A Surprise Visitor!

At this time of year we are usually very busy running our beekeeping taster sessions and other courses but, due to the current lock-down situation, we have had to postpone those. Our work as beekeepers doesn’t stop though, and we still have the challenges of ‘swarm season’ to face, as well as ensuring our colonies are healthy. We also keep an eye out for predators and pests, and have the perennial debate over the issue of whether or not to put out hornet traps. 

While Asian hornets are an acknowledged threat to honeybees, and in our experience a very real problem, we also are keen to avoid killing any ‘innocent bystanders’

such as butterflies, wasps and European hornets in our traps. Along with several other beekeepers we have been trying to come up with something that will catch only predatory Asian hornets. We’ll let you know how we get on!

The other threat to honeybees that we monitor is the varroa mite. We are vigilant as to the ‘load’ that a colony has and treat if the numbers get too high.  Wax moth larvae are seldom seen but easily removed if present, and so don’t cause too much problem.

There, that’s pests covered….or so we thought until yesterday when we encountered a new threat (with a lower case ‘t’) to our bees. Our meadow is a noisy place to be on a sunny Spring day – bumble bees are droning, the crickets are chirping, the frogs are croaking, and warblers are warbling…but a new (to us) bird call was heard accompanied by a flash of blue. As we’re by the river, we thought at first it was a kingfisher, but kingfishers aren’t usually seen flying over grassland….then we noticed more and more of these birds, swooping and diving by our beehives. 

Grabbing the binoculars we were able to see that the ‘kingfishers’ were large, sharp-beaked creatures with the most glorious yellow, blue and rusty-orange plumage, and they were feeding on our bees! Further investigation revealed them to be European Bee-eaters, migratory birds that over-winter in Africa, and are found in semi-open country, and who nest in burrows dug into river banks. They feed on insects caught on the wing, and favour bees as a tasty meal. There were eight or nine of these birds flying over and around our meadow for the afternoon, then off they went. We’re not sure if we’ll see them again or if this was just a ‘snack stop’ for them, but as ‘pests’ go, they were quite spectacular. We fully accept that anyone else may say ‘oh yes, we see them all the time’, but our surprise visitors were quite a thrill for us.