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

AUGUST APIARY MEETING

Five members attended the meeting.  David Titcomb guided us through the seven colonies and all were found to be in good condition with brood in all stages of development.  A small patch of drone brood was found in one colony; this was checked for the presence of varroa mites and surprisingly there were only a few mites present.  Treatment with Bayvarol was given to all colonies.

The second honey crop had been taken off prior to the meeting – approximately two supers per colony – and we are indebted to David for extracting this year’s crop.

In the next few weeks we are hoping to receive pure-bred Apis mellifera mellifera queens which have been ordered from Dr Francis Ratnieks, Head of the Laboratory for Apiculture and Social Insects (LASI) at Sheffield University.  They are raised in isolated mating apiaries in the Hope valley in Derbyshire, from selected BIBBA strains of the British native bee which have been DNA tested to ensure racial purity.

If we are successful in our desire to re-queen the Association apiary, both new and existing members should benefit from the availability of quality queens in the future.
Terry Hitchman

FONDANT

The late flow this year and a week at Apimondia have put me behind my normal schedule.  As a result, I now expect to take delivery of fondant around the middle of this month and can therefore accept orders up to 10 September.
Peter Edwards

NATIONAL HONEY SHOW

I have several copies of the schedule with entry forms if anyone wants one.
Mike Osborne

OPEN MESH FLOORS

Much has been written in recent years about the merits of Open Mesh Floors (OMFs) and I have to confess that I was initially rather sceptical.  I suppose that, try as we might, we think of bees in human terms - and the idea of a mesh floor, allowing large quantities of fresh air into our homes in the middle of winter, has little appeal to us!

Of course, the original idea for using these floors was not to help with the control of varroa, but to reduce waxmoth infestation, improve ventilation and remove debris - like battery hen cages (I wonder which came first, the chicken cage or the beehive version?).  Apparently, there were at least 31 patents for hives with OMFs before the end of the 19th century.

My initial trials went well, with significantly better winter survival rates, although this was by no means a scientific study as I could not claim standardised colonies going into winter.  However, I was sufficiently convinced of the benefits to convert all my travelling screens and varroa floors into full OMFs; I now have around 75 and all future floors will be OM.

There has been some debate about the effectiveness of these floors against varroa, with some researchers claiming no effect and others stating that the mites that fell off the bees were at the end of their lives and would have died anyway.  This tends to leave you wondering if you are doing the right thing!

A recent paper in the Journal of Apicultural Research is reassuring.  The paper, by well respected researchers Harbo and Harris at the USDA/ARS Honey Bee Breeding, Genetics and Physiology Laboratory, Baton Rouge, reports on their research into the effect on screened floors on populations of both bees and mites.  They investigated both closed and open mesh floors (closed would be like a standard varroa floor with a slide underneath), with solid floors as control.  The results were interesting and some were unexpected.  These were the ones that I found most interesting:

·         OMFs did not have any significant effect on food consumption during winter.

·         Colonies with OMFs produced significantly more brood than those with solid floors - 17% more in March and 10% more in September (this was similar to the 14% increase previously reported by a researcher in Maryland).

·         In the colonies with OMFs, there were significantly more varroa on the adult bees than in the brood cells (percentage mites in brood, or P-MIB) - this is very good news, because the more time that mites spend out of the cells, the less they breed.  In colonies with OMFs mites spent an average of 9.4 days between emerging from a brood cell and entering another cell - for solid floors it was just 4.4 days.

·         By the ninth week of the experiment, colonies with OMFs had significantly less mites than those with solid floors (they started with equal numbers of mites).

·         Closed screen floors also had some effect in reducing mite numbers, but it was the OMFs that affected the P-MIB.

So, I think that I have certainly done the right thing!  OMFs do reduce mite numbers, improve brood rearing, eliminate the need for mouseguards, confuse wasps, prevent the accumulation of rubbish on the floors, eliminate damp and mould, remove the need to level hives so that rain does not blow in (it just goes out through the mesh), make it easier to smoke hives, make it easier to move hives - and they are cheap and easy to make!  Have I forgotten anything?  Yes – I think they also help with finding queens, as I have never yet found a queen on a mesh floor.
Peter Edwards

TREATMENT TIMES FOR VARROA

Zachary Huang, Assistant Professor at Michigan State University, wrote to the Bee-L list a little while ago to tell us that some scientists think that the Apistan [and presumably Bayvarol. PE] manufacturer made a mistake in calculating the treatment times.  Instead of using the varroa brood cycles, i.e. the time from when the mite enters the cell to when the adult bee emerges, they must have used the honeybee brood cycle from the time that the egg is laid.  As the mite enters just before the cell is capped, this makes a difference, for workers, of around 7 days.  So the recommendation of 42 days (2 x 21 days) which they give, based on two brood cycles, actually gives three 'mite cycles' of 14 days.

Does it matter?

It seems to me that there are two critical issues to consider here:

1       The time must cover a minimum of a full varroa brood cycle.

2       The strips must be removed before their effectiveness is reduced to the point where mites can survive and resistance develop.

Six weeks seems to meet both of these criteria and it would seem logical that three varroa brood cycles will be more effective than two.

Much of this may become of academic interest only as resistant mites spread.
Peter Edwards

SUMMER WALK

It all seems a long time ago now, but our summer walk this year certainly lived up to the high standards set in the past.  We left Mike & Moira Osborne’s house and walked a few hundred yards along the northern bypass towards Bishopton, before turning left down the footpath towards the Welcombe monument.  The fine evening gave an excellent view over the valley towards Alveston and Wellesbourne and there was considerable discussion about the location of the various churches that could be seen.  From there we circled back through the Ingon Manor golf course and Snitterfield Fruit Farm, where we paused to have a look at some of my Apidea mating nucs - more on these later when I get round to writing about queen rearing!

Then back to Mike and Moira’s where a superb barbecue awaited us, complete with punch made from their own home-made wine.  It really was a very pleasant evening.  Our thanks to Mike and Moira for all their hard work and, of course, to Denis for showing us another piece of the local countryside.
Peter Edwards

MIDLAND & SOUTH WESTERN COUNTIES CONVENTION & CONFERENCE

This will be held on the edge of the Derbyshire Peak District at the Hayes Conference Centre near Alfreton.  It will be packed with hot topics from shook swarming and small hive beetle to breeding strategies to meet current challenges.   There is an excellent list of speakers which currently includes: Pat Mills, David Kemp, Norman Carreck, Adam Hart, Graham Law, Bernard Diaper, Albert Knight, Claire Waring, and Alistair Battersby.  Full 2½ day attendance including all meals and overnight en suite accommodation will cost £180.  Day visitors will be welcome at £30 to £40 depending on the day.  A full programme and booking form can be obtained by post from Peter Cash (Tel: 01283 813470, Email: peter @ cash42.freeserve.co.uk) or in PDF format from Steve Rose (Email: steverose @ tiscali.co.uk).  Everyone is welcome - not just members of the 10 counties directly involved.
Peter Edwards