Dear Member,

Well, for many this has been a good year for honey production and most of you who are getting a honey crop this year will no doubt have extracted your honey and be enjoying the fruits of your, and the bees, labour.

Once the supers are off, this is the time to assess the varroa on your hives and The National Bee Unit (BeeBase) gives excellent advice on how to measure your varroa drop and what to use for treatment if it is needed. The bees which will be produced over the next three months are the winter bees and it is essential that they are well fed to ensure that they build up the fat bodies which will see them through the winter.

As the excellent young researcher Samuel Ramsey (who spoke at the BBKA Convention this year), found in his research, varroa actually feed on the fat bodies and this will of course reduce their ability to overwinter, meaning your colony will be weakened and may not survive the winter.

Another, less easy to identify weakener of the colony, is Nosema. Those of you you had your bees tested at our Bee Health Day in the Spring will know how to do this. Unfortunately apart from clean frames there is little approved treatment for Nosema, although it is thought Thymol may have some benefits, so using one of these varroa treatments may co-incidentally also help with Nosema.

You will now have more time on your hands as weekly inspections are now no longer needed (swarming now is most unusual) so this is the ideal time to start preparing for the HONEY SHOW!

The County Honey Show at Stoneleigh is held in September and ours here in Rugby in October and I would urge you to consider submitting entries to both. It is an excellent way of learning how to best prepare your honey for sale and of course that other valuable asset of bees and beekeeping - Wax. Although cleaning and preparing wax is a rather messy business it is a valuable commodity and should not just be thrown away. It costs the bees a great deal in energy and resources to produce the wax so we should treat it with respect, even if it is only to clean it for exchanging at Tradex or the Convention, for foundation.

Rowan found this year that he had a request from several people for wax as they were wanting to make wax-wraps - the eco-friendly alternative to clingfilm. So get busy looking up how to deal with those surprisingly large quantities that accumulate from brace comb, old frames and of course the highly prized cappings from the honey you have been extracting. These cappings are largely free of propolis and produce beautiful light honey coloured wax that is ideal for showing or producing cosmetics or high quality candles.

Regards, Margaret Holdsworth