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

I hear that most of us have had good yields of honey this year, much of which was due to the oil seed rape crops in the district and the apparent increase in the proportion of the later flowering spring sown oil seed rape in 2003.

SBKA has certainly had a successful year, both in terms of the programme of events provided for members and financially. Items of particular note for me during 2003 included the presentation on bee anatomy given by Denis Keyte and Peter Edwards, the Bee Safari introduced this year and the SBKA presence at the Warwickshire Rural Show and the Charlecote Field Day. What these items have in common is that they were all conceived and delivered by our own committee with some assistance from the members. The same has been true of the improvement in the SBKA 'trading account' for 2003, which has mainly arisen from the improved performance of the Association apiary. This has also strengthened the demonstration value of the Association apiary. These factors demonstrate the resilience and focus of SBKA.

The honey show was again a success and thanks are due to Julia Seymour-Smith for her work as Show Secretary. Denis Keyte was the winner of the Waldron Trophy and the Challenge Cup. It was also pleasing to see some new members taking part. Congratulations to all the prizewinners and thanks to all entrants for their support. Our congratulations also to Will Spencer on his continued success at the Royal Show. This year he was placed in no less than seven honey classes. He was also Highly Commended in several others and runner-up for the WBC Challenge Cup.

Overall SBKA has had a year of continued development and improvement in spite of a static number of members. This is largely due to the active and enthusiastic work of our committee and I am sure that members would wish me to record our thanks to all our office holders and committee members for the work they have put in to planning, organising and running SBKA during 2003.

Julie and I wish you all a happy Christmas and successful beekeeping in 2004.
Michael Helps

If you have not yet paid your subscription, you will have received another renewal form with this month's mailing - please pay now!

If you want Bee Craft, but have not yet paid your subscription, you must confirm this by 7 December at the very latest as we have to place our order for the year.
Will Spencer

The annual dinner will be held on Thursday, 29th January in the Stratford College Training Restaurant as usual. The cost will be £25.00 per head. Please give your name to Mike Osborne before 15th January to be sure of a place at this always-popular event.

This was held at the College on 14th November, when 11 members attended. The Secretary in his report commented on the fact that, despite some poor weather at the start of the year, most members seem to have done well for honey, including those that took hives to the heather. It was good to be able to report that the past problems with AFB and EFB had not returned and the Ministry was acknowledged as having done a good job in getting them cleared up. Thanks to Peter, the Association's website and newsletter continued to flourish, with the addition of colour photos to the latter adding to its interest. As usual the numbers attending events varied greatly, the annual dinner and honey show both producing a good turnout, with the exhibits at the latter being their usual high standard. Both the Secretary and the Treasurer commented on the great improvements to the Association's apiary, thanks to Brian, enabling it to make a handsome contribution towards the finances. Although membership was down by one, the finances are still in a healthy state, although there is a continuing problem in obtaining a reasonable interest rate on the £1599.12 at present with the Coventry Building Society. The practice of having the account in the names of two members had earned us an extra £20, but will have to end this coming year to avoid the members concerned being taxed on the interest. Surely one of our members has knowledge on the best thing for the Association to do with this money, bearing in mind it seldom falls below £1000? All the officers and committee members from last year were re-elected unopposed, with the exception of Julia who did not stand (no election was required as an extra committee member had been co-opted last year). She was thanked for her past help as Honey Show Secretary and it was hoped that she would be able to continue with this in future.

Under any other business, it was requested that we try to avoid clashing with WARNACT events and this will in future be taken into account. A discussion also took place as to whether we should give consideration to Stratford re-joining the Warwickshire Association as one of their branches. The extra yearly cost would be £5.50 per head to Warwickshire plus £6.50 for their newsletter. It was suggested that the advantages would be more social than practical, and it was felt that since a lot of our members seldom come to our own events, they would be unwilling to pay that much to attend events organised by Warwickshire and its branches. I am sure that the committee would be glad to hear the comments of any members on this subject.
Mike Osborne

By John Laurenson; Tuesday, 14 October, 2003

From BBC News

In a normal summer, Provence is full of fields of blue lavender and the air is a-buzz with bees. But this year's heatwave has left the lavender - along with the thyme, rosemary and pink heather - shrivelled to nothing. Provence is the hardest hit region of France but this has been a bad year for almost every one of France's 80,000 beekeepers. Honey production from their 1.3 million hives is down by more than half this year with hungry bees forced to eat sugary preparations laid out by the beekeepers in order to survive.

Until recently, the normal death rate for bees during the winter months was one in 10. Now, says Vincent Clair of the French National Bee Surveillance Unit, the death rate is six in 10. Opinions are divided about the causes of the rise in bee mortality. "The most likely theory today is that the massive use of pesticides is weakening the colonies so they are becoming more vulnerable to big diseases such as varroa destructor and other viruses," says Mr Clair. But others say beekeepers themselves are partly to blame. "Encouraged by so-called scientists and other modernisers, some beekeepers have been importing bees from all over the world, crossing them with local bees... playing the sorcerer's apprentice... in order to increase their honey production," Mr Douai says. "It's upset the natural balance and now we're paying the price."

At the end of May I had a call from Will Spencer to ask if I was interested in sorting out some bees in a BBC garden in Stratford, as he did not have the time to deal with them. Thinking 'Gardeners' World', their new garden in Stratford and perhaps a decent swarm, I readily accepted. However, it turned out that there are two BBC gardens in Stratford: the well-known Gardeners' World garden - and the somewhat less well-known BBC Radio WM garden. Of course, it was the latter and the problem was bumblebees in a compost heap!

The garden belongs to Steve (Mr Rotovator) Brookes who broadcasts from 2-4pm every Wednesday on the Bob Brolly Show. The garden is also used for training and there is a monthly live outside-broadcast, when various guests and some listeners are invited.

Steve explained that, whilst he would have loved to keep the bumblebees, the heaps were used to demonstrate compost making - so would it be possible to move the nest without harming them? I have moved nests successfully before, so agreed to deal with these. The next question was, 'Could you do it live, on-air?' The next broadcast would be June 9.

The day dawned and I duly arrived with boilersuits, spare veils and kitchen gloves - a bit OTT, but I intended to take no chances with a live broadcast! The atmosphere was very relaxed with Bob Brolly and Steve walking round the garden with headsets and radio mics, taking calls from listeners, commenting on the garden and interviewing the guests. As the time approached to deal with the bees, I dressed Bob in full beekeeping kit - much to everyone's amusement - and we approached the compost bin. After a pre-amble stressing that we would normally leave bumblebee nests alone, moving them only in exceptional circumstances, we opened the bin. The nest was near the surface, so it was a very straightforward job to uncover it, get my hands well down into the compost under it and lift it into a washing-up bowl. Bob provided a somewhat lurid and continuous commentary! I placed the bowl where the nest had been, ready to collect later that evening.

I relaxed, relieved that all had gone well and that my part was finished, but it was not long before listeners were ringing in with bee and wasp related questions - and I, as the resident expert, was called to the microphone to answer them!

It was an interesting and, I hope, useful day. The bees were relocated to our garden and I was able to promote the conservation of bumblebees. The story, with pictures, was published in Steve's column in Garden News and also on his Greenstyle website. .
Peter Edwards

I was somewhat amused to read a recent paper in the Journal of Apicultural Research which compared the relative reliability of four methods of assessing defensiveness.

To summarise, the methods were:

1. Rate them on the basis of nervousness, flying off the comb, hitting your veil and stinging.
2. Wave a flag (black, suede pouch) over the broodnest.
3. Wave a flag at them in a perspex box (the mind boggles!).
4. Apply alarm pheromone to the entrance and see how many bees come out to see what is going on.

...and the winner was - No 1! Proving, I think, what we all knew already: if your bees attack you, then if it safe to say that they are defensive.
Peter Edwards