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Ian Craig (Scottish Beekeeping Association) 1 November 2010.
Basic Beekeeping.
First he encouraged all the members to also be members of the Scottish Beekeeper as the advantages are obvious with insurance and litigations.
Topic of this talk is the sensible thing to do with bees. People keep bees for honey or enjoyment. Beekeepers are now focusing on breeding bees and make up nukes. Ian wants to encourage more bees and making up nukes depletes them. He works with double brood chambers during the summer. End of August he had 115 and reduced them and prepared for the winter so 69 colonies went into winter and maybe he estimates a loss 8 and soon he will make the loss up in the summer.
The problems with bees are mainly stress. Whether they are hungry have disease or an over nosey beekeeper. Bees have been around many more years than man and over manipulation can cause stress. Observe the bees carefully and when you open the colony know what is going on. Leave alone in winter except for treating for Varroa in December.
What to observe in the spring.
Small flakes of wax on floor, bees are eating into their stores
Chunks of comb out of the door, could be a mouse. It is important to reduce the door size in the autumn.
Soiled alighting board could be Dysentery or Nosema?
Pollen carried in by bees, normal for breeding young.
Too many dead bees at entrance associated with Varroa and 15 other virus.
When you have weak colonies come through the winter and are struggling on, do not join them to other weak colonies. Leave them and if they survive to June give them bees especially young nurse bees to boost the colonies. Shake bees in front of entrance and the older bees will go back to their hive but the young will climb inside. Try to analyse why they are weak. Is it an inferior queen? Enough feed in the autumn? Can they stimulate themselves in the spring? Or if hungry you have to feed.
Change the brood comb every 4 years. Burn the old comb as it has a chemical build up on the wax. Give a few new foundation frames each year, as it is worker comb that the beekeeper wants in the hive.
When opening the hive recognise what is normal. So when you see anything different you can identify disease like EFB and AFB.
Can you see the queen? Are there eggs to be seen, sealed brood, and drones?
Look at the frames, is the sealed brood in slabs, without holes that is normal, if you see pepper pot effect (could be EFB.)
Ian warned us about choosing one queen to breed from as it can deplete the gene pool. Not to import queens as they may be inbred and cause problems.
Also to check was food that is stored and colony strength.
Swarming time.
Careful when examining the hive that you do not take away the queen cells before you know the story inside. The hive could be queenless with no eggs in the frames. First find the queen and cage her until you decide what you are going to do. Pick the best-sealed queen cell about 2 ¾ cm to 3cm long, the biggest is not the best. Queen cells can be seen from 5th May onwards. Later in summer one queen cell could denote the queen is failing and the bees want to replace her, so carefully think before taking and queen cells away.
Giving Foundation.
In nature when are the bees most likely to make wax? After they swarm. The beekeeper can draw foundation out during a flow of nectar into the hive around 10th May. Put foundation in and they will draw it out the following week.
Giving Supers.
Ian had a super and excluder with him to demonstrate. Showed us the best excluder rounded wire within a wooden frame. He said that bees don’t like plastic and they get static when they pass through. The supers are on mid May, a double brood chamber excluder and a super. He showed us the unframed excluders and said to put them at right angles for the bee’s unrestricted entry. The super frames for beginners he recommended the Hoffman frames and added to those listening to extract from above the excluder as below belonged to the bees. He showed us some section frames for cut comb.
Queen introduction.
Basic knowledge, drones are infertile until 2 weeks old.
New queens don’t lay until the old queen’s brood is hatched.
Virgin queens mate at 3 weeks old.
When we are introducing a queen you have to give them what they are expecting e.g. if the bees expect a virgin they won’t accept a mated queen, and the reverse. Think about the risk to the queen you are giving.
With an old queen replace with a young mated queen.
Chalk brood if seen in summer is another sign of stress, feed syrup and the bees will clean it out of the hive.
Apiary sites.
Bees need pollen, nectar and water. This is what you look for in a good site. How many hives per site? The mathematical equation is 1/10 km² = 7 hives. They need to be safe from humans animals and elements of the weather e.g. too hot, floods, frost, dripping trees, and winter sun. Good access and out of sight. Ian showed slides of his apiaries Gorse planted many years ago grown to protect the site.
Other slides showed the manipulation of foundation and dummy boards, marking the queen and cutting one wing to stop her flying away with a swarm. You do not want to loose bees they are valuable to the beekeeper. Slides of single chambers at the Heather, he compresses the brood after 20 July to a single chamber. Lastly joining a new queen in top box and her bees use the back entrance a block placed above the crown board, until the old queen’s bees accept them.
The hall was quite full and a number of beginners had come along to hear the talk. Afterwards tea and biscuits were served along with the friendly chatter.