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

Riches at the end of April have turned to rags by the end of June. Many of those huge colonies that we had then are now queenless, or have drone-laying queens or in some cases have starved. So what went wrong?

I have just been re-reading the April newsletter where I wrote:

'However, we have seen strong colonies at the end of March in the past - and then had to feed them in May, so do beware if the weather turns cold. Remember that the strongest colonies will be in trouble first because of the amount of mouths to feed - so keep a watchful eye and do not lose your best stocks.'

Whilst this was good advice, it did not anticipate the appalling weather that we suffered throughout May and most of June. Most colonies were in exceptional condition in the second half of April and their current condition is a direct result of what happened at that time. Two factors were critical: swarming and crop removal.

• Colonies which swarmed in early April probably managed to rear a new queen and will be doing reasonably well provided that they were left sufficient stores (or were fed). Those that swarmed at the end of April have, in most cases, failed to mate a new queen and are now queenless or have a drone-laying queen. This also applies to those colonies that were split by making an artificial swarm; many of the parent colonies have failed to produce a mated queen, some of the artificial swarms have tried to swarm again and most have failed to build up. So a large colony with queen cells in late April that was split in the classic artificial swarm, now has the parent with no (or a drone-laying) queen and the old queen heading a six-frame colony - if you are lucky!
• If all of the crop was removed at the end of April or in early May then the colony may have starved, or will be very weak unless it was fed.

To make matters even worse, the crop is a fraction of what we might reasonably have expected and is generally granulated solid. Having just scraped down and melted out nearly 2000 frames I am still wondering which is worse - the crop or the ruined colonies!

Earlier this year, Sue and I attended our first Bee Farmers' Association Spring meeting which was held this year in Pitlochry. The meeting is a great opportunity to visit professional beekeepers and learn from them, as well as being a social occasion where members from all over the country can get to know each other and exchange ideas.

We travelled up on the Friday in time for dinner and were then given an interesting illustrated talk about the area by the local Blue Badge Guide. On Saturday morning we were up early for a trip to the Scottish Crop Research Institute, where we had talks about the latest research on varroa and on GM crops. After lunch we had the obligatory visit to a local distillery - in this case, the smallest in Scotland, Edradour, which is run by only three (very happy) men. Then back to the hotel for the Saturday evening dinner/dance.

On Sunday morning we visited an idyllic set-up near Pitlochry - can you imagine looking out of the door of a honey house set on the banks of a salmon river? - with some excellent extracting and bottling machinery all specifically set up to meet the latest hygiene regulations. Then after lunch we travelled to Heather Hills honey farm where Ian Kirkwood (BFA chairman) and his partners run 1100-1300 colonies. This was beekeeping on a very different scale, with a chain uncapper, three huge extractors, augers to move cappings to a cappings spinner and a bottling tank that held honey by the barrel load! Of course, with up to 50 tons of honey to process each year, you really do need facilities on this scale.

The weekend was rounded off nicely with a ceilidh on the Sunday evening and we returned home on the Monday morning.

At the committee meeting on 28 June, we discussed the state of the colonies at the Association Apiary and decided that the quality of the bees left much to be desired - they do not seem to produce very good crops, despite what appears to be a very favourable location, and tend to be swarmy. It was agreed that we should purchase two top quality queens as a first step in improving the genetic material and that these would be introduced at the meeting on 21 July.

If you would like to know more about queen introduction then do not miss this meeting.

We have, for several years now, enjoyed an evening walk - ending at a local hostelry - organised by Denis Keyte. This year's walk on the 24 August will follow the river from Wootton Wawen to Little Alne (down on one bank and back on the other) and will end with a barbecue at the home of Keith and Shirley Davies. Shirley has kindly agreed to arrange food and a glass of wine for a mere £4!

Meet at 5.30pm.at Denis' house to start walking at 6pm. The walk is approximately 3 miles and will take about 1½ hours - enough to work up an appetite and a thirst!

Readers may be interested to know the reason for the recent banning of Chinese honey. In February the Foods Standard Agency issued a notice explaining that some samples of Chinese honey had tested positive for residues of a veterinary drug streptomycin, which has been used to treat bacterial diseases in cattle, sheep and pigs. As a result traces of the antibiotic chloramphenicol (banned for use on animals by the EU since 1994) have been found in the honey. Although the risk posed by this is extremely small (it has been linked to aplastic anaemia and cancer), the retailers were requested to withdraw all Chinese honey, including any blended honey that could contain it. Because of the even smaller risk, products containing such honey, such as breakfast cereals can still be sold. [120,000 tonnes of cornflakes sweetened with Chinese honey were destroyed in Germany - PE]. Subsequent tests on royal jelly also proved positive, so this has also been banned unless it can be shown that the product definitely does not come from China. Their honey is not alone in being a problem, since from 14th March this year the import of products of animal origin from China have been prohibited on the recommendation of the EU Scientific Veterinary Committee.

How the drug got into the honey, by deliberate use in treating the bees or by accident, is not stated. Whilst we may congratulate ourselves on the purity of our own honey, let us keep it that way. It is sensible not to leave varroacides in the hives longer than the minimum recommended 6 weeks and not to use them when the bees are bringing in the honey harvest. MJO

[There are also rumours about Mexican honey. I hear that the peasants receive 13 pesos per kilo for their honey - but can buy Chinese for 8 pesos ... PE]

I have been working on the Links & Resources page and hope to put the new version live during the coming week. The page will have links to all the main associations, suppliers, government departments, educational establishments, magazines etc. related to beekeeping, together with a selection of 'home' pages that I have found interesting. The page will, by its nature, be under constant development and you can contribute by emailing me details of any interesting sites that you find.

We have now had 760 visitors to the site.

We know from anecdotal evidence that there were many more swarms this year than there have been for a long time, but there seem to have been fewer calls to deal with swarms. So where have they gone? A strong possibility is that they have re-occupied the sites left vacant by feral colonies that were killed by varroa. This suggests that varroa levels will rise again over the next couple of years, with re-invasion from the 'new' feral colonies. (It's being so cheerful that keeps me going!)

Whilst on holiday in New Zealand earlier this year 1 visited a number of honey centres. Out in the countryside, and reminiscent of our garden centres, these were large establishments selling a wide variety of honey and associated products, often with beekeeping displays and hives. Amongst the various honeys there was a lot of manuka honey for sale. This manuka plant is better known to us as 'tea tree' (leptospermum scorparium), due to early colonists making tea with it, and oil from its leaves has long been used in products such as shampoo. However, recent claims concerning the medical properties of its honey has suggested that it has unique healing powers, more so than other honeys, because it contains UMF. This stands for Unique Manuka Factor, "first identified at New Zealand's Waikato University, it has an antibacterial activity in addition to the hydrogen peroxide found in ordinary honeys" and the honey "is the only honey for sale that is tested for its antibacterial activity". For those wanting more information there is a web site: www.honey.bio.waikato.ac.nz . The honey is recommended for stomach ulcers, sore throats, wounds, burns, skin ulcers, etc., and as a result its price has shot up, particularly for what is called 'active' manuka honey. 1 found this for sale at $NZ 35.50 for a 500g jar, that is about £12.

Having as a result carefully studied my own honey, 1 came to the conclusion that the unique Osborne factor present in it was mainly composed of bits of bee anatomy, and felt that perhaps 1 would be unable to advertise this as offering unique healing properties. As an alternative, 1 bought a packet of manuka seeds in New Zealand and hopefully I should be well on my way to making a fortune within a few years! MJO