes removal very difficult. However, recently we did enjoy doing a good old-fashioned ‘cut-out’ of a nest that had been built between a window and the shutters, and we managed to not only find the queen but re-hive the colony back at base.

New Bees and Newbies

It’s summer already, although I don’t know why this surprises me as every year I exclaim at how quickly time passes. The winter months seem interminable but as soon as spring is here it’s practically summer! I recently read a piece about how, in countries in south and south-east Asia, the New Year is celebrated in mid-April instead of January. This makes sense to me as January is a difficult month with limited hours of daylight and miserable weather; far better to celebrate new beginnings when everything is springing to life, the sun is shining and we can hope that things will turn out well.