Hon. Newsletter Editor:
Peter Edwards
E-mail: beekeepers@stratford-upon-avon.freeserve.co.uk

Our new shed - perhaps it should be called a 'building' rather than a shed - has now been purchased with some of our lottery grant and will soon be erected at the apiary - weather permitting! The site has been cleared and the next job is to get the base ready for the building itself. Will Spencer is co-ordinating working parties, so if you are able to help please contact him so that he can put you on his list of potential helpers. He will then ring around when there is work to be done. We are very keen to get the building up before the active season starts.
Peter Edwards

Our programme of apiary meetings will be held on the third Sunday of each month and will run from 17 April and continue until the 18 September.

The committee has taken note of comments made at the AGM and has put together a rota of committee members to be responsible for each meeting. I will be running the first meeting, when we will assess the colonies and ensure that all the queens are marked (we will find the queens!).

During the swarming season, there will also be ad-hoc apiary meetings on a weekly basis to deal with swarm control and queen rearing. Clearly, timing of these meetings will depend upon the season and day-to-weather conditions - decisions will probably be made at the regular meeting on 17 April as to the likely dates and we will have to keep in touch by telephone.

In addition, Mike Osborne plans to attend each of the meetings and will run a separate group for beginners - experienced members will be banned from interfering or giving unwanted advice!

Denis Keyte will also be holding his 'First Sunday of the Month' meetings at his home apiary from May until August. These are informal meetings with everyone welcome to drop in from 3pm onwards.
Peter Edwards

Chris Harlowe has left us as he has now moved to London.

A very warm welcome to another new member: Mrs Jackie Snelson of Wellesbourne. We wish you 'full supers'.
Peter Edwards

Recent media reports of doom and gloom for our bumblebees may be true for some parts of the country, but certainly not for Tiddington! The heathers in our garden have always attracted bumblebees, but I have never seen so many queens as we have this year; there were at least eleven in just a few square yards the other day, with a further seven sunning themselves on the front of the house. With the exception of one Bombus lapidarius (the red-tailed bumblebee), all the rest were either B. terrestris or B. lucorum (the buff-tailed bumblebees) which are usually the first to appear. I saw the first queen on 16 February and the first worker bumblebee appeared on 8 March.

You may have seen that the BBC, in association with the Woodland Trust, is asking the public to record the first appearance of key indicator species - e.g. bumblebees and peacock butterflies - so I duly recorded the appearance of the first bumblebee (queen) on the BBC Springwatch website. I did suggest to the Woodland Trust that, as we now know that queen bumblebees do sometimes break their hibernation temporarily if there is a spell of unseasonably warm weather, a better indicator might be the appearance of the first worker bumblebee, as this would indicate the successful establishment of a nest. However, I have since read that, because of global warming, some queens in the south-east are not going into hibernation in the autumn, but are founding nests instead! Workers from these nests have been seen foraging in January!

The study of the change in our weather by recording the dates when various species first appear, or crops first bloom, is known as phenology (not phrenology - which is the study of bumps on the head!). As beekeepers, we should have a great deal of data to contribute, but I have to admit, to my shame, that I have kept very few records over the years. If you have some useful data, then the Woodland Trust would like to hear from you. (http://www.phenology.org.uk/)
Peter Edwards

The choice of Dublin as the venue for 39th Apimondia Congress has given UK beekeepers the easiest, and least expensive, opportunity to attend this prestigious event that most will get in their lifetime. The International Federation of Beekeepers' Associations holds its Congress biennially in different locations around the world; the next one, in 2007, will be held in Melbourne, Australia.

So what is it all about? Put simply, an Apimondia Congress is the world's greatest beekeeping show. Imagine an international version of the BBKA Convention - run over an entire week, with world-class speakers, a trade fair with over 100 exhibitors, workshops, practical classes and a craft fair. Then combine this with an international honey show, add a day of technical and scenic tours and you begin to appreciate what is on offer.

The lecture programme has not yet been finalised, but will cover a very wide range of beekeeping topics - too great to cover here (see http://www.apimondia2005.com for details.

Registration is now open and, if you are going then it is well worth registering before
1 June as there is a reduced fee of €350 (approx £286) - this rises to €425 after 1 June.

This fee entitles you to:

• Attendance at the Opening and Closing Ceremony
• Free entrance to ApiExpo 2005 and International Apimondia Village including the World Honey Show
• Free entrance to main scientific sessions
• Congress Material and delegate bags
• Full Day Technical Tour on Friday 26th August
• Entrance to the Irish night
• Onsite tourist information and delegate services desk

'Accompanying Persons' can register for €200 (€250 after 1 June) and for this they get:

• Attendance at the Opening and Closing Ceremony
• Free entrance to ApiExpo 2005 and International Apimondia Village including the World Honey Show
• Panoramic City Tour of Dublin
• Full day technical tour on Friday 26th August.
• Entrance to the Irish Night
• On site tourist information and delegate services desk

There is a wide choice of accommodation in Dublin, from 5-star hotels, through to guest houses and campus accommodation. Some examples of prices are:

5-star hotel (B&B): €165 single or €195 double;

University campus accommodation: €38 to €71.50 single en-suite with continental breakfast or €75 to €143 for twin or double.

Travel is, of course, very easy from the Midlands, with Aer Lingus flights from Birmingham to Dublin for as little as £30 return if you book at the right time.

You can book online for Apimondia at http://www.apimondia2005.com/ or use the form in the April Bee Craft.
Peter Edwards

Computers again! Morphology is the branch of biology that deals with the study of the form and structure of plants and animals, without regard to function. Morphometry deals with the metrics, or measurement of the structures. One of the ways in which we can check the racial characteristics of bees and whether they are pure-bred or not is to compare certain measurements of the veins in their wings. Traditionally, this was done by mounting wings on a glass slide and then projecting the image on to a screen in order to make it possible to take the measurements. The readings were then plotted on a graph and this gave an accurate indication of the racial origin and purity of the colony.

Now computers have made the task much easier and quicker. We still need a sample of thirty wings, but these can be scanned using a simple document scanner and the resulting image analysed by computer. CbeeWing and CooRecorder are two pieces of free software that do the job very well. Using CooRecorder, you simply click on the eight specified places in each wing image and this creates a data file; CbeeWing then analyses the file and produces a graph. Incidentally, CooRecorder can also be used to take measurements from any images - e.g. for dendrochronology.

The programs are available at http://www.cybis.se and are complete with good help files.
Peter Edwards