Category: WBKA Newsletters

KBKA Westerham Branch Newsletter June 2019

Westerham Beekeepers
Newsletter June 2019
4 June 2019
Dear Fellow Beekeepers,
Here are details of our next two apiary meetings. Please note that the host and location on the June 15th meeting has been changed. Our treasurer, Keith Masters, will now host this meeting at his out-apiary. The meeting will be followed by a tea and discussion. If you are attending, please bring a contribution to tea: biscuits, cake, sandwiches or savoury. Keith is a treatment-free beekeeper, so this should be an instructive meeting following Steve Riley and Mike Cox’s talk to us in April. Keith writes: ‘The apiary is in a chicken run, with a mix of nationals and poly hives. Fair to say most hives are in a state of flux…’ – so it should be interesting!
Summer Apiary Meetings
Saturday, June 15th, from 2.30 pm. Host Keith Masters; demonstrator TBA.
Please wear stout shoes or wellies. The access to the apiary is fine, but the location itself may well be muddy by now.
The weather forecast for Saturday is promising… so do please come if you can, with new beekeepers particularly welcome! (And if you are coming, please remember to bring an edible contribution to tea.)


Saturday, July 20th, from 2.30pm. Host Peter Cobley; demonstrator John Hendrie. Contact phone 01732 867625.
For directions to Peter’s Edenbridge apiary please email our Secretary, Di Pickard, at westerhambeekeepers@gmail.com

Westerham Branch Newsletter April 2019

Dear Fellow Beekeepers,

Here are details of our last spring meeting at Westerham Hall – an important one which will tie in with a ‘Natural Beekeeping afternoon’ in June. A big thank you to Steve Riley for presenting and
organising both events – and also to Diana Pickard, our secretary, for co- ordinating the March meeting at which a record number of beekeepers made Asian Hornet Monitoring Traps. And thanks too
to Carol Taylor who provided refreshments in March and Mark Edwards who will do the same this month. I also list below this year’s three apiary meetings – please note the dates and directions
and come if you can.

Good beekeeping!

Spring 2019 Meeting

Westerham Hall, Wednesday, April 24th, 7.30pm for 8pm

‘Varroa – should you treat the bees or let them adapt to survive’ – a presentation by Steve Riley, the Westerham Beekeepers’ education officer.

Steve writes: ‘A group of Westerham beekeepers decided to take a “chemical free” approach to varroa management. Based on scientific evidence and using brood breaks as a natural means of controlling the mite population, we don’t use any chemicals. We will share the basis of the techniques, the results so far, and our thoughts for the year ahead. We hope to be joined by Mike Cox, who has been a treatment-free beekeeper in Kent for over five years, having started keeping bees in 1995.

Spring and Summer 2019 Apiary Visits

Saturday, May 18th, from 2.30pm. Hosts Maciej (Mac) Matysiak with Lorri Woods; demonstrators Celia and David Rudland.

Mac keeps his bees in Apimaye, Turkish-designed Langstroth hives constructed from insulated double-skinned food-grade plastic. The meeting will be followed by a tea and discussion. If you are attending, please bring a contribution to the tea – cake, savoury, sandwiches, biscuits, and also a light folding chair.

For directions to Mac’s Oxted apiary please email our Secretary, Di Pickard, at westerhambeekeepers@gmail.com

Saturday, June 15th, from 2.30pm. ‘A Natural Beekeeping Afternoon’ – including treatment-free techniques, videos and the opportunity to talk to treatment-free beekeepers. Host Steve Riley.

For directions to Steve’s Oxted apiary please email our Secretary, Di Pickard, at westerhambeekeepers@gmail.com

Saturday, July 20th, from 2.30pm. Host Peter Cobley;

demonstrator TBA.

For directions to Peter’s Hever apiary please email our Secretary, Di Pickard, at westerhambeekeepers@gmail.com

Following the apiary meeting on May 18th, our demonstrators, Celia and David Rudland, are holding a Queen-Rearing Day, on Sunday, May 19th, 10.30am to 4pm

Celia writes: ‘Experience a variety of queen-rearing methods; primarily designed for the small scale/back-garden beekeeper, we look at simple methods of rearing good-quality queens. An expanded version of the queen rearing delivered at the Spring Convention in the last few years. Lunch and
refreshments provided.’ Location Whyteleafe teaching apiary.

Further details from www.eastsurreybees.co.uk; or 01883 622788 (office), 07798 915480 (mobile).

Westerham Branch Newsletter March 2019


Dear Fellow Beekeepers,

First, our warm thanks to Georgia (Gigi) Hennessy who spoke to us in February on solitary bees, and drew a very pleasing attendance, and to Robert Ambroziak for laying on the evening’s refreshments.

Here are details of our next two topical and significant evening events, each of which will, as usual, be accompanied by light refreshments (50p):

— Westerham Hall, Wednesday, March 27th, 7.30 pm for 8 pm —

Di Pickard will lead a hands-on session making Asian Hornet Monitoring Traps. (As a first step, see BBKA News, August 2018.) 

‘A practical session,’ Di writes, ‘along the lines of “Bee Peter”… Please email me (westerhambeekeepers@gmail.com) by Sunday, March 17th to confirm your attendance so we can get in enough materials. There’s room for flexibility, but it would help with planning if you can confirm. Instructions and materials will be provided. But, in true Blue Peter fashion, you will have to find something. So…

‘Please bring a plastic 2-litre soda or fizzy-water bottle, preferable one with ridged sides with a bottom section marginally larger than the middle (e.g., a green Waitrose Essential fizzy-water bottle). A stiff card or thin cardboard – save that cereal packet (to use as a template). And if you can also bring any of the following tools, that would be useful too: Sharp knife or scissors; Pliers; Stapler; Pop riveter and rivets; Sheet-metal cutters.

‘This will be a fun session where we can all help each other, so don’t panic if you haven’t got a Blue Peter badge for craft skills.’

 — Westerham Hall, Wednesday, April 24th, 7.30 pm for 8 pm —

‘Varroa – should you treat the bees or let them adapt to survive?’ – a presentation by Steve Riley, the WBKA’s education officer.
 
Steve writes: ‘A small group of WBKA beekeepers have decided to take a “chemical free” approach to varroa management. Based on scientific evidence and using brood breaks as a natural means of controlling mite population, we don’t use any chemicals. We will share the basis of the techniques, the results so far, and our thoughts for the year ahead. We hope to be joined by Mike Cox, who has been a treatment-free beekeeper in Kent for over five years, having started keeping bees in 1995.’

Directions for Westerham Hall: From the A25 in the centre of Westerham (by the Green), take the London Road towards Biggin Hill; turn first right into Quebec Avenue; the car park and Westerham Hall is on the right-hand side. OS Ref: 447542.


Details of our June and July apiary visits will be announced next month, but meanwhile – a renewed appeal – please give me a call (01959 565188) if you would kindly consider opening your open apiary on Saturday, May 18th.
 

And finally, Gigi Hennessy writes with some follow-up information on her talk: 

‘Thank you so much for inviting me, I had a really nice time. I’m glad people enjoyed it – and no problem about the screen, I think it was better without it anyway. The things I mentioned in my talk, so my podcast is called Planet PhD and it’s a podcast where each week we interview different PhD students or postdocs about their research and their lives in general. This has ranged from how we use big data in urban planning to (more relevant for your members) bees and wildflowers on farms. We also release every two weeks bee-themed episodes, so far we’ve done one on honey bees and I think our bumblebee episode will be out on Monday.

‘Our website is here: https://planetphdpod.wixsite.com/planetphd

‘And our podbean page (where you can download our episodes) is here: https://planetphd.podbean.com/

‘You can also find us on Spotify and Apple podcasts under the name Planet PhD. Our Twitter is @PlanetPhD and email is planetphdpod@gmail.com. Feel free to tweet us or email us any questions!

‘I also mentioned some of Dave Goulson’s work, I would recommend his book Sting in the Tail and his web page on bee-friendly flowers http://www.sussex.ac.uk/lifesci/goulsonlab/resources/flowers ‘

With good wishes,

Johnny

John Pym

WBKA events organiser

Spring 2019 – Bee Zeen

BeeZeen – Spring 2019
Welcome to Westerham Beekeepers’ BeeZeen, a canter around beekeeping in our local
area.
Deck chairs in the garden in Feb – what’s going on?😎
It’s still too early to forecast with confidence that our colonies have over wintered well,
but from various reports from beekeepers ……. IT LOOKS VERY PROMISING🙏 . All
seasons are different and we’ll probably be plagued with early swarms this year…..
especially for those beekeepers who have Easter holidays planned!
This quarter, the BeeZeen will cover:-

Colonies in delicate balance
Pollen crucial to spring development
Ivy frames
First inspection of the year
Treatment free update
Training apiary plans: Queen rearing= locally adapted bees
Colonies in delicate balance
Most colony starvations occur in March for a number of reasons:-
1) the colony is made up of old winter bees coming to the end of their lives
2) stores are used up rapidly, with new brood requiring the brood nest to be kept at a
toasty 35’C, requiring large amounts of honey to generate the heat
3) the colonies have more brood in them than adult bees (see graph) at this time of year
and are delicately balanced.
In prolonged cold snaps, bees are reluctant to leave brood and their heating duties.
“Isolation starvation” can result, where the bees lose touch with their stores.
TOP TIP: in your first quick inspection (see below) move any frames of honey on the
outer of the hive nearer the broodnest.
If the hive feels light during this rapid development of the colony, add some fondant for
insurance, NB; still a little early for syrup
Pollen
Crucially important to the spring development of the colony is fresh pollen. Thankfully
there are large early supplies around Kent and Surrey with flowerings of snowdrops,
crocuses, catkins, hazel, hellebores, winter honeysuckle, pussy willow, blackthorn and
the odd early dandelion. Yellow carpeted fields of OSR should also appear in March
providing a bounty of pollen and nectar for the bees.
Fresh pollen is about 50% more nutritious than older stored pollen, providing proteins,
minerals, vitamins and fats. A colony is estimated to use a whopping 20kg of pollen a
year🤓 .
Crucially at this time of year with the development of brood, the pollen activates the
hypopharygeal glands of nurse bees (and even older winter bees) which produce the
milky liquid feed that you see the larvae floating on. c70% of the brood food is water,
which is also required to dilute honey stores for digestion – so collecting water from both
inside and outside of the hive is also very important to the spring development of the
colony.
image1.JPG
Ivy frames left over from the Autumn
Bees love ivy honey, even when it’s crystallised and a similar consistency to fondant (but
includes the good natural stuff).
Hopefully, you can see the crystallised ivy honey nibbled away in the centre-right of the
frame, where the bees make room for brood. Picture taken in February.
Some beekeepers worry that it can clog up the brood nest in the spring and reduce the
room for the queen to lay.
TOP TIP: to encourage bees to eat the ivy honey, score it with your hive tool and spray
the frame with water. Move ivy frames away from the broodnest area and replace with
drawn comb.
First inspection
Your first inspectIon is a quick affair – 5 minutes max. This is NOT a full brood box
inspection. Your objective is to check that the Queen has survived and is laying, without
too much disturbance of the broodnest. Choose a warm day.
So, here we go:-

  • mouse guard and woodpecker protection off. Entrance reducer back in
  • roof off
  • hive tool carefully around the underside of the crownboard to break the propolis seal
  • little smoke under the crown board as you lift it; after 5 to 6 months, they won’t
    necessarily be pleased to see you
  • check for Her Majesty under the crown board lid!
  • take out one of the end frames to create space
  • go straight to the brood nest and inspect a frame and the one next to it
  • as soon as you find any sign that the queen is laying (eggs, larvae or sealed brood)
  • very carefully put everything back together and close up the hive
  • 5 minutes MAX⏳
    Hopefully all will be in order and you’ll feel thrilled.
    Top tip: Seems obvious, but be super careful not to squish the queen. There are few, if
    any drones around just now to mate with a virgin queen replacement.
    Natural Beekeeping update
    (aka Treatment Free project)
    The story so far………
    A group of Westerham Beekeepers are working together across 7 apiaries, mimic-ing
    some natural techniques to reduce varroa loads in the colonies. No chemical mitacides
    are being used on the bees.
    The project started last season and over wintering was the first big test.
    There…….has……..been…….some……..nail……biting😬 .
    Our longer term goal is to help bees adapt to varroa, as they have done in parts of the
    UK, Europe and elsewhere.
    We have a presentation on Wednesday, 24th April at Westerham Hall to share our
    learnings. Do please come along!
    The project has thrown up lots of interesting ideas, which we’ll be experimenting on in the
    seasons ahead:-
    anti-microbial propolis “shrouds” around the brood area (as you find in feral colonies)
    more insulation for our thin-walled hives, as you find in natural cavities
    natural comb where bees provide the wax and decide on the cell size
    eco floors and symbionts (insects who help out in colonies but get wiped out by
    chemical treatments).
    These aren’t new ideas to the bees. They have been tested over millions of years along
    side their evolution.
    Training Apiary plans
    The new season opens on Sunday, 7 April 2019 @ 10.00.
    Come and tell us your overwintering stories and share in sacred cake eating rituals🐷
    This year, we will be Queen rearing. There is a BBKA and DEFRA backed initiative for us
    to rear more of own locally adapted queens, rather than rely on imports. Last year, we
    imported some 16,000 queens🙈 , some of which have been shown to bring in new
    strains of European Foul Brood. These imported genetics also affect the local adaption
    of our own colonies.
    3 Westerham Beekeepers are attending a BIBBA supported queen rearing course in
    March, so what could possibly go wrong?😜
    Taster sessions:
    If you know anyone new who is interested in trying beekeeping, Jacky DeLooz, our
    Training Apiary Manager, runs great Taster sessions. For more information or on what’s
    going on at the Training Apiary, contact Jacky on wbkatrainingapiary@gmail.com

Wishing you all a fabulous season and watch out for March swarms!
Steve Riley)
Education Officer
Westerham Beekeepers
Sent from my iPad

Westerham Branch Newsletter February 2019

Dear Fellow Beekeepers,

Greetings to all – and first my apologies that January’s meeting had to be cancelled because of the weather. Kay Wreford, our speaker on bee diseases, tells me she would be very happy to come at a later date which we shall certainly try to arrange.

Meanwhile our next meeting is at Westerham Hall, on Wednesday, February 27th, 7.30pm for 8pm. 

Georgia Hennessy, a PhD student in Bee Conservation at Sussex Universiity, will speak to us about her work on Solitary Bees (a few species) – and also about her study of wind and how it impacts on bee foraging behaviour. This promises to be a most lively gathering and I hope we can provide Gigi with a good-sized audience. Light refreshments (50p) will be served at the end of the evening.

Ou speaker writes: ‘I completed my undergraduate degree in Zoology at Leeds University and then went straight into a Masters in Behavioural Ecology at the University of Exeter. After that I took a break from academia and ended up working in the reptile/invertebrate section of Chessington World of Adventures Zoo for about a year. This made me realise my passion for all things bees and I started doing my current PhD back in 2017, studying bee conservation focusing on solitary bees and how weather influences bee foraging. 

Then, on

Wednesday, March 27th, Westerham Hall, 7.30pm for 8pm

Our secretary, Diana Pickard, will lead a practical hands-on session making Asian hornet traps… (This is a new departure for the branch. A sort of ‘Knit and Natter’ for beekeepers with wire and plastic bottle instead of wool and knitting needles.)

And on

Wednesday, April 24, Westerham Hall, 7.30pm for 8pm

Steve Riley will be hosting a presentation on the progress of treatment-free beekeeping in the UK and an update on the Westerham Beekeepers’ project. This will be followed-up with a visit to Steve’s treatment-free apiary on June 15th. 

Directions for Westerham Hall: From the A25 in the centre of Westerham (by the Green), take the London Road towards Biggin Hill; turn first right into Quebec Avenue; the car park and Westerham Hall is on the right-hand side. OS Ref: 447542.

And finally, a renewed appeal…

Please let me know (01959 565188) if you would be able to host an apiary meeting at you own home or out apiary on either May 18th or July 20th.

KBKA Westerham Branch Newsletter January 2019

Dear Fellow Beekeepers,

A Happy New Year to us all! For those not at the Annual Meeting in November, I’m happy to report that the 2018 winner of the Miller Cup (for set honey) was James Cash and the Veness Cup (for liquid honey) was Becky Champion. Well done to both!

Here is the schedule of our Winter and Spring meetings:

Light refreshments will, as usual, be served after each talk (50p).

Wednesday, January 30th, Westerham Hall, 7.30pm for 8pm

Kay Wreford, Master Beekeeper, will talk on the important subject of ‘Common Bee Diseases that we can all be unfortunate enough to meet’ – and will add some timely reminders on how to avoid/manage them. Kay has kept bees for 14 years and is an examiner for the BBKA basic and general-husbandry assessments.’I retired from being a General Practitioner three years ago and became a Seasonal Bee Inspector for Kent. And yes I did work on the Asian Hornet incursion at Dungeness…’

Wednesday, February 27th, Westerham Hall, 7.30 for 8pm

Georgia (Gigi) Hennessy, a doctoral candidate at the University of Sussex, will tell us about her special subject, the solitary bee – and also touch on another aspect of her research, honey-bee foraging and the weather.

Wednesday, March 27th, Westerham Hall, 7.30pm for 8pm

Our secretary, Diana Pickard, will lead a practical hands-on session making Asian hornet traps… (This is a new departure for the branch. A sort of ‘Knit and Natter’ for beekeepers with wire and plastic bottle instead of wool and knitting needles.)

Wednesday, April 24, Westerham Hall, 7.30pm for 8pm

Steve Riley will be hosting a presentation on the progress of treatment-free beekeeping in the UK and an update on the Westerham Beekeepers’ project. This will be followed-up with a visit to Steve’s treatment-free apiary on June 15th. 

Directions for Westerham Hall: From the A25 in the centre of Westerham (by the Green), take the London Road towards Biggin Hill; turn first right into Quebec Avenue; the car park and Westerham Hall is on the right-hand side. OS Ref: 447542.

Do please come to as many of these evening events as possible. New members and beginning beekeepers are especially encouraged and will be made very welcome at the get-together afterwards. Advice will be available from seasoned beekeepers and books on the craft may be borrowed from the branch ‘library’.

In addition to the apiary meeting in June (see above), two others have been scheduled on May 18th and July 20th. Let me know if you’d be willing to open your own apiary for these enjoyable and instructive Saturday afternoon gatherings. There will be an autumn talk at Westerham Hall on September 25th and our annual meeting and honey competition will be held on November 27th.