Dear Member,

Hopefully your hives are all building up well and are ready to take advantage of the forage available over the next few months which will promise a good honey crop. The blossom this spring has been spectacular, but as for beekeeping, the downside of the dry, and sometimes cold, weather has been that flowers release less nectar in these conditions, although pollen fortunately remains plentiful.

This is also of course the time for swarms to emerge, and we are trying this year to keep a log of where swarms are collected from. So, if you do collect a swarm, even if it's from your apiary, can you please send us the address, postcode, or even just the street name. We have a map on the website with the swarms location indicated. This would be useful if we unfortunately have an outbreak of EFB or AFB in the area, and it will be useful to see where the majority of swarms occur.

Gail introduced us to one of the books in the library - E B Woodmore’s Manual of Beekeeping and she mentioned that he maintained that swarms usually ‘go west’ so perhaps you can observe this and report back to Gail your findings!

It was interesting to hear from David Bonner, our seasonal bee inspector, that some of the new rape being planted is a hybridised form which has reduced scent and nectar, this means that beekeepers who have relied on a spring harvest from the rape will be disappointed by lower yields this year.

David as usual gave an excellent talk and demonstration of how to do a Bailey comb change, a shook swarm and a disease Bailey comb change. I found his explanation of when to do these different manipulations worth remembering.

A Bailey comb change can be done early in the spring if colonies are strong( but heavy feeding of weak syrup is needed) while a shook swarm needs a strong colony and is done in May/June. These measures are an effective way of changing the brood combs which should be renewed every 18 months to 2 years to help keep bees healthy.

A session at the Branch Apiary introduced seven of the aspirant beekeepers from the Introductory course run in March/April. All who attended were enthusiastic about the opportunity to handle bees for the first time and hopefully some will join our branch and go on to keep bees in the future.

We will be holding regular monthly Apiary sessions at the Branch Apiary (see our events page for details) and I would encourage you to come along. It is always interesting to see another hive and if you only have one or two hives it enables you to judge your own bees against another colony, and to see different manipulations being carried out. There is also the opportunity to chat with other beekeepers and raise questions or discuss your own bees, so do attend when you can.

One of the reasons bees do not build up in the spring and summer is because they are infected by Nosema and it can also cause winter losses. This is one of the adult bee diseases that is widespread but unlike brood disease or deformed wing virus, there are no obvious outward signs of the disease. There are two types of Nosema - Apis and Ceranae. In the first type you may see brown streaks on the hive or frames and sometimes dead bees in front of the hive, but in the case of Nosema Ceranae this does not occur and it can only be detected microscopically. So, the only way you can find out if your bees are infected with Nosema is to examine some of the older bees under a microscope. There is the opportunity to do this with help, on the 13th May. Do take a sample of 30 bees along or give them to someone else to examine to make sure your bees are healthy.

I hope you can come along to the Spring Fair at the Whitehall Recreation ground on May 1st. and if possible volunteer a little of your time to talk to the public about bees and beekeeping. This is a great opportunity to share your enthusiasm and knowledge about your hobby to a very receptive public. If you can’t make the May date there is always the Dunchurch Fair on the 6th June. Contact Rowan Moore if you can help out

Regards,

Margaret Holdsworth