By Liz Westcott

Ingredients:

190g beeswax, chopped into small pieces

30g carnauba wax granules

500g pure natural turpentine – not turps substitute

Put the beeswax and carnauba wax into a jug and using a bain-marie melt it until it is liquid.  If using a plastic jug make sure the bottom of the jug does not touch the bottom of the saucepan by putting something metal on the bottom of the saucepan for the jug to rest on.  Biscuit cutters, some teaspoons, I use a horseshoe or a metal burger mould.  Put aluminium foil on the top of the jug to keep the heat in – the wax will melt much quicker.

Meanwhile, put a metal receptacle on the scales and measure out 500g of natural, pure turpentine.  Do not use turps substitute.  I use a tall, cylindrical container sold by Thornes for candle dipping.  Stand it in a saucepan of hot water and allow to simmer to warm the turps.  It needs to be more or less the same temperature as the melted wax – about 75C – 80C.  Once again, cover with aluminium foil to keep the heat in.  It doesn’t take long to warm.

Be extremely careful when handling liquid wax and hot turpentine!

Pour the turpentine into the jug of liquid wax. Give it a stir with a stick.  Pour into polish tins and leave to cool.

Polish labels can be obtained from Thornes and they will personalise them with your name and address if you wish.

On the underside of the polish tin should be an exclamation mark and a label saying “Beeswax – contains turpentine.  Harmful by inhalation, in contact with skin or swallowed.  Keep out of reach of children.  Wear protective clothing and gloves.  If swallowed seek medical advice immediately and show this label or tin.

Here is a list of acronyms used.

PIF = Product Information File
RP = Responsible Person
SCPN – Submit Cosmetic Production Notification (UK only)
CPNP = Cosmetic Product Notification Portal (EU only)
PAO – Period After Opening
INCI = International Nomenclature of Cosmetic Ingredients
COA = Certificate of Analysis
TDS = Technical Data Sheet
SDS = Safety Data Sheet
CPSR = Cosmetic Product Safety Report
GMP = Good Manufacturing Practice
PET = Preservative Efficacy Test
IFRA = International Fragrance Association

By Liz Westcott

Always ensure that honey supers are never put on the ground.  This is a food item and should always be kept and handled hygienically.  It is acceptable to place supers on upturned roofs or on stands.  When taking honey supers off hives for your honey harvest it is best to keep the supers covered at all times to prevent them filling up with bees.  I have white, light weight plastic lids.  I put one on the bottom and one on the top of the super so they are completely sealed when I carry them to my vehicle.

I like to plan my diary so that when I take honey off my hives I am available to extract it as soon as possible.  Fairly late in the evening I will put clearer boards on.  I prefer not to use Porter bees escapes because I have had problems in the past with bees getting stuck.  Also, if it is a large colony they do not allow bees to exit the supers fast enough.  Early the next day I will collect the supers, as described above, and put them in my vehicle. I always have a clean lid that I put the super on to in the back of my Land Rover and then cover immediately with another lid.  Inevitably, the vehicle fills up with bees so as I drive across my field I leave all the windows and the back door open so that most of the bees are blown out as I drive away.  Equally, when I arrive home I keep all supers covered at all times to prevent bees going into them.  When I put the supers down on the floor at home they are always placed on a white lid to keep the floor clean and I use another lid to cover the stack of supers.

I try to extract the honey the same day as I take it off the hive.  The longer you leave it hanging around the more likely it is to either crystalise or become cold and it will be harder and less efficient to extract it.  If it does crystallise or become difficult to extract you can put it back in your vehicle and leave it in the sunshine on a hot sunny day.  However, be careful that it is not a boiling hot day or the wax will become too soft and collapse when you put the frame in the extractor and spin it.

In most honey extractors the honey will run down the sides of the tank, through a filter which takes out the big pieces of wax and into a settling tank.  As the honey builds up in the settling tank you will need to run it off into 30lb buckets.  When you buy honey filters you can get a set of three that fit over a standard 30lb bucket.  These are 200 micron, 400 micron and 600 micron.  For standard honey that I wish to sell I use either a 600 or 400 micron filter.  The smaller the number, ie 200, the finer the filter and the more pollen will be filtered out of the honey.  This is not always a good thing as some people buy honey expressly to have the pollen in an attempt to counter the effects of hay fever.  So if I am selling honey I tend to use a bigger filter.  However, if I am intending to put honey into a competition I want it to sparkle and be as pure as possible so I will use a 200 micron filter.

Statutory Regulations for Selling Honey

All the information below on the regulations concerning selling honey have been lifted from the Trading Standards Institute website from the Section specifically concerned with selling Honey: 

Honey that is prepacked should be labelled with the following:

• the name
• the name or trade name and address of the producer or responsible food business operator
• the country or countries of origin
• any special storage conditions
• a best-before date
• a lot mark
• the weight

Durability indication and storage conditions

• A durability indication in the form of a ‘best before’ date must be applied to prepacked honey. Honey that is intended to have a shelf life in excess of three months is required to be marked with at least a month and a year, such as ‘Best before end Nov 2017’. However, in order to be able to identify a particular batch of honey (see below), you may wish to also include the day – for example, ‘Best before 30 Nov 2017’.
• Storage conditions that need to be observed for the food to maintain its quality until the date shown must also be marked on the label.

Lot marking

• Each jar of honey should have a code on it that identifies it with a single batch – for example, this could be all the honey that is packed in one day. You can use a best-before date (if it indicates at least a day and month), a number, or some other code. If you do not use a date, it may be best to put an ‘L’ in front of the code to make it clear that it is a lot mark. The lot mark can appear anywhere on the jar.
• Honey sold only from the premises on which it was packed does not need to be lot-marked. However, it is advisable to lot-mark all jars regardless so that the honey can be easily traced back to the batch from which it came.

General provisions

• Any information required to be given must appear either on the packaging, on a label attached to the packaging, or on a label clearly visible through the packaging. The ticket or label must be easy to understand and indelible. Such information must not be hidden, obscured or interrupted by any other written or pictorial matter.
• Where honey is sold loose or prepacked for direct sale (sold from the premises on which it was packed or a mobile stall or vehicle used by the business), the labelling information may appear on a label, ticket or notice that can be clearly seen by the purchaser.
• Where honey is sold other than to the ultimate consumer, the required labelling information may be provided in an accompanying commercial document. 

Weight marking

• Packed honey must show a metric weight marking, and may show an imperial weight mark in addition to the compulsory metric marking. The metric indication must be more prominent, and for most packs must be at least 4 mm high. The imperial marking must be no larger than the metric one. Note that the quantity shown should be the net weight – that is, the weight of the honey without the jar, lid and label.
• The weight marking and name of the food should be shown in the same field of vision. There is a minimum font size of 1.2 mm for mandatory information. As letters of the alphabet are inevitably of different sizes, the 1.2 mm refers to the height of a lower case ‘x’ (usually an 8-point font).
• Individual portions of 25 g or less are exempt from compulsory weight declarations.
• Please see ‘Packaged goods: average quantity’ for more information.

Organic claims

• If you are marketing your honey as organic, please see ‘Labelling and describing organic food’, which explains the extra legal controls that apply.

Voluntary labelling

• Members of the British Honey Importers and Packers Association (BHIPA) adhere to a voluntary code of practice whereby all honey on retail sale includes a warning statement that honey is ‘Unsuitable for children under 12 months’. This is a precautionary measure against possible infant botulism, which could potentially arise from the presence of Clostridium botulinum spores in honey. Although this is not a statutory requirement, the trading standards service supports this voluntary warning for infants under twelve months.

If the Best Before date is a specific date eg 26^th March 2024 then you do not require a Lot Number.  If the Best Before date is simply a month and a year eg March 2024, then you do need a Lot Number.

If you are selling honey you should use new jars and lids.  If you are simply producing honey for yourself and to give to friends you can wash out jam jars and re-use them.  With both new jars and used jars, they should be thoroughly washed – in the dishwasher – or washed by hand and put in the oven on 100C to dry and sterilise them.  When you fill jars you should fill up to the neck of the jar and, once the lid is on, you should not be able to see any daylight between the honey and the lid and it should certainly not weigh less than the stated weight on the label.  If you are selling honey at local shops it will sell better if you have an attractive label but it must contain all the above Statutory information.  You should use a tamper proof label and it is a good idea to put a granulation label on the back of the jar.

Producing Honey for the Show Table

If you are intending to enter your honey in local Honey Shows here are a few tips that will ensure that the Show Judge looks favourably on your entry.

Usually, a Schedule will ask you to enter two one pound jars of honey.  You need to make sure that everything about these two jars are identical.  Certainly the colour should be identical and it should come from the same batch.  The lids and jars should match exactly and have no flaws in them.  The inside of the lid should be clean.  The surface of the honey should be flawless and have no foam or bubbles on it.  The judge will smell the aroma of the honey as he takes the lid off.  In order to conserve the aroma you should not take the lid off the honey for several days before entering it into the Show.  This means that it should be transported with the utmost care to ensure the lid stays clean. Polish the glass to ensure there are no finger prints on it.  The entry number should be stuck two cms from the base of the jar. The judge will weigh each jar so if it is not up to weight it will be discarded.

By Liz Westcott

Uncapping comb: I prefer to use a fork rather than a knife as I think there is less honey wastage. A fork simply lifts the cappings off. A knife slices through the comb and the honey. I use a Combcapper Uncapping Frame Rest (£31.85) which I bought from Mann Lake – now Bee Equipment Ltd UK- which fits a 5 US gallon bucket. I line the bucket beforehand with a net sack so the cappings fall into the bucket but are caught in the sack. When I have finished uncapping, I tie a cord around the net sack of cappings and suspend it over the bucket. I leave it for a few days and then filter the honey and put it in jars. This honey can be used for cooking or making mead.
The cappings need to be washed in pure water without chlorine. You can use rain water, bottled water or I have a good filter on my tap which takes the chemicals out. When cappings have been washed, this water can be used for making mead, if you wish, once it has been filtered. You need to wash cappings because if there are sugar crystals in the cappings the wax makes tiny balls around them.

If you wish to process wax for showing, then you need to sort cappings and comb into light and dark wax. When I am transferring cappings from the net sack to the receptacle for melting, as I pick up each handful I just look quickly for any wax which is dark or covered in propolis. Propolis makes the wax opaque and cloudy and we are looking for clear, bright wax. You can use this darker wax for making furniture polish.

Put the comb or cappings into an old saucepan with warm water. Gently warm in a bain marie (I sit the saucepan in a large frying pan or bigger saucepan) until all the wax has melted. Or you can put them with warm water in a bucket or bowl and put them in the oven to melt. I have a honey warming cabinet which has a thermostat allowing me to raise the temperature to 80C made by Mike Ticehurst. The temperature of bees wax should not exceed 90C or it will darken and be useless for showing. You can also put wax in the oven but you need to put a meat thermometer in to check that the temperature does not go higher than 90C.

When the wax is completely melted, take a metal coat hanger and shape into a loop to fit over the bowl or bucket you are using to strain into. Always put newspaper down to protect worktops when working with wax. Take an old pair of tights or buy cheap ones from the Pound Shop and slip over the metal loop to act as a filter. Pour the wax and water mixture through the tights into the bowl. You will need a stick or an old knife to make an indent in the tights or the water and wax mixture will bounce off or overflow. At the first filter you will get all sorts of black muck come out of the wax. It is important not to use a fine filter at this stage because the muck will clog the filter and it will take ages to go through. In the bucket the wax and water will separate, water on the bottom, wax on top. This makes it much easier to get the set wax out of the bucket. Leave to set. I use a plastic bucket because the sides have some give in them and the wax can be released by gently squeezing them. If there is any difficulty, put the bucket in the fridge for a couple of hours for the wax to shrink away from the sides. If it still difficult to get the wax out, put the bucket in the freezer for a couple of hours and then the wax will shrink further and fall out.

This is the first and main filter of the wax. If you look at the underside of the wax, if it was particularly dirty, you will see a thin black band where the impurities have settled to the base of the wax. You can either get a sharp knife and cut this layer off or you can melt the wax and process again, exactly as the first time but when you get to the stage to filter the wax put a clean jay cloth or piece of wet wipe over the tights and filter again. This should take out the majority of impurities and each time you filter you will achieve cleaner wax. However, the colour will only lighten to a certain degree. If you have brown wax it will stay brown – albeit clean – so it is important to sort your wax by colour at the beginning of the process. If you want light coloured finished wax then you have to make sure you take the pieces of dark wax out and process it separately. Eventually, you will have a light coloured, clean block of wax.

However, having a large cakes of wax can be difficult to use in recipes that require a relatively small amount of wax so I melt the block of wax in a jug without water. When it is all melted, I pour it into one ounce block moulds so it is ready to weigh out for the recipes I use.

When you have arrived at clean wax that you decide to show as a block, melt it in the oven. A Class for a block or cake of wax will specify the minimum weight, eg 450g. I put the container I am going to pour the wax into on the scales and weigh the wax as I am pouring it in. I would probably put 475g in my mould to ensure it is well within the specified weight. Put the wax back in the oven, turn the oven off and leave the wax in the oven to cool slowly. This will ensure an even surface as the wax cools. The next morning, take it out and allow to cool further to room temperature. Then repeat the steps above by putting in the fridge or freezer to release the wax from your mould.

Be aware that the more you heat wax the more it will lose its opaqueness and aroma – the qualities that will win that first prize – so you need to get your wax as clean as possible in as few heatings as possible.

Always choose your best wax for making candles and one ounce blocks. On the Show table, the judges will weigh all blocks to ensure they are up to weight so ensure they are up to weight before you enter them. You don’t need to put one ounce blocks back in the oven to cool.

NEVER POUR WARM WATER AND WAX INTO THE SINK OR DOWN THE PLUGHOLE! I have a corner in the garden, behind the shed where I pour all my waste water and wax.

Enjoy your wax work and if you have any questions don’t hesitate to get in touch – Liz Westcott.

By Gerry Stuart

As we progress through these troubled times it may be easy to loose focus on other issues which can be as equally important to us and our delicate environment.

Someone once said:

‘If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, mankind would only have 4 years left to live.’  A quote often connected by some with Albert Einstein.  We often hear news of the plight of our beloved honey bee from colony losses from the UK and different parts of the world, not to mention the impact that has to the economy.

There are places in China where people are employed to pollinate fruit with chicken feathers on bamboo canes due to the apparent disappearance of pollinators, coincidentally from the same region that the Asian hornet reportedly comes from . 

Could there be a correlation? Probably time will tell.

Asian hornets we are told are a threat to all pollinators not just honey bees.

The Asian hornet (Vespa velutina) is native to Asia.  It is believed that it was accidentally imported into Southern France from China around 2004 and has spread rapidly through France and into neighbouring countries and most recently the Channel Islands.

Members from different branches in Devon have formed Asian Hornet Action Teams (AHATs) and are now responding once again to help stem the incursion threat.

Devon branches will be joining with similar AHAT teams throughout the UK for another National Asian Hornet Watch Week running from September 7^th  – 13^th  2020.

AHAT’s are encouraging all beekeepers and members of the public to be on the alert for Asian hornets until the end of October.  Ivy which will be coming into flower over the next few weeks, or fallen fruit makes for an excellent place to look out for them either in your garden or elsewhere.

The public should be aware that whilst the Asian hornets are not ordinarily aggressive, they are advised that they should not under any circumstances approach a nest.  If they are disturbed, they will actively defend their nests.

Generally nests are found high in trees but they are now starting to be found low down in garden shrubs, undergrowth, and roadside banks.  Bee Inspectors found one in a shrub outside a dining room window of a house.

We need to spread the word and get the public behind us.  We need them to be ‘our eyes and our ears’.  Yes ‘ears as well’ if they should hear of a report then it should be passed on, AHATs’ would rather get the report than the report be forgotten. 

Members of the public can download the free Asian Hornet Watch App on their smartphone to assist with identification and quick and easy submission of any reports.

You can make a difference!

How can you help?

• Spread the word.
• Get to know what it looks like.

• Know what it is not.
• Offer to help your local ‘Action team.’

What to look for:

Spring: Primary nest

Late spring early summer: Primary nest or the start of a secondary nest.

Mid to late summer: Secondary nest.

Winter: Secondary nest may contain a few overwintering Queens.

What action will the AHAT take upon receipt of a report?

• Visit location and speak to the informant.
• Collect any evidence that they may have.
• Log relevant details.
• If no exhibit, then show insect identification cards to confirm species seen.
• Set up a bait station or trap.
• Photograph / capture for submission to N.B.U.

• Notify local Police / Council if there is a risk to public safety to have the area cordoned off.
• Upon arrival of N.B.U., brief on action taken.

AHAT’s need your help as they prepare for Action against the Asian Hornet

Simon O’Sullivan Chairman of Devon AHAT said: “We continue to strive towards a ‘co-ordinated partnership approach’ with our Bee Inspectors from the National Bee Unit to assist with this incursion.  We need the public to be aware of what this insect looks like, and to understand the potential damage that this insect can cause to all of our native pollinators not just honey bees but butterflies, bumble bees, hoverflies and other essential pollinators.”

The Asian Hornet Watch week will run from the 7^th to 13^th September, 2020 and AHAT members are asking the public to be attentive and to report any sightings.

If you See it, Snap it, Send it to:

 by email at  alertnonnative@ceh.ac.uk or online at https://www.brc.ac.uk/risc/alert.php?species=asian_hornet   BUT remember no action will be taken unless there is photographic or physical evidence!

 For more information on line go to the Non-Native Species Secretariat (NNSS) http://www.nonnativespecies.org/alerts/asianhornet or alternatively contact your local beekeeping association swarm liaison co-ordinator or swarm collector.

There is an Asian Hornet Watch App which will help you report a sighting.

available at: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.ac.ceh.hornets&hl=en_GB and https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/asian-hornet-watch/id1161238813

You can contact your nearest AHAT by using the interactive map at https://www.bbka.org.uk/asian-hornet-action-team-map  and they will be pleased to help if you are unsure of your identification

If possible, take a photo or video and send it with any collected specimens to the NNSS.

Photos by Gerry Stuart

Photo from NBU

This year I wanted to try a different system of queen rearing; one that did not need techniques of grafting – every year I seem to need brighter and brighter light to do this and the young larvae don’t like bright light or inaccurate, clumsy handling. So when I came across Donald Sims’ description of Dr C C Miller’s system in his book “50 Years amongst the Bees” I decided to try it. Here is a summary of my experience so that if anyone would like to try it next year, at least you can benefit from my mistakes and wrong decisions. However, it was not a complete failure and, as with most beekeeping techniques, should be better next time. First in brief, is my adaptation of Donald Sims’ adaptation of Dr Miller’s system.

Glyn’s Adaptation of Donald Sims Adaptation of Dr Miller’s Method of Queen Rearing

1	Select a Breeder colony; Give stimulation feed. Call this Box A.	Early
2	Select a strong colony with old or unsuitable Queen – Box C; feed for a few days.	Day -3
3	Prepare a frame as below for collecting eggs; use unwired foundation.	Day -2/3
4	Remove all but 2 frames of Brood from Box A into second empty box - Box B, shaking all the adhering bees back into Box A first.	Day 1
5	Place B on another colony over a QE.	Day 1
6	Place prepared frame between two Brood Frames in Box A.	Day 1
7	About one week later, examine the frame which should be laid-up. Brush bees back into A. Cut back the new comb to the youngest, just hatched, larvae.	Day 7
8	Kill or remove Queen from C. Place all Box C brood combs but NO BEES into B.	Day 7
9	Place prepared larvae into the Queenless Box C between two good food frames. (Box C now has all its bees including nurse bees and only the added brood to rear.)	Day 7
10	A few days later, examine to count Queen cells available for Nucs.	Day 10/12
11	Unite Box B over newspaper including bees, with Box C.	Day 10/12
12	Make Nucs from B&C 10 days later (ie after DAY 7) & give a Q Cell to each.	Day 17/18

Notes of Experience (Numbers refer to the stages listed above)

1	Selection of Breeder. I selected an old queen that has performed beautifully for 3 years and also given good daughter queens under previous systems.
2	Selection of cell raiser. This is the most critical decision and where I failed miserably. Actually, there is often not much choice if you have just a few colonies. In addition there is something contradictory about looking for a strong colony with a weak or undesirable queen. By “undesirable” we must not mean “aggressive”. This colony will be queenless for a while and manipulated frequently – not very easy for queen rearing if it has a bad temper! Limited choice made me select a colony that was not strong enough; the reason for my difficulties later.
3	The cutting of the foundation does not have to be accurate but certainly unwired foundation is preferable. Not only does it ease the initial shaping of the comb, it also facilitates the more delicate cutting to day old larvae and removal of mature queen cells later (See 7 & 13)
4	This was a dilemma. The breeder colony was a growing nucleus, the old breeder queen having been confined in it; I didn’t want her to head a strong colony this year. There were only two spare brood combs which I moved to Box B as directed.
5	Easy
6	Easy
7	Great! My old faithful queen had done a great job. Colleague Bob Normand with his 20/20 vision, cut the combs back to the newest larvae.
8	There was no reason to kill the queen so Bob took her in a cage and later said she was doing fine in a growing colony. There were only 3 spare brood frames in Box C including egg covered combs. Too few for later.
9	Easy to do but I began to worry that colony C was too small for good queen rearing.
10	OK
11	Loads of queen cells started. I reduced these to 10 well-spaced cells examining both sides of the frame. This was my biggest error. It should have been no more than 5. There were too few bees to feed ten.
12	OK and easy.
13	There were actually 11 rather undersized sealed cells. I gave up the nucleus idea and united the frames to C. Gave a reasonable queen cell to C and made up mini-nucs for the rest. A fortunate coincidence was that I had a queen above the excluder in another colony. I had found her two days before and put her below. The supers, full of brood of course, had loads of nurse bees in them. So I shook them off into a swarm box the day before with a few from other colonies to fill 10 mini-nucs. Now I am waiting to see the result. The virgins do not look too bad.

Conclusion

Well, from the 10 mini-nucs I have 6 laying queens. [The others were lost in the mating process – a risk under any system. Always aim for double the number of queens you would like to end up with!]

At this stage they look smaller than I would like but I shall watch them carefully and hopefully each will bring a colony through the coming winter at least. I must remember the beekeepers’ motto. “Do it better next year”

Recently I have become a great fan of Dr CC Miller. His name crops up with commonplace regularity in beekeeping conversations and it’s possible to mention his name and inventions for years without getting to know the great man. I was delighted to see that the publishers David & Charles in Newton Abbot, through their American associates Dover Books have reissued his classic “Fifty Years Among the Bees”. This was reviewed in Devon BKA’s “Beekeeping” magazine last month. The great feature of the book is his humour which comes through his writing and the honest way in which he admits and deals with his mistakes. It seems to me that Donald Sims also admired Dr Miller but rather typically added 10 years in one-upmanship giving his book the title. “Sixty Years with Bees”. I found Sims very useful, and interesting for the name dropping of contemporary beekeepers in it, but annoyingly, he was always perfect, apparently, in his bee management. The rather complicated shorthand for his beekeeping notes is also very similar to the way that Miller wrote his memoranda. (While mentioning Sims I must say that newcomers must be careful of his erroneous comments about Terramycin on page 223 of “60 Years…..”)

Miller kept bees from 1861 until his death at 90 in 1920. His book is a wonderful social history of America at the time but crucially he lived through the time when Langstroth’s vital discovery and application of bee space in 1851 changed ancient, traditional beekeeping methods for ever. Clearly, Dr C C Miller adopted movable frame hives very early and many of his methods for queen rearing, comb and section production (for years his sole income was from his sale of comb honey) are still relevant and useful today.

When it comes to EFB, in 1909 he had 150 colonies and only 22 showed no sign of the disease. He wrote, “I felt like giving up but only for a little while”. Antibiotics were 50 years away so he used several techniques. (IPM?) One he called the “McAvoy Treatment” – brushing bees on to new foundation! William McAvoy was a Canadian beekeeper who had been appointed to be the first beekeeping inspector (anywhere?) in Ontario in 1891. Was he the inventor of the currently, much-promoted, DEFRA EFB control system? However, Miller found later that many bees had left;- “bag and baggage, leaving empty hives”. (Marie Celeste syndrome? Or most likely straight absconding such as can be experienced today with shook swarms). Miller also explains how, in mild cases of EFB with one or two cells infected, (and he says it is easy to identify these by colour alone), then caging the queen for 7/10 days will cause the disease to disappear. You will have to read the book for an explanation but it is consistent with modern theories of EFB even though he believed the disease was caused by Bacillus alveii as did many others at the time. Dr Miller warns that this treatment would be no good for American Foul Brood.

“Fifty years Among the Bees” concludes with a section of delicious sounding recipes for fruitcakes, jellies and cookies obviously around 100 years old. There is also a section of recipes for potions, lotions and remedies for a range of ailments. True apitherapy – when it was necessary, and written way before modern, high-tech, effective (mostly) medicines.

Addendum

Like many BBKA members I have read most of Roger Patterson’s articles on Queen quality from the BBKA website and elsewhere The weak queens I have described above have an obvious cause for their defects. In some defence of my beekeeping skills, I have to say that queens that I have raised by orthodox systems this year, that is by artificial swarm techniques or other swarm control measures, have yielded some cracking queens. And those reared last year using a Jenter kit and a Cloake system for rearing have also done well. My view is that the problems Roger is describing can probably be put down to weakened drone and queen fertility caused by the 12+ years use of fluvalinates for Varroa control. There is considerable published scientific evidence for this now. Here in Devon, for several years now, few people have used Apistan or Bayvarol. And before long, the whole of UK will be free of these particular varroacides. (Apivar (Amitraz) is no longer used in USA and although effective for a few years, should not be used as an alternative if fertility is in question. It is not “legit.” in UK anyway.) It will be interesting to see what will happen to our queens in the coming years. Please report your successful queen rearing however simple. I am concerned that publicity is only being given to queen rearing problems and we have never been free of these of one sort or another. The web site or BBKA News are good platforms for this information.

Glyn Davies – August 2006

Select a strong, good quality colony (a marked queen will make the job easier).

Feed early to stimulate growth (further feed will be needed).

An extra hive and frames and dummy frames will be needed.

Select the strong colony to be split and to raise queen cells and place a new brood box with foundation a few meters away.

One cell can be left in the raising colony to re-establish there. Dummies should be removed and replaced with new frames as appropriate.

These guidelines should be modified to suit local circumstances.

Based on an article by Glyn Davies.

To make up ~12.5 litres use the following recipe.

Heat up 6.25 l of water to boiling and turn off the heat. Add 10 kg white sugar and stir until dissolved. Once dissolved the liquid will be clear and slightly straw coloured. Be careful not to boil the solution as boiling can produce a molecule called hydroxymethylfurfural which can cause ulceration of the bees gut and so is potentially quite harmful.

Once cooled sufficiently I add 5 ml of thymol solution made up to the recipe on Dave Cushmans website (always be careful when handling thymol crystals). This makes a 1 x Manley strength thymolised sugar syrup which should not suffer from black mould.

For reference, and hopefully to save your back, 12.5 l of 2:1 sugar syrup weighs about 16 kg and is equivalent to about 14-15kg of stores when in the hive.

Bridget Beattie. (August 2013). Winter Feeding. Available: http://www.bbka.org.uk/files/library/bbka_news_216_aug_2013_1374844570.pdf#page=5. Last accessed 30 September 2016.

The timetable includes among other things, details about how many bees one would expect in a colony what main sources of forage are available, when to apply treatments for varroa and when to take samples for disease testing. Loads of stuff in fact, it is a really useful schedule which both new and more experienced beekeepers will find useful and informative.

Beekeeping Timetable