Dear Members,

Well here we are at the start of another year - 2020 - an evenly balanced number! I hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas and are ready for the new year with the new equipment which was waiting for you under the Christmas tree.

Happy New Year from me, and all members of the Rugby Beekeepers’ committee. Let’s hope that the next year proves a good one for you and your bees and that we keep the Asian Hornet and any other non-native species at bay for another year.

Please consider coming to the next Branch meeting on the 15th January to learn something about Bumblebees.

Perhaps, as I did when I started beekeeping, you think ‘well I’m not that interested in other bees, I want to learn about honeybees’. I would suggest that learning about bumble bees is essential if you want to be a good beekeeper, if only because the public assume that if you know something about honeybees you are also an expert on bumblebees. You can be almost certain to be called out to remove bumblebees which have been mistaken for honeybee swarms and it is useful to be able to give informed advice on what to do about bumble bees if you are asked by a member of the public. Also, as with honeybees, the more you learn about them, the more interesting they become, and who knows, you may end up protecting both honeybees and bumble bees from declining numbers in the future.

Your bees should be well clustered during this cold weather but they will be consuming stores at quite a rate, so do remember to check on them every few weeks by hefting the hive, or if you have installed a scale, checking the rate of weight drop in the hive which will tell you whether you need to consider putting fondant above the broodbox as a supplementary feed.

I think it is important not to disturb the hive at this time of the year so I put the fondant in a take-away plastic container (open side down) over the feed hole of the crown board. If you are worried that the hive is very light and the bees may be starving, you may open the crown board and place the fondant above the cluster with an eke to accommodate the plastic container. Make sure your crown board is replaced securely and I would also place insulation above. Most of the heat in our houses is lost through the roof and hives are no different, so good insulation helps the bees regulate the temperature around the cluster.

Remember that once the queen starts laying towards the end of January or February, depending on weather, the bees will need fresh pollen, so think about planting trees, shrubs or flowers near the hive which produce early pollen - the musk willow (Salix aegyptiaca) produces lovely catkins filled with pollen, Mahonia and Viburnum tynus are also good shrubs which flower early and provide pollen. Of course the early bulbs like snowdrops and crocus are also good sources of pollen a little later. So, now is a good time to order trees and shrubs and get planting.

Regards, Margaret Holdsworth