STRATFORD-UPON-AVON & DISTRICT BEEKEEPERS' ASSOCIATION
NEWSLETTER
January 2002
Hon. Secretary:
Hon. Treasurer:
Hon. Newsletter Editor:
Peter Edwards
E-mail:
A Happy New Year to you all!
COMING EVENTS
Friday 11 January, 7.30pm. Committee Meeting at Mike Osborne's house.
Thursday 31 January, 7.15pm for 7.30pm. Annual Dinner at Stratford College. Always enjoyed by those who attend. Excellent food and excellent company. Contact Terry to reserve your places. Cost to be decided, but should be similar to last year at £18.00 each.
Friday 8 February, 7.30pm. National Beekeeping Centre, Stoneleigh. Arranged by the Warwickshire Association, this is an opportunity to hear Dr. Ruth Spinks, one of the country's acknowledged experts, bring us up-to-date with the work being done at the NBU on European Foulbrood. Robin Hall, our Regional Bee Inspector will also be attending.
Friday 22 February, 7.30pm. Talk by John Home entitled "Bees are my Business", at Stratford College. John will give us the low-down on how to make a living from beekeeping.
Friday 22 March, 7.30pm. Robin Hall, our Regional Bees Inspector, will give a talk 'Preparation for the season's first inspection'. This will be one of the most important meetings of the year, as we will be discussing with Robin a new strategy for disease inspections - 'Safaris'! The idea is to use a local beekeeper to lead a tour of apiaries with the Seasonal or Regional Inspector - this will save the inspector's time spent trying to find apiaries and will provide a wonderful opportunity to educate groups of beekeepers. Please do not miss this meeting.
BEEKEEPING COURSE
Martyn Cracknell from Evesham is to run a beginners' course at the Countrywide Centre (near the County Hall) in Worcester commencing on 9 January 2002. The course will run for eight Wednesday evenings plus two apiary visits. Cost £55. Details from Martyn on 01386 462385.
CENTRAL ASSOCIATION LEAMINGTON WEEKEND
I was disappointed to find that I was the only person from our Association attending the Central Association's Leamington Weekend in October (it was advertised in the August, September and October Newsletters). The format for the weekend is one lecture on the Friday evening, followed by four on the Saturday and two more on the Sunday morning. There is a harvest thanksgiving service on the Sunday afternoon at Stoneleigh, for those that wish to attend, followed by tea with the Warwickshire BKA at Stoneleigh village hall. All this for only £25 (including tea and coffee) for non-members of the Central Association, with an optional buffet lunch at £9. Overnight accommodation is available, of course, but we are fortunate in being so close that we are able avoid this cost.
The event always has top quality speakers - among the best in their field - and a relatively low number of delegates, perhaps 80, giving a relaxed, informal atmosphere. It is also notable for the number of experts in the audience; for example, Brenda Ball was there (from the Bee Pathology department, IACR Rothamsted) and I had the pleasure of lunching with Clive de Bruyn, who was looking forward to a visit to Durban. He promised to visit when he returns as he is interested in the impact of varroa on beekeeping in our area (please let me know if you have any information that may be of interest). Speakers usually stay for the whole weekend and are therefore available for informal discussion during the breaks; they also ask some of the most searching questions of the other speakers during the question and answer sessions, often leading to friendly banter.
Two of the seven lectures had immediate relevance to our own day to day beekeeping, they were: Dr Stephen Martin's lecture 'Collapse of varroa infested colonies explained' and Dr Ruth Spinks' 'European foulbrood research at the National Bee Unit (NBU)'. Ruth will be repeating this lecture at a meeting arranged the Warwickshire Beekeepers on 8 February (see Coming Events) to which we are all invited, so I will review this first just to whet your appetites.
Ruth began by outlining the organisation of the NBU and then described the work of the Seasonal Bee Inspectors and the Regional Bee Inspectors. She gave statistics and showed maps indicating the incidence of European (EFB) and American (AFB) foulbrood from which it was clear that, whilst the incidence of AFB remains low, EFB - which has always been a major problem in the South East and along the South Coast - is now becoming widespread in many other parts of the country. This is of particular interest to our Association members, as three of us have had cases recently (I have had 12 cases in the last two years) and may well have more next year, despite strenuous efforts to contain and eliminate the problem.
The NBU have used two methods to deal with EFB in the past: badly infected and weak colonies were destroyed, combs burnt and the hive scorched (as for AFB), whilst lightly infected colonies were treated with the antibiotic oxytetracycline (OTC) if the beekeeper wished to save the colony. Unfortunately, colonies treated with OTC show a recurrence rate of around 25% in the following year. This may be partly due to the fact the OTC does not kill the bacterium, it only suppresses its growth.
It was clearly time to review the treatment and over the past two seasons beekeepers have been offered the choice of doing a 'shook swarm' on colonies deemed suitable for treatment. The idea is a simple one and has long been used in America for the treatment of AFB. The colony is moved to one side and is replaced with a clean hive and fresh foundation; the bees are shaken down in front of the new hive and all of the old comb and brood is then burnt - removing the reservoir of bacteria. The colony is fed a gallon of syrup containing OTC and will use this to build new combs. The success rate for this treatment is around 97%; in one of my own apiaries, a colony 'shook swarmed' last year produced 5 full supers this year.
Another novel approach being investigated by the NBU is to use bacteria to fight bacteria. It has long been known that the bacterium that causes AFB (Bacillus larvae ssp larvae) kills all other bacteria - if you look at AFB under the microscope then you will only see this bacterium - and it has now been found that another subspecies (Bacillus larvae ssp pulvifaciens) will kill the EFB bacterium (Melissococcus plutonius). Work is now in hand to ensure that the introduction of this bacterium will not cause any problems and, so far, everything looks very promising.
The NBU is also co-ordinating nation-wide testing of 'hygienic behaviour' in colonies - Denis reported on this in the September newsletter.
Research is in hand to find easier ways to diagnose AFB and EFB in the field. Whilst AFB can be diagnosed fairly reliably from the 'ropiness' test, EFB is much more difficult and really requires microscopic examination of a sample to confirm the presence of the bacteria. This is both time consuming and costly, requiring return visits to apiaries by inspectors and it is very easy to miss the disease in the early stages when just one or two larvae may be showing symptoms. A promising new technique using monoclonal antibodies may well enable virtually instant diagnosis in the future.
(To be continued)
PE
NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS
NATIONAL HONEY SHOW
Will tells me that he was first inspired by our visit to the 2000 show when we all thought that exhibits from our show would not look out of place. The problem has always been getting exhibits to Kensington, but when he judged our show in 2000 Bernard Diaper offered to transport our entries, as he goes each year.
After considerable success at the SBKA show in this October, Will decided to give it a try as he had several exhibits from our show almost ready to go. A phone call to Bernard established that he was indeed going as he was chief steward, judge for several classes and was taking a number of entries from other Warwickshire beekeepers. A phone call to the NHS entries secretary confirmed that there was still just time to enter. No entry fee is payable for first time exhibitors.
After final preparation, Will's exhibits of set, medium, dark, ling, medium gift, sweet mead and dry mead were packed into a suitable box and delivered to Bernard's home in Sutton Coldfield on the Tuesday. Bernard travels down on Wednesday morning collecting other Warwickshire exhibits on the way. The stewards stage exhibits so it is not necessary for the exhibitor to be present.
Results from the show were available on the NHS website from Saturday afternoon, which was when Will first saw his name mentioned - to his great surprise. Bernard brought the exhibits back and Will collected them from David Lishman's home near Coventry. Unfortunately Bernard was unaware that there was a trophy for the ling heather honey prize so this is still in the possession of the NHS trophy secretary! Bernard is very keen to encourage entries from Warwickshire beekeepers as the "Small-holder Shield " is awarded to the county with the most points.
As far as I can ascertain, this is the first success for a Stratford member in a honey class at the NHS, although not the first success overall (our Secretary modestly admitted to having had some success in the Commercial Wax class in 1969 - he actually won a First Prize!). Very well done Will!
PE