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

MEMBERSHIP MATTERS

As I started preparing the current membership list to send out with this newsletter, I realised that I have again been most remiss in extending a warm welcome to our newest recruits.  My abject apologies to Tess and Richard Trinder of Ashorne, Bob Dunn of  Great Rollright and Joanna Goodchild of Stratford-upon-Avon who joined us last year; we wish you all ‘full supers’.
Julia Seymour-Smith and Rajbir Singh have not renewed their membership.
Peter Edwards

OPEN MESH FLOORS – LOCAL SOURCE FOR MESH

Tony Austin from Banbury emailed me to say that he has started a new business recently in wire cloth.  He sells the 8 mesh .450 black epoxy coated mesh cut to size for OMF floors for £3.50 each plus p&p.  Postage is: single item £2.50, 5 items £4.50, 10 items £7.50, 11 items or more free.  There is no minimum order and discounts are negotiable for quantity.
He has a website at www.jtwirecloth.com his e-mail is tony@jtwirecloth.com and telephone number is 01295 272115.
Peter Edwards

FREE BEEKEEPING MAGAZINES – YOUR LAST CHANCE

In December I said that I had a large pile of old beekeeping magazines that would go into the recycling shortly if nobody wanted them.  Well, they are still here – so if you would like any call me now.  They will definitely go into the recycling on 20 March!
Peter Edwards

THE BEST BEE

Around twenty members enjoyed Terry Clare’s talk entitled ‘The Best Bee’ on Friday 24 February.  Terry began by saying that he would not be telling us which was the best bee, but would simply give us some facts so that we could decide for ourselves.  However, given that Terry is chairman of the Bee Improvement and Bee Breeders Association (BIBBA) and was preaching to many converts, it would have been surprising if most of the audience had not come to the conclusion that the best bee is our own native Apis mellifera mellifera (A.m.m.).

Terry began by looking at the origin of the human race, tracing its movement northwards from Africa into Europe and then considering the adaptations in body form that helped it to survive in a colder climate with less sunlight.  He then compared this with the origin of bees, thought by many to have originated in the same area, charting their movement northwards, their split into cerana (the eastern honeybee) and mellifera (our western honeybee) and then the development of the different races that are now found in north Africa, the Mediterranean, northern Europe and eastern Europe.  We were then given a review of the characteristics of the four main races: Italian (A.m. ligustica), Caucasian (A.m.caucasica), Carniolan (A.m.carnica) and our own black bee (A.m.m.); Terry has considerable experience of working with these different races, both in his own apiaries and in their native countries, so he was able to give an objective assessment.  We also considered the pros and cons (mainly cons!) of Buckfast, hybrids and mongrels.  The second part of the evening was devoted to the work of BIBBA and the considerable practical help that is available to us in setting up a Bee Breeding Group.

This was a marathon session by any standards.  Questions and answers continued through the coffee break and although the meeting finished officially at 10pm, it was nearly 11pm when the caretaker finally had to eject the last four of us!  We really are greatly indebted to Terry for driving all the way from Kent to speak to us – and he drove home afterwards.

Now we must make the effort to get our Breeding Group up and running and build on the limited progress that we have made so far.
Peter Edwards

VISIT TO CHAIN BRIDGE HONEY FARM

The Bee Farmers’ Association (BFA), membership of which is open to beekeepers with 40 or more colonies, holds its Spring Business weekend towards the end of March each year.  The timing – just before the start of the active season – allows for a relaxing weekend in good company and in 2005 we stayed in a hotel in Alnwick, Northumberland.

On the Friday evening, a local beekeeper gave us a talk on the history of Alnwick and much of Saturday was taken up with the Business Meeting which is, of course, confidential to members of BFA.  A tour of the famous gardens at Alnwick was arranged for spouses who did not want to attend the Business Meeting.  On the Sunday we visited Chain Bridge Honey Farm at Berwick-on-Tweed, after a brief detour to see Holy Island on our way.

For those of you who do not know of it, Chain Bridge is one of our largest honey farms and has an awesome reputation.  It is run by the Robson family (nine members of the family work there) together with some outside help and all are so enthusiastic about their work.  They have around 1800 colonies and sell all their produce through 330 ‘local’ outlets and their own shop.  Heather honey is, of course, a major crop for them.

We arrived at lunch time and, after a short introduction by Willie Robson, were provided with an excellent meal.  The afternoon was spent poking into every nook and cranny of the incredible facilities that the Robsons have built up over the years: workshops where they make all their own hives (our secretary will like the fact that they were all Smith hives!), an all-terrain vehicle fitted with a boom-loader, extracting and bottling machinery on a grand scale, cosmetics production, polish production and honey mustard production.

Peter Edwards

ONE BUMBLEBEE DOESN’T MAKE A SPRING?

Peter Edwards

BEEKEEPING COURSE

The Warwick & Leamington Association is repeating its popular course for beginners.  This year it will be held at the National Beekeeping Centre, Stoneleigh for 6 weeks commencing on Tuesday 28 March, 7.30pm to 9.30pm.  There will be 4 ‘classroom’ sessions, 1 session on assembling equipment and the final session with ‘hands-on’ experience in the apiary.
Contact Mike Townsend on 01926 855080 if you are interested.
Peter Edwards

MORPHOMETRY AGAIN

In April 2005, I wrote about determining racial purity in bees by using morphometry.  Since then I have heard about an incredible project in Eire to try to identify pure colonies of Apis mellifera mellifera.  As some of you will know, the Galtee Bee Breeding Group, led by Micheál Macgiollacoda (President of BIBBA), have set up a very successful breeding area which now covers over 200 square miles.  As part of this work, they wanted to identify colonies of pure A.m.m. from which they could breed.  The problem was that there were 700 colonies to test – and each test involves taking 30 right forewings, scanning them, taking measurements from the veins on the wings and then analysing the results.

This mammoth task was eventually undertaken by three schoolgirls who were looking for a project for a science competition.  They scanned and analysed a total of 21,000 wings providing valuable data showing that a high proportion of the colonies tested were pure.  Unsurprisingly, they were awarded the Gold Medal for their work.
Peter Edwards