Yatton Area Bee Project - YABeeP

2012 Meeting Dates

2011-12-20T18:13:00.002Z

YABeeP aims to provide peer support to individuals and families who want to encourage both wild and honey bees and maybe keep bees themselves. We advocate using bee-friendly beekeeping methods. Where our members keep honeybees they do so primarily for the benefit of the bees themselves, not in order to exploit them for forced honey production or personal profit¹.

For 2012 we will continue to hold our informal meetings at 10:30am on the second Saturday of each month during the bee season - March to October. Meetings last about 2 hours and, weather permitting, usually include a chance to see bees in action:-

2012 Dates:

March 10th - Meeting
April 14th - Meeting
April 28th - Warré hive building workshop (all day). NB date to be confirmed
May 12th - Meeting
June 9th - Meeting followed by Barbecue picnic lunch.
July 14th - Meeting
August 11th - Meeting
September 8th - Meeting
October 13th - Meeting

If you wish to join one of these meetings we'd love to see you - please email YABeeP@googlemail.com or tel: 01934 876275 to let us know who you are, how many will attend and to get directions to the meeting. We hope to hear from you.

Why do we meet?

Meetings allow us to:

welcome new members to learn about our aims and principles and decide whether they wish join us;
provide an environment to network with each other to expand our knowledge, ask questions and share new ideas and thoughts on helping bees;
provide an opportunity to get hands on with bees (dependant on weather of course) and see into a working hive/bee box;
meet socially and enjoy the occasional BBQ, picnic, etc., after all life’s not all about bees.

Where do we meet?

Meetings take place in the Yatton area as this is central to our North Somerset patch, either in a local home or the Yatton Library. The venue details and a map are emailed to members the week before each meeting.

... or in the Library

We meet outside......

Meeting format

YABeeP believes in holding informal meetings; we don't instruct our members or provide formal training courses but use a 'learning through doing with support' philosophy. Meetings are used to provide peer support and help for those new to bees as well as share experiences and learning amongst those who already keep them. We also often have short themed talks at our meetings, mostly given by our own members (volunteers always needed!) but occasionally bringing in a local(ish) expert. Weather permitting, we also use meetings to let members get up close and personal with bees and experience the workings of the various bee homes we use.

Workshops

In addition to our monthly meetings we also arrange practical workshops as demand dictates. These tend to be half or all day affairs which allow members to build their own hives for honey bees or homes for bumbles and solitary bees. As well as being highly productive – you should expect to complete your project within the day - the workshops held to date have all been great social events! These workshops will be listed in the Dates section above in green when arranged.

A full day's Hive Building Workshop.......
(click to enlarge)

......or a 2 hour Solitary Bee home gathering.

Training Days
Where demand dictates we also arrange small group training days using guest trainers with expertise in their field, a small charge is made for these to pay for the speakers. For 2012 our good friend Gareth John has again agreed to provide workshops on Kenyan hive manipulations. These will be published to members as and when arranged.

Gareth John's 'How to Split a Horizontal Hive' training day 2010

Robin Morris

¹For a fuller explanation of what we mean by bee-freindly beekeeping (aka sustainable or natural beekeeping) see this page.

The Future

2011-08-15T12:13:00.004+01:00

It's all gone quiet

Several non-members have commented that there have recently been few posts on this website/blog and were wondering whether YABeeP had wound up. I'd like to make it clear that this is certainly not the case.

Given its success and steady growth the amount of work it was taking to run the YABeeP group was getting too much for one person (me!) so something had to give. I did some thinking and reconfirmed that my priorities had not changed - to establish and help run a local bee-friendly peer support group. Our website/blog was being used mostly by non-members from across the globe so should no longer be my priority - hence few posts.

The Future
We are going to look at the future of YABeeP and how we should go forward from here, hopefully at our next meeting in September. I am optimistic that one or two volunteers will come forward to help share the load running whatever vision for our future that we decide upon.

Maybe part of this will be an update and re-write of the website; some of the earlier stuff certainly needs redrafting.

My own view is that this site should be a description of who we are and what we stand for, it should give information on when we meet, how to join us, our local swarm catching service, plus also some basic information on bees.

I have always felt that the "how to..." part of keeping bees using the bee-friendly methodology we employ should be for others better qualified than us to advise on in books and websites. That said, I find that there are still no comprehensive books or websites aimed specifically at new bee-friendly beekeepers, it's still a case of gleaning some information from here and some from there - very confusing for someone new to this world.

Consequently we may also have to continue plugging that gap ourselves for our members by providing signposting/guidance drawing on this piecemeal advice and our own experiences along the lines of some of our existing pages such as our Making a Horizontal Top Bar Hive series of pages.

If we do this then, of course, it would make sense to publish it on our site so a wider audience can take advantage of it should they want to. It's even been suggested that we should make such advice available as pdf downloads so that it can be easily printed and used away from a pc.

All of this involves quite a lot of work, much of which I guess will be done over the winter when our bees are less of a distraction, so don't expect huge change soon. Rest assured however YABeeP is alive and well, if you want proof come to our next meeting!

Robin Morris – YABeeP - 15^th August 2011

Feeding your bees in an emergency

2011-06-08T19:19:00.002+01:00

[Copy of a message sent to all YABeeP members - 8 June 2011]

You will probably be aware that I am generally anti feeding sugar syrup to bees; in my clear view there are some very valid reasons why they should not be fed, especially by 'natural' beekeepers. In particular I disagree with feeding a new swarm as the bees have prepared to leave, chosen the right moment for them to do so, and bring their own start-up stores with them in the form of consumed honey from the mother hive's stores. I also take the view that in the wild individual bees, swarms and even whole colonies often die out quite naturally – it's all part of the post-Darwin 'survival of the fittest' argument. I especially don't agree that we should be supporting weak genes by keeping alive weak colonies artificially. As a natural beekeeper we should be prepared to suffer losses and not feel guilty about it.

However, not everyone in the natural beekeeping arena agrees with me and there are many who will particularly feed in what they see as times of 'emergencies'. For more information on this you may want to check you books or the internet for guidance.

Emergency

The purpose of this email is to alert those of you who are in the 'emergency feed' camp that we are now in what is generally agreed by all to be a period of emergency. This has been caused by the abnormal spring drought which has cut short and in some cases completely stopped the nectar flow – we seemed to have entered the dearth period really early. I am getting reports that in some cases nectar rich trees like Lime and Sycamore have flowered for just a few days rather than a few weeks as usual! For about the last month bees in this area seemed to have ceased comb building and in many cases the queens have slowed down or even stopped laying. I have also had reports of 2 new colonies started from swarms in the last month dying, in all probability from starvation.

Let me be clear that I am NOT advocating that you should feed your bees. It is a personal decision you need to take for yourself. However, I don't want people to feel that their bees have died 'just because Robin said we shouldn't feed them'.

Established colonies - year 2 onwards

Those with established hives should have no problem whatsoever so no action should be needed, provided that you haven’t recently excessively harvested honey. Natural beekeepers should err on the safe side of harvesting – emergencies like these is a good example of why!

The best place to check your bees is at the hive entrance – you should be constantly observing your bees for continued 'normal' behaviour and be on the watch out for differences – e.g. excessive removal of adult carcases or culled brood, build up of bodies on the hive floor, etc.

If you actively manage horizontal hives you may want to check that your bees have sufficient stores.

Warré keepers should also be OK as the harvest on a Warré is done in late summer (for good reason!) so again their bees should have sufficient stores to cover them. However, if you are an 'emergency feed' interventionist Warréor then again you can check using your windows if you have them or by peeping up under the boxes.

New colonies at risk

Those most at risk are new colonies started this year, especially those started from swarms. The fantastic weather and healthy early nectar flow caused an massive build up of numbers resulting in many swarms. Although healthy at the outset the recent drought and switching off of the nectar tap has meant that these swarmed colonies have simply not had the resources to make comb and build up stores and brood in sufficient numbers. Lack of nectar has meant that the little comb they did manage to build was probably used for brood leaving no larder to fill and therefore no resources to fall back on. This is why swarms appear to be dying or at the very least suffering.

In terms of bee numbers overall this will have little impact – more swarms will die now but later in the season or next year the numbers will increase form the healthy mother stock and bees will continue to survive. In nature some years are bad and some good – taken over a few years numbers generally remain the same. On the other hand those of you with new colonies may take a more interventionist view “I don't want MY bees to die!”. Although less 'natural' this view is understandable.

What can I do?

The choice of whether to 'go with nature' or intervene is a personal one. You must follow your own conscience. If you do decide to feed then you need to take action now and feed either honey or sugar syrup. There are many arguments as to which is best, but I am going to presume that those with new colonies do not have access to their own honey (do NOT use shop bought honey under any circumstances!) so syrup is the only option.

For a summer feed use 1 part refined white cane sugar to 1 part water – 1Kg to 1Ltr mixed. Do not use brown or alternative sugars as they have impurities that can harm the bees. Cane as opposed to beet sugar, it will say on the packet, is generally less likely to have been grown with systemic pesticides. Gareth John also suggests the addition of a drop of organic rose or geranium oil to give it a scent. He also adds Vitamin C to his mix to ease digestion.

How do I administer?

Feeding must take place inside the hive as you don't want to attract bees from other hives who may spread disease or start robbing your weakened colony.

Warré sump feeder
(ignore Varroa screen)

Those who built Warré hives at our workshop this year were 'influenced' to build a sump floor. It was suggested that the rear side of this sump floor was screwed but not glued. If you did this then you can simply unscrew the rear section and remove it to fit a feeder tray then replace the back. A simple tray such as a plastic takeaway carton can be used but you need to float something on the surface to prevent the bees from drowning in it!

Home made follower feeder
for horizontal hive

Those with horizontal hives can either slip a narrow tray on the floor of the hive inside the follower boards or build a feed station into the follower board itself or even build a follower board adapted as a feeder.

Further information

Please use your books (you should have some if you have bees!) and the internet for additional information – remember, Google is your friend. The topic of feeding bees is always a hot one on natural beekeeping forums like http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/warrebeekeeping/ and http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/warrebeekeeping/ though if you use fora like these please be aware of posts from North American beekeepers who, in a very different environment from us, seem to feed as if it were natural.

The Future

Hopefully the recent rain will keep up and the situation will change, though at the time of writing we have only experienced showers – certainly nowhere near what is required for the flora.

Alternative Warré hTBH

2011-05-20T15:03:00.017+01:00

Last Sunday we held a very successful training day on the management of horizontal Top Bar Hives and our thanks go to Gareth John for sharing his extensive knowledge.

Gareth John's
hTBH training session
(click any picture to enlarge)

Those present learned how to inspect a neglected hTBH hive and how to perform a split. The hive used for the training was a biobees style Kenyan hTBH.

The need for a new hTBH

At the wash-up session at the end of the training the discussion turned to adaptations to the hive design to minimise the problems encountered when working with horizontal hives. Whilst no absolute conclusions were reached the group agreed that the straight sided Tanzanian hive offered less problems than the angled catenary shaped Kenyan hive.

In addition, because at YABeeP we err on the more natural side of 'natural beekeeping', we generally favour the Warré hive over the hTBH because of its minimising disturbance on the bees. One benefit of the hTBH is the ease with which splits can be made to raise further colonies. However, because of it's size and shape, splits raised from a Kenyan hTBH with a wider top and sloping sides cannot be easily transferred to a Warré. Garth reported that Quentin had been experimenting making a hTBH using Warré comb dimensions. This news provided one of those 'eureka' moment for the group - why had we not thought of this before?

Typical Kenyan style hTBH (biobees
model) note sloping sides resulting
in wide top bars - 430mm

Making a horizontal hive, using the Warré dimensions, would make usable breeding hives from which to make splits to go into Warré hives. It would also create a simpler to manage horizontal hive for those 'hands-on' beekeepers who like the horizontal style - in case you were not aware the surface area of Warré combs are a near match for the comb size on a Biobees hTBH which is probably the main hTBH of choice used in the UK. It

An additional bonus for a group like YABeeP would be that the frames/bars would then be interchangeable between hTBH and Warré hive types should emergency action be necessary e.g. providing emergency queens, etc.

The model
Fired by enthusiasm I have been experimenting with a design that would facilitate this and have arrived at this model which is simple and heap to make using the same seasoned untreated 25mm timber we used at the recent Warré hive building day.

This is not necessarily the best design, but it is simple to make, easier that the biobees model due to the 90 degree angles, and is constructed using glue & screw technology or glue & dowels for those non-metal converts.

The full 3D model of this hive can be viewed and downloaded here in Google Sketchup . (Google Sketchup is an excellent free 3d modelling programme which you an download here).

Showing roof and floor open

Roof and floor closed
(roof cover omitted for clarity)

Note: Warré hive body dimensions

Width 300mm + (25mm x 2) / Depth 210mm + 25mm

presumes 25mm timber used

Standard Warré rebates
to hold top bars

Side bottom panels (shown in yellow) glued
& screwed to provide bottom re-enforcement
and prevent sides warping

Version with windows
Left open; right closed
(click to enlarge)

Observations:

Internal height/width = 210mm x 300mm - pp Warré design
Length = variable as dictated by timber but a suggested minimum of 1,000mm
Sides rebated 10mm x 10mm to hold Warré top bars (see below for info' on top bars for this hive)
Top re-enforcing = 25mm x 40mm strip around top end/sides set 20mm below side walls. As well as re-enforcing to prevent warping this recess keeps rain out of top section and provides an anchor from which to hinge the lid.
Bottom re-enforcing provided by 2 glued & screwed base pieces - shown in yellow in above illustration.
Lid hinged to hive body - no lifting/storage required. Hinge stops provided by pieces of nylon strapping screwed one end to hive body the other end to lid.
Follower board used as per other hTBHs
Entrance holes in both ends plus centre and each end of non-opening side. Other than user selected entrance these are all plugged but provide alternative options. (Author suggests use of end rather than central entrances for less experienced beekeepers).
Single 35mm entrance hole used rather than 2/3 smaller entrances at each point as bees naturally choose and control a single entrance.
Opening base to give beekeeper access options in an emergency
No varroa screen but varroa can be counted using hinged central floor piece - an optional varroa tray and draw can be added below this base opening if required
Space above top bars for insulation and storage.
Requires less inspections as attached combs are more easily cut with a short straight side - especially if using half frame top bars - see below. This allows bees to naturally attach their comb to the hive sides so they an more easily control their hive atmosphere (Nestduftwärmebindung).

Half Frame Top Bars

The top bars used in a standard Warré hive provide both an anchor for the bees to build comb in that box plus a space to allow them to pass vertically from box to box. This hive however is operated horizontally so a different technique is required.

The suggested solution is to use standard sized Warré top bars (W24mm x D10mm x L320mm) with comb guides - either a short vertical bar or a truncated triangle added below - see illustration below. As with other hTBHs this encourages the bees to build along the bar to prevent cross-combing. The 12mm space between each bar is then filled with a 12mm shim - see the following illustrations.

This not only allows bars to be transferred to a standard Warré if you are making breeding splits, but it also allows more flexibility those choosing to operate this as a stand-alone hTBH as shim sizes can be varied to accommodate comb different width between brood and honey storage areas.

Top bars types
Left: with bar - Centre: standard Warré - Right: with triangle

Showing top bars with shims (in yellow) between

Finally, Quentin & Gareth are also experimenting with half sided frames to their top bars to a) make them easier to remove without damaging comb and b) provide a more robust anchor for the new comb. Remember in the hTBH arrangement, unlike in a standard Warré, the combs are occasionally inspected and moved. New honey comb can prove weak and break under load, especially if cut or moved.

Their design provides dowels at each end as shown in Quentin's photos below. These dowels fit fairly tight to the sides of the hive so the bees can propilise them to the sides to control hive atmosphere. The beekeeper therefore needs to cut the propolis between the dowel and hive to free them.

Sets of half sided Warré frames
(Picture © Quentin Jordan)

Dowels extend approx 135mm
(Picture © Quentin Jordan)

Quentin's version:

Quentin's version to
Warré's 300 x 210 dimentions
(Picture © Quentin Jordan)

(Picture © Quentin Jordan)

Quentin's even has a Warré style

roof & quilt box

(Picture © Quentin Jordan)

Simon's version:

Simon makes one as well!
(Picture © Simon Billett)

Now doesn't that look easier to make
than a Kenyan? Room for deep top bars as well.
(Picture © Simon Billett)

(Picture © Simon Billett)

© Robin Morris - YABeeP

Installing a Swarm

2011-05-17T10:11:00.008+01:00

(click any photo to enlarge)
Shaking bees in.

Following our the recent Hive Building Day some have been lucky enough to get swarms - a few within a week!

Emma kindly sent me some photographs showing how they were installed into her new hive so rather than just add them to that page I thought that it would be useful to post this as a separate page showing the methods of installing bees.

Basically there are several methods for installing a swarm of bees.

Tip: Have you seen this series of 10 short videos by Prof. Tom Seeley on swarm behaviour?

Shaking them in

Walking them in - 1
The ramp is prepared

The easiest though less gentle method is to shake or tap them straight into their new hive. To do this hold the upturned swarm container above the hive and sharply shake it or give it a hard tap to dislodge the bees - see the 'Walking Them In' video at the foot of this page which shows shaking and taping. If you are using this method please put some cut long grass in the bottom of your hive to soften the fall when the clump of bees falls onto the hard surfaces of the hive - if you damage the Queen you're in trouble! The bees will later chew up the grass and expel it from the hive.

Walking them in - 2
Bees are shaken
onto cloth

If it is a horizontal hive then the roof is removed, enough bars to make a gap big enough for the bees (around six) and the bees are shaken out through the gap into the hive by giving a hard knock on the base of the upturned swarm container which usually sufficient to dislodge them - the bulk of them will fall with a hard 'clump' into your hive. Then replace the top bars.

Walking them in - 3
The journey starts.

With a Warré hive you just remove the top box which has the hessian ceiling stuck down with flour paste, turn it upside down then shake the bees into that. Once the mass of bees have fallen in gently turn the box the right way and put it back on top of the hive stack - usually 2 boxes in total for a new swarm. Add a third box at the base of the stack after a week once they are fully settled.

Provided the Queen was in the bulk of bees which were initially shaken into the hive several worker bees should emerge at or outside the entrance and start fanning (see photo & video at foot of page) to summon all the stragglers. With either hive type you use you then need to put the swarm catching container, which will still have many bees in it, on its side by the hive entrance so they can walk in. By dusk they should all be inside.

Walking them in

Walking them in - 4
See them go!

With this method a temporary ramp is made leading up to the entrance of the hive (hTBH or Warré) using pieces of wood or similar to support a clean soft sheet. Bees will instinctively climb upwards and if the end of their climb meets a hole into a potential hive they will go in.

Once the ramp is ready the bees are then shaken out by turning their container upside down and sharply knocking the base of it to dislodge them onto the soft sheet. Their fall onto a sheet is far more gentle than onto a hard hive floor so there is less chance of damaging them.

Walking them in - 5
Going, going.

Over the next half hour or so you can observe the bees fanning to attract their sisters and slowly walking up into the hive - it's great to see. With this method you can sometimes see the Queen, but if you don't spot her individually you'll know she is there as a clump of bees will accompany her as she walks up.

Walking them in - 6
And don't forget
those stragglers!

My thanks to Emma for supplying the 'Walking them in' photos.

Drumming your bees inYou may also wish to read this post of the Warrébeekeeping Yahoo group about drumming to encourage your bees to walk up into their new hive - I've not tried it yet but it sounds worthy of a shot! If you do try, please let me know your results so they an be added here. - YABeeP@gmail.com.

The YABeeP Warré Way
Because both of the above methods involve disturbing the bees twice - once when they are knocked into the hive swarm box then again when they are transferred into their hive - we have developed a method for those with Warré hives to collect them in their final home. This is explained on this page. There are a few advantages. The bees are installed into their final home at the swarm site so don't need to be moved again - any work they do comb building and propilysing whilst in the swarm capture box is not wasted effort. It also means that they can be collected from the swarm site by their new owner - the swarm catcher doesn't need to return a second time in the evening - they should always be removed at dusk or later to ensure that all the scout bees have returned.

Bees fanning to attract sisters.
They are wafting a pheromone signal into
the air saying 'come and join us girls'.

This method can only be used where top boxes have been left with the swarm collector.

© Robin Morris - YABeeP

2011 Hive Building Day

2011-05-03T12:47:00.007+01:00

Friday's prep' work.

Our hero, Pete, in the foreground

Yet another great day's weather greeted this, our third annual hive building day, with glorious sunshine most of the day plus a reasonable breeze to clear the sawdust and help dry the glue.

The biggest event so far in our history we had 18 hives ordered with many more people building on the day

Shall I drill this arm?

Because of a problem with the order caused by a mix of a protracted recovery from my operation and a delay with the sawmill the timber (seasoned, untreated British Douglas Fir) only arrived the day before - luckily just after the Royal couple had tied the knot and got back to the Palace. The delay also meant that they were unable to pre-cut the timber into my specified lengths. I learned about this problem only a day or two in advance and consequently was going to cancel but was persuaded to go ahead by Ray who, along withPete came all the way up from Plymouth a the day before with all Pete's gear to get things ready for Saturday.

Mass production
in full swing

True to form Ray & Pete arrived on Friday just after the timber delivery and under Pete's direction (or should I say control - he was a hard task-master!) the 3 of us set about turning the 57 planks delivered into 300+ prefabricated Warré components. We worked from their lunchtime arrival into the evening and this paid off big time when everyone arrived on Saturday able to start construction right away.

Without Pete's tireless efforts both on the Friday and again all day on Saturday we would not have made the fantastic progress we did - basically completing 15 x 3 box Warrés complete with full Warré roofs, quilt boxes and sump floors - what an achievement. All thanks to Pete's tireless (and very patient) cutting to demand - in it's literal sense as some were most demanding!

Work spills onto the pavement

Thanks
Thanks must go to everyone - to those who brought biscuits, cake and drink to share, those who weren't building but came along to lend a hand, those who made tea and generally cheered us all on when things got a little tetchy. Too many to mention generally but I am sure that everyone would agree that we should specially single out Pete for his endless and tireless cutting to order without whom the day would not have happened and Jon who not only went out for more timber when needed but had done a load of work with his father the week before when we had expected to receive cut pieces which needed routing.

Injured man takes flack!
(Click any photo to enlarge)

I got the impression that everyone enjoyed themselves despite all the hard work and effort but feel free to post a comment if you disagree.

And Finally...

To all those who went away with hives don't forget to finish them off quickly - they may as well be out there in case a passing swarm is looking for a home!

To complete your hive you still need to:

get that floured hessian cover over the top bee box
hessian floor and fill the quilt box
add top bars to the second and third boxes - if you can wait Kevin has kindly offered to make these which can be distributed at the next meeting
add lifting handles

For how to do this see this Finishing Touches to a Warré page.

All finished:
And now the pictures of the completed hives start to roll in. Send me yours and I'll add it here:

Kevin's hive - 2/5/11

Emma & Dave's entry.....

Fiona's - set up as a bait hive

Fiona's in situ

© Robin Morris - YABeeP

Bee Events in Bristol

2011-04-26T18:20:00.003+01:00

There are two free Bee events taking place in Bristol in May 2011:

On Sunday 8th May 2-5pm there is a Bee Fair to be held at St John's Burial Ground, Cotswold Road, Bristol. This collaboration between the Windmill Hill Community Orchard Association and Safe Land for Bees celebrates the launch of Beelines on Windmill Hill, building the first bee sanctuary on Windmill Hill.

(Click to enlarge)

Members of the Bristol Sustainable Beekeeping Group (our sister group) will be on hand extolling the virtues of sustainable beekeeping. Also there will be representatives from Safe Land For Bees, Bees Abroad, Windmill Hill Community Orchard Association, Bees and Trees, and Bristol Beekeepers Association, as well as a contingency of local artists from BV Studios.

Also, on Saturday 21st May 2-5pm the second Bee Day is being held at St. Matthews Church Kingsdown.

(Click to enlarge)

YABeeP have again been invited to speak at this community event held as part of the Kingsdown project to introduce feral bees to the heart of Bristol. It is also hoped that Simon will repeat his fantastic Plants and Wild Bees talk he gave to our 9th April YABeeP meeting.

Avon Wildlife and the Bristol Bat Group will also be represented plus the RSPB talking about what to grow in our gardens for birds.

This was a brilliant day last year and we anticipate this one to be bigger and better - be there or be square!.

9 April 2011 - Meeting Note

2011-04-19T20:58:00.005+01:00

Found on Bee Safari
Church wall bee/cuckoo/parasite?
(click to enlarge)

Our second meeting of the season with 25 attending and what a great one it was thanks to a brilliant talk by Simon (see below) and glorious weather. Yet again we started in the Yatton Library which sheltered us from the noise from the aircraft, bells and this time UV rays!

The following is an outline of what we discussed for those who missed it and a recap for those who came and lust for more!:-

News, Update & Gossip

Somerset BKA are hosting a talk "The Honey Bee Colony as a Superorganism and Why it Matters to Beekeepers" - Professor Keith S Delaplane, University of Georgia – 13 April 2011 at The Theatre at Hazlegrove School , Sparkford (off the A303) - there is no charge or requirement to book! Info' link
29 April – Juley is holding a 'Not the Royal Wedding and not a Street Party' day in her field - all YABeePers are invited
The Kingsdown feral bee group's Bristol Bee Day is 21 May 3-5 in St Matthews Church – they looking for good speakers. [Though following Simon's talk below I think we have their man!]
1st National Natural Beekeeping Conference – Fri 5th to Sun 7 Aug, Worcestershire £160 - Book here
Thanks to Steve St Werburgs City Farm are also going to have some natural hives - well done Steve.
Phil Chandler of The Natural Beekeeping Network and Biobees website is offering a local 1 day training course day or evening at £25 per head. All that is needed is a site with 2 hTBHs of two nearby sites. ACTION: If anyone is interested in doing this and/or hosting please contact YABeeP. A volunteer coordinator would also be welcome.

Wild Bees - and more.....

Carlo Montesanti of the Bee Guardian Foundation had been due to speak. Unfortunately he had to postpone last minute and fly to Sicily to attend an family crisis. What to do? so at the last minute I approached our very own Simon Johnson who very gallantly agreed to step in and cover the subject - what a hero! Not only did Simon do this with next to no notice, but his resulting talk was brilliant, personable and presented with such genuine enthusiasm.

Now which part is which?

Rather than list bee types and species Simon approached the subject using his small city garden and it's planting as the anchor for the talk. Not only did this put the bees in context but it allowed Simon to introduce relevant non-bees - we learned much about flys, wasps and other parasite, cuckoo and bee impersonating insects that can be attracted into our gardens. Having trained and studied as a Parasitologist Simon's love of his subject was clear - his enthusiasm sucked us all in, especially his horror tales about Alien and vampire insects - who knew the world surrounding the humble bee was so fascinating and scary?!!!

At any workshop
you get workers .......

It was so encouraging to learn how with some simple planting we an all help our bees and attract a whole world of insects as well. Simon has kindly supplied his list of plants which can be downloaded here as a 55KB pdf document "Simon Johnson flowers & wild bees" - thanks again Simon. My only regret from this engaging talk was that I didn't record it.

Getting Your Bees
Given we are on the verge of the swarming season (it's already started in Oxfordshire - 3 weeks ahead of schedule!) I ran through the ways and means of getting hold of bees including:

...and you get shirkers :-)

collecting swarms;
catching swarms (bait boxes);
other beekeepers;
local associations;
commercial suppliers

This is outlined on our website here - I hope to update this again in the next few days.

Other planned subjects and AOB
Having reduced our booking of the library to 90 minutes the meeting ran out of time so the Kitting Yourself Out slot was postponed to the next meeting. We also agreed that we could individually cover the Member's Update slot at our networking session when we had gone across the road for the practical part of the meeting.

No other business was proposed so we adjourned to St Margarets for networking, coffee, a look at the bees and the...........

Part 2 - Solitary bee house workshop.

Gun-slinger John
the fastest gun in the (South) West

Those who wanted to were able to construct solitary bee houses and many thanks go to Ali for organising and supplying kit houses, Roy and John for the supply of tools, John for the logs and canes and everyone for joining in, pulling legs and covering our garden in sawdust - yet another fun and productive time! Get those homes up quick and watch those bees move in. I just hope that the exploding BBQ kept everyone on their toes.

Next meetings
Hive Building Workshop - Sat 30th April
Meeting - Sat 14th May -10:30
© Robin Morris - YABeeP

Inside a Warré hive

2011-04-03T21:45:00.001+01:00

Sadly John lost a Warré hive this winter. This was not 'die-out' but more of a 'knock down'! Let me explain....

He keeps his hives on a friend's field quite distant to where he lives so doesn't get to visit them often, especially over winter. When he checked on them a couple of weeks ago, the first time this year I believe, he found the Warré had been knocked over and, as it's on a steep slope, had broken apart. With all 3 boxes open to the elements the bees had no chance, especially this winter - the coldest for 100 years according to the Met Office.

John thinks it was either a deer or a bulk drop of snow from the tree above that caused it to go. A lesson to us all to ensure that the hive is securely tethered and strapped together as a single unit as a fallen hive only open at one end in one piece may survive. I have accordingly updated the 'Siting your Hive' section on this page.

There was plenty of honey and stores so it is pretty certain that without the topple and breaking open it would have survived. John kindly brought two boxes over last week so that I could photograph them - see below - he will also bring a box to this Saturday's meeting so everyone an check it out.

Our commiserations go to John and thanks to him for letting us see the contents. On a positive his National is OK and so he has still got bees. At least with the destroyed Warré he'll have 3 excellent bait boxes!

© Robin Morris - YABeeP

Upper box of 3
(click any image to enlarge)

Lower box

John points out a play cup

close up of play cups

Boxes 2 & 3 as they grew

Built from a National hive he even used
the frames - brilliant recycling John, well done!

12 March 2011 - Meeting Note

2011-03-15T10:56:00.007Z

Many thanks to all who made it to our first meeting of the 2011 season – in all there were 29 of us present - 17 sent their apologies.

Using the library for the business part of the meeting seemed to work well so we will probably repeat for the next meeting – I'll confirm in my meeting reminder email.

The following is an outline of what we discussed for those who missed it and a recap for those who came and lust for more!:-

News, Update & Gossip

The first National Natural Beekeeping Conference will take place Fri 5th to Sun 7 August in Worcestershire. Spaces are limited so if you are interested you need to pre-register (no commitment at this stage) here or here.
Bristol Sustainable Beekeeping Group meet on 2/4; 30/4; 4/6; 2/7; 6/8; 3/9; 1/10
Jenny mentioned that a second Bee Day will be run at St Matthew's Church in Kingsdown, Bristol on 21st May - several of us went to last year's and had a good time – I have since contacted Helen Philips, the organiser, who will keep us in the loop re publicity.
John outlined an approach he had received from Bristol City Farm to keep bees there. If anyone wants to be involved with this please contact John Baldwin.
Jo outlined the system she has developed whereby members can make recommendations about book they have read and suppliers they have used. She will finalise this and offer forms for members to complete – these will probably also downloadable on the YABeeP website.
Early Day Motion on pesticides - Sarah Malone outlined ongoing correspondence she has been having with both Government and the Bristol branch of the Avon BKA over the continued support of Government and the BBKA for intensive pesticide use.
Bristol bridge wild colony – this was confirmed to be still alive in February but its current fate is unknown. [Post script – I passed the colony on 14 March during a warm afternoon and I'm pretty sure the colony has died – see photos at foot of this page]

Introduction to Natural Beekeeping
Robin gave a short presentation on what we in YABeeP mean by natural beekeeping using a swingometer diagram to illustrate various hive types and beekeeping management regimes. The swingometer was used to gauge how bee-friendly each method might be.

Natural beekeeping 'Swingometer'
(© Robin Morris - YABeeP)

Using a feral colony living undisturbed in the wild as one extreme, and an intensively managed Lang operated by a commercial US pollinator as the other, each hive type/method was overlaid to demonstrate where on the this swing it might be considered to lie.

The conclusions drawn being that each hive type allowed a range of management options. These would ultimately depend upon:

our reasons for keeping bees - be they for extracting high yield crops through to a desire to just help the bee,
how we are inducted into beekeeping, be it the one size fits all approach of the BBKA an many BKAs or the more open minded approach that natural beekeeping offers, and
where we are on our journey toward natural beekeeping we are at any point in time.

A fuller exposition of this talk will be published later if there is a demand.

Members hive review – how we faired the winter
All members present reported back on how their colonies were doing following what has now been confirmed by the Met Office as the coldest winter in 100 years. Although we recognise that the danger period is not yet passed (a cold snap now could still doom a colony now frantically raising brood yet low on stores), not one colony was reported to be lost as a result of the winter. By my count this was 18/18, though more members not present today are still to report back.

As natural beekeepers we do not see the demise of a colony as a 'fault' of the beekeeper or our methodology – it is natural for colonies to die. That said if this zero, or even a low loss continues we have much to celebrate as it's a fantastic achievement and a possible endorsement for natural beekeeping methods.

Introduction to the Hive Building Workshops

1. The Solitary Bee Boxes Workshop will take place following our next meeting on 9th April all members are welcome to stay on for this.

This is highly recommended as we are lucky enough to have Carlo Montesanti from the Bee Guardian Foundation presenting at our meeting. Carlo is an inspiring and knowledgeable speaker who I have seen speak and I thoroughly recommend attending. If you intend to stay to build bee boxes please bring sandwiches/BBQ food (we shall run a BBQ stove or two) as we shall eat, drink and be networking before starting the workshop which should only last for a couple of hours at the most.

Tools and most materials will be provided but an email will be sent before the meeting outlining what we need so those who have suitable tools and timber can bring them to contribute – watch your emails.

2. Our Honeybee Hive Building Workshop will take place on 30th April for those wanting to build a hive or come along anyway to help or just join in the fun. This will be a full day from 10am to 6pm so come prepared with vitals of your choice. The hive type we shall be building that day is the Warré. See these pages for more information.

We will pre-order the timber and glass - costs are expected to be no more than £50 per hive if you are including windows, less without. Final costings will be announced at by our next meeting on 9th April when those wanting to build will be expected to pay. You will also need to have decided by then what options to include in your hive (see the You Must Choose section on this page), so if you have not already done so please make your decisions or come to the next meeting with your final questions.

Getting Bees
Even for those starting this year if you want to have bees this year it is important to start planning this now. There is information on our website about what you can do but please bear in mind that if you think that you may resort to buying bees (c. £200 seems to be this year's rate for a commercial nucleus) you need to get an order in soon.

We will cover this in some detail at the next meeting so you may choose to wait until then but if you go ahead before this please make sure you understand the difference between a real nuc' and a packaged one and that you check that your bees have not been imported.

Observation Hive
Having seen this ingenious hive (follow the link and watch the first YouTube video listed on that page) on the Natural Beekeeping Network (aka biobees forum) 3 weeks ago and thanks to encouragement and support from Gareth who has already run one, Sarah and I have decided to build a 'natural' version for our home which will be available for members to view at meetings.

Plans are competed and all that remains now is for me to knock it up and find an obliging swarm to install. I know a glass hive is not 'natural' but I have been persuaded that if I run it as an unmanaged single top bar feral colony I shall be sticking to our principles and we can learn much about bees natural behaviour.

Other Business
Spring Comb Change – Anne had heard via her local BKA that it was important to change the comb each year and wanted to know how this was achieved with the brood comb in a horizontal Top Bar Hive. This was discussed and we agreed that the current thinking is that a rotation out of old comb over a two/three year period was beneficial but an annual change is certainly not required. Gareth kindly outlined how this can be done by moving brood bars and inter spacing fresh top bars for the bees to build new comb.

The honey comb is renewed when harvested and renewing brood comb in a Warré hive happens automatically over a similar 2/3 year period with the annual rotation of boxes.

Harvesting a Warré box – Peter & Sue's Warré is very strong and Peter enquired about the mechanics of removing bees from a harvested honey box. There are methods described in Emile Warré's book Beekeeping For All which include the use of smoke or a one way trap but Gareth recommended the simplemethod of using a hair dryer on the clod setting as used by the traditional Japanese beekeepers – see the YouTube videos below. Their traditional hive is remarkably similar to a Warré and follows a similar management regime.

Warré harvesting is normally performed in August/early September but can be done earlier in the season once the bees are strongly building up. Maybe a group of us could join Peter after a meeting too watch, help out and film the process?

Taking honey from a traditional beehive in Japan :-
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, How to make a traditional Japanese beehive

Next Meetings
9/4; 14/5; 11/6; 9/7; 13/8; 10/9; 8/10

The business part of the meeting then ended and we adjourned over the road to see the hives & bees, network, enjoy refreshments and forge those important freiendships.

Many thanks one and all for making it such a lovely morning.

© Robin Morris - YABeeP

Bristol bridge colony - 14 Mar 2011
(click to enlarge)

All does not look well
(click to enlarge)

12th March Meeting

2011-03-05T14:59:00.001Z

(copy of email sent to all 2011 YABeeP members on Sat 5th Mar 2011)

Next Saturday’s YABeeP meeting will now take place at 10:30 am prompt in the Wake Warlock Room at Yatton Library – map attached. The library closes at 12:45 so it is important that we start promptly – please don’t be late. Following the meeting you are welcome to pop across the road for tea/coffee, see some hives in action and, provided the weather is fine, some bees.

Both the room and hive location are fully accessible. Parking is available at the Library for blue badge holders only (3 spaces) so can others please park in the usual car parks as shown on the maps – please don’t use the disabled bays.

Because we have to pay for the room there will be a charge of £1 per person for the meeting – I’m sorry but need’s must!

As usual it will be an informal meeting - we look forward to seeing all those who can make it, both old and new.

Robin Morris - YABeeP

12 March Reminder

2011-02-28T04:24:00.000Z

(copy of email sent to all members)

Dear YABeeP Member

1. Next YABeeP meeting – Sat 12th March

This is a reminder that our first 2001 meeting will be on 12th March, a week this Saturday.

Because of the high numbers joining YABeeP this year I am having to consider holding the meeting in a nearby community hall. Can I please ask you to respond urgently letting me know whether you intend to come to this meeting so that I can gauge numbers. I will then send out a further message a few days before the 12th with venue details.

The 12th March meeting will focus on:

an introduction to natural beekeeping for those new to YABeeP
winter review of our hives
an introduction to the hive building workshops (solitary & Warré)

2. Hive Building Workshop - 30th April
We have decided to build Warré hives again this year for those planning to build a hive at our 2011 workshop.

There is much work you need to do beforehand to prepare. Not only do you need to learn about bees and the Warré management philosophy, but you will also need to reach some decisions about the design of your individual hive – there are options. I have written some additional pages on our website to help you do this – follow this link. Please make sure that you read these and the information they point to and reach your decisions well before the workshop, though if you read these before the meetings you can then ask about anything that you don't understand.

You are still welcome to build a horizontal top bar hive if you prefer but I'm afraid that we cannot do this at the YABeeP workshop - see these pages if you want assistance in building one of these.

3. Other bits & bobs of interest

YABeeP poster – If you wish to help publicise YABeeP in the North Somerset area you can download, print out and display the this poster (168KB pdf file).
Honey: The Golden Treasure. This interesting half hour programme was recently broadcast on th BBC's World Service. You can listen to it here on the BBC iplayer .
Hanging Basket Hive – This 10 minute YouTube video shows this fascinating hive in use. I'm not suggesting that you all rush out for basket making materials and cow dung but it is of great interest in what a natural colony like looks like. Those watching the Bristol bridge colony will notice a striking resemblance.
Bees fighting varoa – Another 10 minute YouTube video, this time showing that honeybees do groom these mites.
And finally, can anyone get hold of an empty office/industrial water cooler bottle for me please? I want one to add to my kit for this year's swarm catching duties – see this 30 second YouTube video – what a brilliant idea! If you can supply one I'd be really grateful.

I look forward to seeing you on 12^th March, meanwhile watch for a further email with details of where we will meet.

© Robin Morris - YABeeP

Spring Pollen

2011-02-26T23:34:00.004Z

Another reasonable day today and, despite the wind and damp, all 3 of the hives in my garden were flying.

hTBH in action
(click to enlarge)

The winter's far from over so they could still succumb but, at least they are busy and bringing in pollen. Not just one type either but many colours of pollen so I decided to try and seek out the sources.

Bee working pollen

Just outside on the green there are some spring crocus in full bloom and boy was it busy with bees.

Guard chickens!

What a joy to behold. Not long now and the bee season proper starts for us; though I'm sure that the queens are now frantically laying their spring brood. Let's hope we don't get another prolonged cold snap.

Our chucks are also full of spring, mounting an armed guard on one of our Warrés!
© Robin Morris - YABeeP

Starting a Warré hive

2011-02-24T08:54:00.028Z

Our 30th April 2011 hive building workshop is drawing closer and although there are still a few weeks to go there is much to do for those starting their first bee hive or planning their first Warré:

Homework
Although we at YABeeeP practice the easier and less-interventionist sustainable beekeeping, we recognise that keeping honeybees is a responsibility so everyone intending to keep bees needs to do their homework first.

First
You need to learn about bees, their biology, physiology and needs. Whilst you will carry on doing this throughout your beekeeping life, you do need to learn the basics of bee biology, habits and behaviour to be a good beekeeper. A good basic grounding in how bees behave in nature and what they want, rather than what we as bee farmers want, will help you understand exactly why we favour sustainable beekeeping over the now outdated conventional beekeeping practices carried out in large highly managed colonies.

There are lots of books and websites on bee biology you can seek out. A good place to start is the US Cooperative Extension System - Follow the many links under Honey Bee Biology but bear in mind this is not a sustainable beekeeping website. For another great little summary, download this 9 page paper from the Oak Ridge National Laboratory - pdf download (7mb)

Secondly
You'll need to learn about the principles and philosophies of Warré beekeeping. This page has been written to help get you started in this. Please make sure that you read this page and the information it points to. Whilst you will learn much by being a YABeeP member, if you keep bees in a Warré without understanding the principles and philosophies you will be an irresponsible beekeeper.

Finally
You need to get ready for building your own hive. If you are doing this as part of our hive building workshop you will be making a Warré hive – the major decision about what hive type to build has taken for you by the group. The day will be challenging enough with one hive design without overseeing alternative hive models. Of course, if you want to build your own horizontal Top Bar Hive (aka Kenyan or long hive) or another variant you are free to do so - just follow the Starting a Horizontal Hive link instead.

However, there are elements of the build where you will have to make your own mind up regarding what you want. Let's call them optional extras, customisations or pimping, to give it a modern parlance. To make it easier for the beginner each option will have a recommendation, but you do need to consider whether you wish to go with that or not.

You must Choose......
The five choices you will need to have made by the day of the workshop are as follows:

1. Standard or modified Warré hive?
I have written a separate page on this topic here, please read it to make your choice. The recommendation is that you build the modified version, unless you are confident that you are going to be able to get hold of a swarm or you are prepared to wait a year or two for one.

2. Windows
Do you want to have windows in your hives? Windows aren’t necessary but they are useful to:

see what's going on inside the hive without opening it,
checking whether boxes are occupied without hefting (partially lifting it)
showing friends, neighbours and particularly children who will be fascinated, a great educational tool.

If you have windows they should be used very sparingly - don't use often or for long periods; just an occasional quick peek should do and never in the December to February (inclusive) period. Remember any use of your windows disturbs the bees and effect the internal hive temperature.

So what's the downside of windows?
The main one is time. Building a Warré is relatively simple in that the main body is just a series of square boxes – 2 sides and 2 ends, simply glued and screwed together, quick and easy to make. By adding a window you are doubling the work involved in making each box. Please bear in mind that if you do choose to have windows then you probably won't finish building your hive at the workshop and will need to complete your hive at home. You will make a box or two and therefore know what to do and how to do it. However, it is something to consider. Adding windows will also increase the cost as there is extra material required – that said the increase should be well under £10 per hive of 4 boxes. (We haven't yet priced the wood but I'm guesstimating that a 4 box hive with windows should come in at under £50 all in.)

Despite these drawbacks, I would personally always recommend windows.

3. Varroa inspection floor
Varroa is an insect parasite mite that attacks honeybees. Not natural to our native honeybee, it jumped species and was spread around the globe by beekeepers seeking a 'better' (i.e. more productive) bee'. Yes, man's greed actually introduced one of beekeepings biggest problems to Europe and the US. All honeybee colonies in the UK will carry the varroa mites, except for a few isolated pockets of the country. It's a problem that we now have to live with.

Warré varroa floor & feeder
(click to enlarge)

Conventional beekeepers and many sustainable beekeepers monitor their mite levels using a varroa monitoring floor – a fine mesh that allows the mite, but not the bee, to fall through to a sticky catching board. They can then, using tables that factor in the time of year, count the number of fallen mite to try and estimate their infection rate. If it gets too high they treat the bees with chemicals and other non-natural treatments which we think actually helps weaken the bees further. This page is not the place to debate the pros and cons of treatment but suffice it to say that in a Warré hive you will be relying on the bees rather than chemicals to manage their own mite infections which they can readily do if you don't open the hive to inspect them like conventional beekeeping demands¹.

When Warré designed his hive varroa did not exist outside Asia where it only lived on its local species which had evolved over millennia to cope with it. I suspect that had that not been the case he would still have opted for his basic floor because of his management methodology. I choose to never treat my bees for varroa infection² so I take the attitude 'why bother monitor them if I'm not going to treat?' A standard Warré floor is therefore quite suitable if you don't fancy the additional work and expense of a varroa inspection floor, unless you choose to feed.................

Personally I use a sump floor without a varroa screen on all my Warré hives as I believe it better replicates a natural tree cavity. There have been several reports of colonies dying over winter where the accumulation of bee bodies on the floor (they are not removed in the very cold weather) blocks the exit trapping in and starving the live bees. If I need to I can still monitor the varroa drop in a sump floor without a screen - it works just as well.

4. Sugar Feeder
Most conventional beekeepers, and some natural beekeepers feed their bees. Sounds kind and helpful doesn't it? Well it's not. There is only one natural product to feed your bees and that is their own honey which they made themselves. What these beekeepers feed their bees is a sugar solution³. Now although sugar is a near-natural product and has similarities with honey, it's heavily processed and ain't natural to bees! Just study the way bees break down varying proportions of fructose, glucose, water, oil and special enzymes to see why they make honey, not sugar. Their honey also carries many other trace elements and beneficial bacteria which is good for them - it's a a bit like comparing mother's breast milk to formula, mum's has the beneficial microbes, anti-allergens, etc..

The reason why beekeepers feed sugar is that they have either stolen too much of their honey for their own use/sale or that they are too nervous to trust their own bees. They think that they know more about the bees needs than the creatures themselves do. You will work out from this that I am against feeding bees - I am!

That said there are those who do, especially those who feel that weak bees need help. If you want to join their ranks then you'll need a device to feed them inside the hive⁴.

There are two ways this can be done:

Top Feeder - Abbé Warré himself designed two of these, one for use for use in Spring & Summer and another for autumn feeding which you can see here. My advice is don't build or use one. You should already have read the Warré information signposted on a previous page, this explains the importance of retaining the colony's heat and scent; it's 'Nestduftwärmebindung'. This is key to a healthy Warré hive. Adding and changing a top feeder and replacing the quilt compromises this by opening the hive more often.

Warré's Spring/Summer feeder
© http://thebeespace.net

Bottom Feeder - These allow you to put liquid or cake sugar (depending on the time of year) in the hive below the colony so not disturbing the Nestduftwärmebindung. The same feeding box can double as a Varroa Tray (see 3. above) so you could kill two birds with one stone. See this page for instructions on 'How to Modify Standard Warré Floor'. You can use it to either monitor varroa with the mesh screen in or feed sugar with the mesh out. The disadvantage of a bottom feeder is that in very cold weather bees won't go down to feed, only upwards. That said, their not feeding in the very cold is probably preferable to having no quilt and a void above their brood nest that you have with a top feeder.

As I don't feed then I'n NOT going to recommend a varroa/feeder box but it's your choice.

5. Top Bars
A Warré is a top bar hive so has bars at the top of each hive box - the clue's in the name! Unlike in a horizontal top bar hive (hTBH) the bars don't form the roof so they need spaces between the bars for the bees to pass up and down.

Warré's horizontal bars
(click to enlarge)

Horizontal Bars - Warré's design provides for horizontal top bars each spaced 12mm apart to allow the queen to pass between them. Many of us have success with this set-up. However, it is not uncommon for bees to fill the box they are in then stop building comb rather than move down to the next box, especially in their first year of occupation. If this happens then as more bees hatch they get overcrowded and swarm. Now swarming isn't a problem to a natural beekeeper but you don't really want a mass exodus of bees when there are more boxes below your colony for them to fill.

Why are we seeing this problem now when Warré didn't experience it? The answer to this is probably that in man's past greed to have bees that produce more honey we have introduced larger bees from around the globe. These have bred with our native bees to the extent that there are no untainted 'native' bees surviving other than in tiny isolated pockets of the UK. It may well be that these larger bees need bigger gaps. Because of this problem many Warré beekeepers have been experimenting with.......

Alternative vertical bars
(click to enlarge)

Vertical Top Bars - These are the same top bars but rotated around 90^o to the vertical. These provide the same strength as the horizontal bars but a much bigger space between each one. Similar vertical shims under the top bars are also proving successful in hTBHs where the need to have straight comb is more important than in a Warré. There is some evidence to suggest that when crossing the bars from one box to the next the queen, who doesn't like to leave the safety of the comb, will gather a cluster of bees around her to make this passage. The wider spacing in a vertical bar hive more readily allows this.

Your final choice therefore is to decide whether to have the traditional horizontal bars or the verticals. If you want a recommendation then I would suggest trying vertical bars; at least that's what I'd do, but you pay's your money and takes your choice!

Whichever type you choose it is important that your bars are completely covered in bees wax when they are installed as there is strong evidence that the queen won't travel over bare wood to go down into the next box and this may be a major factor in premature swarming in a new Warré. It's easy to wax your bars, just buy a beeswax tablet from a reputable local beekeeper and rub it thoroughly all over your top bars when you install them.

It's usual to pin them with something like panel pins, just to stop them from moving when your shift the boxes about. Make sure that you leave the heads of the heads of the pins slightly proud so you can easily pull them out without damaging the bars when you eventually remove the comb to harvest.

Once you have weighed up the pros and cons of each of the above choices you are ready to build your Warré hive.

© Robin Morris - YABeeP

You may also be interested in this page - Finishing touches to a Warré hive
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Footnotes:

1 - Bees keep their hive temperature at around 35^oC. The varroa mite cannot breed above 33^oC. By not opening the hive the temperature is maintained above the varroa's breeding temperature so keeping them to levels the bees can manage. Is it any wonder that conventional beekeeping with its 'pull it apart each week' inspections have problems?

2 - This is not strictly true as I will sugar dust them if they are opened like at the annual harvesting/winter prep period. I won't open the just to treat them. Dusting bees with icing sugar stimulates them to groom the sugar off. It also clogs the sticky pads the mite use to cling onto the bees so the grooming knocks then off. It's considered to be the most 'natural' friendly varroa treatment so worth doing if you have access to the bees for another reason.

3 - Never, under any circumstances, feed bees honey you have bought. Most UK honey is blended with honeys from around the world. It is not sterilised as heat ruins the honey so may contain disease spores and pesticide from other countries and could well introduce diseases into your hive and the area. This is a very real threat so DON'T DO IT.

4 - Sugar must be fed inside the hive or you risk attracting bees from other colonies who will rob out your bees and leave them without any stores.

Making a Horizontal Top Bar Hive - part 1

2011-02-23T17:00:00.006Z

Part 1 - Getting Started

This 'Making a Horizontal Top Bar Hive' section is divided into 5 parts:

Part 1 - Getting Started - this page
Part 2 - Constructing your hive body - quick link
Part 3 - Completing your hive - quick link
Part 4 - Making the top bars - quick link
Part 5 - Adding comb guides - quick link

On this page:

What is a horizontal top bar hive?
Getting the plans
Useful additions

1. What is a horizontal top bar hive?
A horizontal top bar hive is basically a long empty box which imitates the natural space bees might find in an empty tree trunk where the tree has fallen.

The majority of horizontal hives in the UK have sloping sides and are also known as Kenyan hives due to their prevalence in Kenya where they were reintroduced and developed as a cheap efficient hive alternative for subsistence farmers. An alternative straight sided horizontal hive version, known as a Tanzanian hive, can also be used though this is not very popular in the UK where we have a cool climate. The sloping sides of a Kenyan hive allows the bees the maximum space to build their comb which they naturally hang in a catenary shape (see side picture) without requiring them to fill out the corners with comb to keep in the heat.

In nature bees tend to choose to build their nests in conical rather than square shapes and the horizontal hive allows them to do this.

Horizontal hives have been in use for thousands of years - there are even examples in use in ancient Egypt around 2400 BC - follow this link. For the past hundred years they fell out of popularity being for the most part replaced by the now near internationally standard hive developed in the USA in the Victorian era by Rev. Langstroth. The Langstroth hive with its UK variants the National, Smith, Commercial and WBC hives so efficiently allowed man to intensively farm bees for their honey and other hive products.

It is only relatively recently that horizontal hives have started to enjoy an upsurge of popularity as we have become more in tune with natural methods and beekeepers began to question the intensive farming practices of the modern hive and attribute some of the bees recent health problems to its practices and equipment.

Today beekeepers are looking at how we can simplify beekeeping and give the bees what they would choose for themselves to flourish rather than thinking 'we know best', intensively managing them and treating them as a commodity to exploit. The simplicity of the horizontal hive makes it an ideal choice for any beekeeper seeking to practice natural methods. Additionally it is simple and cheap to make so removing the necessity to harvest and sell as much honey as possible to recover the not inconsiderable investment in a Langstroth type hive.

2. Getting the plans
In my opinion the best horizontal top bar hive for use in the UK today is designed by Phil Chandler, a Devon beekeeper who has practiced horizontal top bar hive beekeeping for over seven years. Phil has kindly made the plans to his simple hive design freely available for download on the internet and you can download his plans here and it is these plans that I will be using on these pages.

He has also written the Barefoot Beekeeper which I consider to be the foremost book on managing and using the horizontal top bar hive which you can order on his website here for £12.98 (as at March 2010). I genuinely believe that if you are building and taking up horizontal top bar beekeeping this publication should be on your bookshelf, or rather well thumbed beside your bed! And I guarantee you that I don't take a single penny or other benefit from recommending his book; I just think it's really worth recommending.

3. Useful adaptations
Whilst I shall be using Phil's top bar hive plans as our main guide I also suggest a couple of additional 'extras' which are outlined on these pages. These extras I have added on my own versions of his hives as I think they make it easier for the novice beekeeper. The extras include:

a viewing window to allow you to peep at your bees for a quick check on progress without opening the hive,
a removable varroa monitoring tray to allow you to monitor and treat your bees again without opening the hive,
front/back rims to contain any empty top bars and allow the roof to be hinged for both convenience and to provide an additional barrier between you and the flying bees when you are carrying out full inspections.
end entrances, rather than central, to make your inspections, management and harvesting easier.

Of course it will be for you to decide whether you wish to incorporate these adaptations into your own hive or not. The following directions presume that you will but if not just leave out the relevant bits.

© Robin Morris - YABeeP

Go to Part 2 - Constructing your hive body

Making a Horizontal Top Bar Hive - part 2

2011-02-23T16:56:00.008Z

Part 2 - Constructing the hive body

(Click here for Part 1 - Getting Started)

Please note that the parts of this page in cyan are still under construction.

On this page:

The choice of materials
Pre-cutting the parts
Assembling the body

1. The choice of materials
Let's bet back to basics. Sustainable beekeeping is primarily about giving the bees what they would naturally choose for themselves. A great principle we must try to keep to but given their first choice would probably be a tree trunk with a cavity inside which are not readily available let alone portable, we are going to have to make some compromises. Your hive should be made of wood to help replicate that tree but what wood to choose from all the varieties available can seem quite daunting.

Your first choice may be between new timber and old. If it is available old timber will probably have weathered and have given off any gases or poisons it was treated with in the manufacturing process. Yes, most timber is treated before sale especially to protect it against wood boring insects and fungus attack; after all you wouldn't want your new window sill to get dry rot or woodworm when you have just replaced it. In all probability the majority of these 'treatments' will not directly harm the bees but you never know so you may choose to avoid them.

If you can't find a source of old wood then reclaimed timber has certain 'sustainability' advantages; it's certainly good for the planet. I successfully make hives from old pallet wood which gives me a feeling of pride and is certainly cheap. However, old pallets do come with certain disadvantages. It can be hard to get pallets of the required thickness (at least 3/4 inch), there is certainly more work in using pallets as you have to disassemble them which is no easy task and then you have more pieces to work with making construction more challenging. You also need to be aware that pallets that carry international goods have to be treated with pesticides by law - again countries don't want foreign wood boring beasts and fungi to hitch a ride on an imported pallet. If you choose pallets it is best to try and choose older weathered pallets from 'one off' sales i.e. the manufacturer does not expect it to be returned. Of course your choice will be limited so again you may have to make compromises.

If you choose new timber it will mostly be treated. Bear in mind there is generally 2 choices between indoor and outdoor use timber. Outdoor timber will be tanalised (pressure treated with chemical preservative) to protect it from the wet, insects and rot. This is good in that tanalised timber does not need constant treating and will take years to rot. On the other hand it will be wet from the tanalising process and retain some of the 'nasty' chemicals that the bees may reject and abscond or worse (!) for quite some time. If you choose outdoor timber make your hive in plenty of time before the season starts so that it can weather for a few months to give off its damp and chemical cocktail. Also newly tanalised wood will be wet and heavy.

Indoor timber will still be treated and may not last outside without repeated treatments so is possibly the worst choice of all, then again if it available and cheap it may prove to be your personal best choice.

Arguably the best is untreated timber. You can get it from timber merchants but you have to order it specially and it consequently tends to be more expensive. I've never quite worked out why natural untreated wood is more pricey than treated! Ideally use seasoned untreated timber but this is very difficult to find. If you use new untreated timber it does warp and can arrive slightly warped and split so can be a challenge to work with. Be sure to do your construction as soon after delivery as possible or the warping will continue. Once glued in place it is less likely to warp. One trick you can employ with new timber is to 'toast' the hive by brushing it with a blow-lamp before using it - see this YouTube video (Fast Forward to 2:35 mins). Apparently this process reduces the volatile compounds in odoriferous woods such as pine.

Finally, conventional beehives are traditionally made from expensive harder woods. This is because they needed to be machine made to tight tolerances with expensive jointing so are very expensive. If you buy an expensive hive then you don't want it to rot quickly because it is made from a cheap material. Of course, if it is available to you these better timbers like red cedar are suitable to use.

In the top bar hive world we don't need these expensive timbers as the hives are uncomplicated and made with simple butt joints. They are easy to paint and will last for years if kept off the ground away from rising damp. Cheaper timbers like spruce or pine are sufficient for our needs and if you are really unlucky you don't mind replacing a cheap hive with a new one after a few years if it only cost you a few pounds and was easy to make in the first place.

As to costs I have made recycled pallet hives for just the cost of some glue, some screws and my time and what satisfaction these hive gave me. Alternatively I have made them using new timber from my local merchants for around £30 to £40 each. Compare that to a Thornes National at over £260 plus internals or an Omlet Beehause at £465!

You need to base your decision on the above and what is easily and cheaply available to you - as I said it's a matter of making compromises.

2. Pre-cutting the parts
Follow the guidance in the Biobees plan you downloaded in part 1 of this section.

3. Assembling the body
Follow the guidance in the Biobees plan you downloaded in part 1 of this section.

© Robin Morris - YABeeP

Go to part 3 - Completing your hive

Making a Horizontal Top Bar Hive - part 4

2011-02-23T16:52:00.010Z

Part 4 - Making your Top Bars
(Click here for Part 1 - Getting Started)

The top bars are really the key ingredient of a horizontal top bar hive - for the bees, they make up the roof of the hive. You will, of course, have a second outer roof to form a waterproof covering against the rain and sun, but to the bees the bars form the solid roof of the hive and replicate the top of the tree cavity they would be occupying in nature. The top bars should therefore be made of natural wood and no other man made material. You also need to be sure to your own satisfaction that the wood used is chemical and poison free – i.e. contains no treatments, insecticides or fungicides! Weathered wood is ideal.

I will mention in passing that some Top Bar Hive users are experimenting with curved bars or gapped bars with a Warre style hessian quilt covering which may, in time, give us more options. However, for the purpose of this guide which is written for those new to this style of beekeeping we will stick to the tried and tested design of straight top bars forming a solid roof.

What size should your bars be?
The length and depth of your bars is the easy part, but the width is crutial - see diagram aside.

The Length meeds to be long enough to span the width of your hive plus an overlap. If you are building to the Barefoot Beekeeper plans this guide follows this will be 17”, no longer or they won't fit between the front/back roof frame which we recommend. Click on any image to enlarge it.

Height is not particularly important but does need to be at least ¾” or 20mm. The thicker they are the more insulation they give but you can add insulation above by way of a Warré style quilt box, using wool carpet or other natural insulating material so I would suggest that thicker than 1½” starts to get impractical. The ¾“/20mm minimum ensures that the bars don't flex when lifted with a full comb of honey attached. Any flexing will cause new comb to break and the collapse into the hive – something you want to avoid.

The crucial measurement is the Width of the bars as the races of bees we have in the UK build combs that, together with their bee space, require a gap of between 32 to 36 mm – this varies as bees build different width of comb depending on where in the colony it is in relation to the brood nest and the time of year it is built.

I suggest that you make your top bars widths to one of the two ways as follows - though I'm sure that there are others methods:-

The All Bars Equal method

This way you make all your bars all the same width at approx 35mm each and rely on your starter strips, plus the occasional inspection to keep them lined up. Of course the bees don't read the manuals and therefore often don't play the game to our expectations so you will get some cross combing but you can either 'mange' this by breaking off the ends of the comb and bending to correct it when you do your occasional inspection or by just live with some cross combing.

The Adjustable Width method
This way cut your top bars at approx 32mm width but also cut matching 4mm spacer bars. You can then place the spacer bars between the top bars where the bees require more space and are starting to build comb between bars. This is certainly the more flexible approach and allows you to adjust your colony as it grows but the downside is that in order to do this you have to monitor their comb building closely and consequently you are more likely to open the hive more to check on progress and interfere with your bees more – not exactly sustainable/ethical bookkeeping practice!

Even if you use the All Bars Equal method it's always useful to have a couple of 4mm spacer bars to correct the gap if a run of comb gets out of sync with your bars.

The simplified method is certainly easier to make and probably will result in your interfering with your colony less. NB: If you want to really minimise your interference then you should consider converting to a Warré hive.

Once you have bars cut you then need to add some form of comb starter guide to try and get the bees to build on the bars. To do this see the next page.

© Robin Morris - YABeeP

(Go to Part 5 - Adding comb guides to your top bars)

Part 5 - Adding Comb Guides

2011-02-23T15:33:00.003Z

(Click here for Part 1 - Getting Started)

Whilst the flat roof of your hive, provided by a set of top bars, is all the bees need. However, without some kind of starter guide the bees will build their comb in whatever direction they want. Whilst this is fine for them it will produce a nightmare for you if their combs don't follow your top bars; it will make it near impossible for you to remove bars and carry out an inspection. It is common practice therefore to add starting guides to try and encourage the bees to build along you top bars. There are several methods you can use. Some folk swear by one method whilst others think others are best. My own experience suggests that they are all about as good or bad as each other so you can choose the one you find easies to make or try a variety and see for yourself.

The various methods involve using either physical protrusions or bees wax or and are outlined below. However, please read the Warning at the foot of the page before buying any bee's wax.

For most of these methods you will need a small supply of bees wax as bees are attracted to build comb from a bees wax starter – presumably they think another bee has started the comb and they continue down.

Sawn Kerf Top Bar
This is probably the most commonly used and is relatively simple to make.

Basically what you need to do is saw a line about 2mm kerf (wide) and 1-2mm deep along the centre of each top bar – see Diagram. [Click on any picture to enlarge it]

You then dribble melted bees wax along this cut line which once set forms your starter line – see Diagram.

As bees are attracted to work from a bees wax starter it generally seems to work. You will need a small supply of bees wax

Waxed String Top Bar

Possibly the simplest design, this involves dipping a length of natural fiber string or twine into melted bees wax then immediately, whilst the wax is still molten, stretching the string out and holding it in position along the center of a plain top bar whilst the wax hardens and sticks to the bar – see Diagram E.

You will find that using rough-sawn rather than planed wood helps the waxed string to adhere.

The Starbucks starter

My favourite as it's easy to make is to use a supply of the wooden coffee stirrers (like long thin lolly sticks) you get when you by a coffee at a Starbucks, Costa or other coffee outlet. Just run a line of glue along one edge and stick this to the centre of a standard top bar. If you use a proprietary wood glue you only need to rub a thin film along the stick then hold it to the top bar for around 30 seconds. Once the glue goes off it will be really strong. To get the sticks to come to near the edges of your hive you may need to overlap them as shown in Diagram F though this probably isn't really necessary.

To finish this off just rub bees wax along the protruding edge when the glue has completely dried.

Hanging bar starter

Some top bar hive beekeepers have been having success in preventing cross comb by experimenting with physical protrusions hanging down from the roof of the hive. Perhaps this replicates the lumps and bumps that you might find inside a natural tree cavity or maybe bees like to start building comb from an appendage. If you want to try this then you need to fit some shims below your top bars as in the diagram aside which is similar to the Starbucks starter method but with more substantial shims..

The shape of the shims is not important but it is suggested that they need to be around 6-8mm wide and hang down by 15-20mm. Stick these on with glue and rub bees wax along the protruding edge as you would for the Starbucks method.

Bait Hive method

This method I developed for use in bait hives - small hives set out to try and attract passing swarms. The bait hives in question had top bars to fit a horizontal hive of the dimensions we are using here, but also had to be adaptable enough to allow the any bees caught to be transferred to a smaller Warré hive with minimal disturbance. The trick employed was to screw a Warré top bar with 2 short screws to the underside of the main horizontal top bar - see diagram. This way if the bar was subsequently transferred into a horizontal hive it just went straight in. However, if it needed to go into a Warré hive I just place it on the empty Warré box, then unscrew the two screws releasing the Warré bar and then easily took away the main horizontal bar.

By placing these bars in a horizontal hive I discovered that they made excellent starter bars. I suppose they are a cross between the Starbucks and Hanging bar methods above.

All you need to do to complete these starter bars is rub bee's wax on the underside of the Warré bar as a starter.

And finally.....
The choice of what kind of starter you make is yours. In my opinion there are no magic answers - bees will cross the bars in all types some of the time. If you really can't decide then I would suggest that you make the starters you find easiest to produce depending on your carpentry skills or materials you have to hand. Of course you could try making some of each type and experiment to see what kind works best for your bees. After all beekeeping is a learning process and we can all learn from your results!

Note: You can download models of these top bars in the Google's excellent free Sketchup 3D drawing programme. Download a free copy of Sketchup here.

WARNING about sourcing your bee's wax You need to be aware that there are risks involved when using bee's wax from an unknown source, i.e. any but your own. The wax in a hive absorbs chemicals and microbes from its environment. If the beekeeper supplying the wax used chemical treatments on his/her bees then this will present in the wax, or if the hive was diseased then it will carry microbes from the disease. Ask yourself – 'Do I really want diseased or poisoned wax in my hive?'

Unfortunately, it has now been shown that bees wax contains traces of any pesticides used on crops or plants that the bees were foraging on. This is beyond the control of the beekeeper but will be at increased levels where the beekeeper lived near to, or moved his/her bees to take advantage of, a large monoculture crop such as oil seed rape, etc. where you can pretty much bet that systemic pesticides (the worst!) were used on the planted crop.

When starting out in beekeeping you won't have your own supply so you are best getting it from a very local beekeeper, one that you feel you can trust. You could even ask them what treatments they used on their bees and make your decision depending on the answer. I would strongly recommend that you do not buy wax or foundation (bees wax pre stamped in honeycomb shaped sheets for use in a conventional hive frame) from a large supplier or a local beekeeper acting as an agent for such a supply. This will have been sourced from around the world an who knows what nasties or foreign diseases are in it?

Robin Morris
© YABeeP

Making a Horizontal Top Bar Hive - part 3

2011-02-23T15:28:00.010Z

Part 3 - Completing your horizontal hive
(Click here for Part 1 - Getting Started)

On this page:

Fitting varroa tray & drawer

Fitting the window

Making a roof

Attaching the legs

Treating the outside

Making/preparing the Top bars

Adding a landing board

Weathering your hive

1. Fitting the varroa tray & drawer

If you wish to easily monitor for varroa (recommended) you will need to fit a varroa tray and draw below your hive.

The tray has 3 sides attached, the fourth is loose so you can attach it to your tray – more on this below.

The tray should be attached to the bottom of the hive. You can just screw it to the bottom if you wish, but the best solution is to attach it using 2 hinges as in the diagram as this will also allow you both look up into the colony from below should you need to check and also pump icing sugar up if you get high varroa levels. In extreme hot weather you could also open the floor to ventilate the hive though you must bear in mind that doing so will interfere with the colony's management - personally I would NOT recommend opening for ventilation as bees understand the thermodynamics of a hive far better than we can ever hope to and have managed on their own for >30m years without our help.

Attach the hinges so it swings towards the front (the non-window side) and get a simple hook and eye clip from your hardware shop to attach the swinging end closed.

Now cut a piece of thin material (hardboard, plastic sheeting as used in 'house for sale' signs, etc.) to fit inside the tray to make the drawer. Attach one end of the draw to the forth side so when it is closed the tray has 4 sides closing it – see picture. You can then slide out the tray to monitor varroa, a subject which we will cover at a later meeting.

2. Fitting the window

This presumes that you have already cut a window slot in the back of your hive during construction - i.e. the opposite side to the bees entrance. Now cut a piece of glass or perspex to neatly fit inside this hole with just a couple of millimetres at most to spare around it.

Now get some dowelling about 1/4” square (shown in yellow on side sketch - click to enlarge) to stick/tack around the inside of the window. Position the dowel in place so that it is twice the thickness of the perspex measured from the INSIDE of the hive. Then put a bead of sealant (green) around this dowling and sit the perspex (blue) on it so that it is flush with the inside wall of the hive – in the sketch the inside of the hive is on the right.

Finally fit a window cover to keep the window closed and the bees in the dark where they like to be. You simply need to cut a piece of timber at least 12mm wider than the window on all sides, attach it with 2 hinges at the bottom then use a bolt or catch on the top to keep it closed - see picture below.

3. Making a roof
There are many designs and you need to choose your own – how simple or fancy you make it is up to you. To see some examples do a 'Google image' search using “top bar hive roof” and you'll see many options.

For all roof types you need a simple 4 sided frame that fits on the sides and front/back rims of your hive body – I suggest that this frame need to be a minimum of 3” high to allow space for winter insulation and keeping tools, etc. inside your hive. The simplest design just attaches a flat sheet to the top of this frame to give a flat roof. If you want a pitch roof then make the ends to give the slope or shape you choose. However you construct it make sure that your roof overhangs the frame by at lease 2” to 3" all around to keep the rain away from the hive body.

You can use any material for the roof from plastic sheet, 'for sale' signage, through hardboard and felt to timber or slate tiles or even thatch – use your imagination! I recommend that you hinge it at the front (i.e. the side the bees use) so when the roof is lifted you have an additional barrier between you and the flying bees.

4. Attaching the legs

The hives are quite heavy so you need substantial legs to support it. I suggest 2”x2” or 3”x2” legs which you need to bolt or glue & screw to the sides as shown in the illustration. I use the brace pieces from pallets as they are strong, free and environmentally friendly as you are recycling.

In my view bolting the legs to the hive is preferable as it is more secure and allows them to be removed to ease transporting should you ever need to move your hive. You can also loosen the bolts and adjust the rake of individual legs to compensate for uneven ground.

Finally, stand the legs on brick rather than grass to help prevent damage from damp. If you have a major ant or similar insect problem (not common in UK) then stand each leg in a pot of recycled oil to provide a protective moat.

5. Weather treating the outside
Only treat the outside of the hive, the bees take care of the inside themselves far better than we could with a coat of propolis and other bee products. As new timber is often damp from it's treatment and storage before you bought it, for example it may still be wet from the tanalising (pressure treatment) process, I wouldn't recommend treating the outside until it has had at least one month to dry out after your manufacture.

Once you are happy that it is sufficiently dry and aired then you can treat the outside if you wish to protect it from the elements or even decorate it, though many modern timbers don't need treating as their manufacture gives the timber the protection it needs. If you wish to colour your hive then use a plant friendly wash – the kind you can spill on plants without it harming/burning them – a lot of modern fence/shed treatments are suitable or use a whitewash. Remember some external emulsions have fungicides added to stop mould growth so best not to use them – read the tin before using. Also many gloss finishes won't let the hive timber 'breathe'.

Painting colours/patterns around the bees entrance can be fun and is believed by some to help them recognise home though I've yet to see a naturally painted tree in the wild!

6. Making/preparing the Top bars
The top bars are the key part of your horizontal top bar hive (the clue's in the name!) so two further pages have been added to this section advising on their preparation. I suggest that you finish you hive first so that it can start weathering before making the top bars. However, if you are in a rush to make them go to Part 4 here.

7. Adding a landing board

Let me be clear the bees don't need a landing board for their own use as they will happily fly straight in or land on the hives overhanging side without a second thought. However, if you think you will enjoy watching and photographing your bees they will happily alight on a landing board if fitted so it makes a useful addition for your benefit to observe your bees. You can also paint your boards different colours if you have more than one hive to save them any confusion as to which hive they have arrived at!

To fit a landing board just glue & screw a small board about 1” x 6” x ½” immediately below the main entrance holes as in the illustration.

8. Weathering your hive
As stated above new timber can still be damp or have chemical residues from its manufacture and storage process. It is therefore very important to allow it to dry out and vent off any noxious gasses in the wood, glue and any sealant you use to fit the window before the bees go in - in other words it needs to weather. Ignore this stage at your peril or you risk your new bees absconding or worse being poisoned.

To weather your hive simply place it outside as soon as you have made the main body, you don't need to wait until you've built the roof as rain won't hurt it, in fact it will help vent gasses as it wets then dries after rainfalls. Leave the floor tray hanging open to further assist ventilation. It may also be useful to leave sticking in the window glass/perspex until last so that the air can circulate through the open hole.

Once you have made your roof you can fit it and the hive should start to fully dry out. The longer it gets before the bees go in the better. Once fully weathered you are now ready for your bees.

© Robin Morris - YABeeP

(Go to Part 4 - Making your Top Bars)

About the Author

2011-02-22T11:04:00.006Z

I have just realised that, although I was the main force behind starting YABeeP and write the great majority of the content on this site, there is nothing on here about me and my credentials for my work with YABeeP, so here goes..........

Who am I?

My name is Robin Morris, the good looking one (!!!!) in the picture....

My interest in bees
I have had a life-long fascination with insects and bees in particular. In the last few years I have also become much more aware of environmental issues and the damage that we as humans are doing to our planet. This increased environmental awareness further triggered my interest in bees and the thought of keeping bees myself.

Having a reasonable sized garden, approaching early retirement and having a supportive wife who has a similar curiosity about beekeeping we decided to do something about it in the summer of 2008 by doing some research. I like to understand a subject before committing so, knowing no beekeepers, books were loaned from the library and I did much surfing of the internet.

Through this research I learned about the complexities, huge time commitment and considerable expense of modern day intensive beekeeping. Being quite practical I started looking into ways to save some of these costs by building my own hive when I happened upon websites explaining sustainable beekeeping. I read into this more and was hooked! This cheap and simplistic approach where the needs of the bees is seen as more important than exploiting them for a cash-crop all made so much sense – it ticked all my environmental boxes. I determined to make myself a couple of top bar hives and get started.

My Beekeeping Experience
By August two hives were ready and, with some help from a friend I had made on the Natural Beekeeping Network (aka Biobees Forum), two swarms were installed – I was a beekeeper.

As there were no natural beekeeping groups around I joined my local Beekeeping Association, though I have to say that having decided to be a sustainable beekeeper this was far from easy. My local branch just didn't want to know so I went to the next nearest where, although I was genuinely welcomed by most of the membership, I was vilified for my decision by its self appointed queen bee and leader. I stood my ground and started to learn from them. Much of what I learned about bees was good, though everything I learned about their modern day intensive management methods only served to confirm to me that I had made the right choice with natural beekeeping.

So why start a Bee Group?
In 2009 I was forced to leave this Association when, on principle, I refused to rejoin the BBKA following their decision to continue endorsing the pesticide industry. I explained that I was happy to pay the full fee to my local association on condition that it all stayed with them, but they were not interested in creating a new membership category just for 'rebels' like me so I had no choice than to leave.

Meanwhile, because I had been active on the Natural Beekeeping Network soaking up all the information I could I was invited to become a Moderator on their internet forum. My involvement in the forum convinced me that there should be enough demand to start a local group so what had I got to loose? I hadn't needed beekeeping 'expertise' to start as a beekeeper myself as I'd relied on the forum for support. I therefore thought that we wouldn't need it for a group; again we could get all the global support we needed from this wonderful online community. What was needed was someone local with a passion for change which I was more than happy to supply.

Consequently I got some posters put up on my Parish Council notice boards and spread the word on the forum and in March 2009 YABeeP was born. From this limited advertising plus word-of-mouth publicity we had 25 people turn up to our fist meeting and were off and flying!

Conclusion
So as you can see I'm no bee expert with a long history of hives or beekeeping qualifications. I don't need to be to run a self-help peer group. Indeed I believe that the beekeeping exams that modern day beekeepers take mostly reflect their intensive bee-farming practices which we sustainable beekeepers totally reject. I want to keep bees not exploit them.

What I do have is a good knowledge of Sustainable Beekeeping practices and Top Bar Hives. Not only have I learned through the forums and my own four hives (two Warré and two horizontal hives) but through the experiences of the 30 or so hives that our members now run and report back on at meetings. Add to this a growing knowledge of bumble and solitary bees through our project work which surpasses what most Beekeeping Associations know as they don't seem interested in bees that don't produce a cash crop.

In addition our group now boasts very experience beekeepers with a wealth of knowledge who have themselves turned away from the modern day intensive beekeeping they were taught as they believe this 'one size fits all' approach has become unsustainable.

What I bring is a passion for spreading the word about Natural Beekeeping and I make no apologies for that.

Robin

Enjoying our bees

2011 Adapted Warré hive

2011-02-20T18:52:00.015Z

This year we have decided to go back to building Warré hives as our standard model for beginners, just as we did in 2009. Read this page to learn more about these wonderful Natural Beekeeping hives.

Swarm of honeybees
(click to enlarge)

Once built you will naturally want to populate your hive with bees. By far the best way to do this is by using a natural swarm.

But there's a problem.....
Unfortunately though, swarms are getting more difficult to source (see this page for more information on getting your bees). YABeeP members are consequently having to source nucs as the next best alternative. A nuc is, in effect, a temporary miniature hive. The problem we have though is that nucs are designed to populate the much larger conventional beehive that we don't favour using. Therefore this gives us the problem in getting the nuc frames, with their attending bees, brood and stores, into our smaller Warré hives. Whilst it can be done by shaking the bees off or chopping the frames there are problems with this, especially for a new beekeeper.

...... and a solution
Consequently, to get around this problem we are suggesting that you build a adapted Warré so that the frames just, more or less, slot into your hive - easy-peasy. You will note that I did say 'more or less' as you will still have to chop off much of the frame lugs to slip your frames in as standard frames come with long lugs but this is easily done using branch loppers, bolt cutters or a hacksaw.

Standard Warré
(click to enlarge)

This adaptation is a recommendation we are making, not a requirement; you remain free to build your hive to Warrés original and proven dimensions if you prefer.

Recommended Adapted Hive
If you choose to make the adapted hive then your hive's dimensions increase in plan from the original internal dimensions of 300 x 300mm to 300 x 365mm. The 365mm accommodates a British National brood frame at 356mm¹ plus a 4.5mm gap each side to allow for some slack – after all we are not precision carpenters! NB: It is best to keep the gap each end to less than a 'bee space' to allow the bees to plug the gap for their thermodynamic control if they so choose. Ain't natural beekeeping great!

Adapted Warré
(click to enlarge)

Additionally, you need to extend the depth of your top box, the one that the bees go in, from 210mm to 218mm, again to accommodate the depth of the frame. This increased depth only needs to be done on the top box.

Some Warré purists will argue that this small modification goes away from his tried and tested design but we feel that 'needs must' for the sake of gently installing the bees and the minimal increase in volume is a small price to pay for not chopping & cropping or shaking the bees off their brood & stores.

You can download a pdf file (312 KB) showing the Modified Warré hive dimensions here (when the page opens click on the 'download' link in the top left corner).

© Robin Morris - YABeeP
20 Feb 2011

¹ The dimensions quoted apply fitting standard UK nuc frames - National or Smith. If you are outside the UK you will need to adapt these dimensions to accommodate your local standard frame size.

Warré Hive Introduction

2011-02-14T22:37:00.029Z

This year we have decided to go back to building Warré hives at our member's hive building workshop day (30th April 2011 - see 2011 dates page).

Warré made from recycled
pallets with 2 starter boxes
(click any image to enlarge)

The Warré hive is cheap and simple yet makes an ideal hive for those starting beekeeping for the first time and is the perfect introduction to natural beekeeping. Indeed, there are many of us, including me, who feel that the Warré is THE hive for natural beekeeping as it allows the bees to manage their own affairs and leaves them virtually undisturbed to do what they do best.

That is not to say that Warré beekeeping is about leaving your hives to luck. Far from it; as a beekeeper you are fully responsible for ensuring that your bees stay healthy and disease free whilst in your care. However, the way that you do this in a Warré hive is far different. You need to learn to read your bees, spend time observing them to notice differences in behaviour, mood and demeanour. You will watch them and note what they are bringing into and taking out of the hive just like the beekeepers of old used to do. In all of this you will become so much more of an expert than were you to rip your bee's home apart each week just to inspect their internal workings.

Preparation
The best way to start on this journey is to learn all you can before starting, both about the principles and techniques of Warré beekeeping and about the biology and physiology of those wonderful creatures the bees themselves. The following is a list of some of the Warré resources available for you to read as part of this preparation. A further page will be added giving resources you can investigate on the bee.

Rooftop Warré with
modified varroa floor

Everyone in YABeeP who takes up Warré beekeeping will be expected to familiarise themselves with this information - remember you, and only you, are responsible for your bees.

Information on the Warré system

'Beekeeping for All' (book/web) - The best place to start is to read the book 'Beekeeping for All' written by Abbé Emile Warré himself . This book, translated into English by Patricia and David Heaf, can either be bought as a published print edition (link) or downloaded as a free pdf download (8,660 KB), though the download is 155 pages long so makes a very large print job should you choose not to read it on screen. Bear in mind it was last revised in 1948 so Warré's writing style has dated though it contains excellent information.

The Bee-Friendly Beekeeper - Dr. David Heaf (book) available from bookshops or direct from the publisher here. I cannot recommend this book strongly enough - it should be on every natural beekeeper's bookshelf whatever type of hive they use. It gives the best argued and referenced reasons to go down the natural beekeeping route, includes much on sustainability and draws on the wealth of knowledge David gets from the international Warré forum he runs - order it now!

Warré hive construction plan (375KB download) - A free pdf download © David Heaf showing the construction plans for a standard Warré hive - YABeeP members please see the footnote¹. Please note that the plans have an error that David is aware of in that the quilt box dimensions are shown as 340 x 340mm external, the same as the boxes. According to Abbé Warré the quilt should be 5mm less than the boxes (335 x 335) to allow the hesian to be wrapped up the sides to wick off moisture - see here for a picture. For a photo guide on construction see the Warrébeek website hive construction pages.

Online resource (web) - There is plenty of excellent information on the web. The best place to start is the Warré Beekeeping entry page on the Natural Beekeeping Network (aka Biobees website). Just follow the links on the left hand side for further gateways into the Warré beekeeping world.

Towards Sustainable Beekeeping (web article) – this pdf download (570KB) of a four-part article by David Heaf serialised in The Beekeeper's Quarterly 2008, supplemented with ethical introduction provides excellent reading

Internet Forums

English Warré e-group and the

Warrés in winter

Natural Beekeeping Network Warre section.

'Why I Worry about the Warré' response - This excellent paper was written by David Heaf in response to an article that a former Chairman of the BBKA, who really should have known better, wrote criticising the Warré hive. In 7 pages it neatly covers each aspect of the hive and illustrates exactly why they are so good - it makes a great summary paper on the benefits of the Warré. If you want to see the original article to put the response in context it can be downloaded from the Warré Yahoo Group website here.

'At the Hive Entrance' (Book) by H. Storch - "How to Know what happens inside the hive by observation of the outside." This out of print book is prized by beekeepers but can often be picked up here or occasionally at Amazon here.

Resources on the YABeeP website

Finishing touches to a Warré (vertical) hive
How to Modify a standard Warré floor
Warré hive lift
Moving a swarm into your Warré hive
Should I site my hive in the shade or sun?

Fanning workers move into a Warré hive

Remember, this list is far from exhaustive. There is so much to learn about bees. Hopefully this will get you started on the research phase of your learning. The really exciting part is yet to come - learning from your own bees. The more you learn now, the more confident you will be when this time comes and, don't forget, as a YABeeP member you will have the support and resource of a friendly group around you.

© Robin Morris - YABeeP
14 Feb 2011

Footnote 1: YABeeP members thinking of doing their own work and making/preparing their own Warré hive before our 30th April Hive Building Workshop need to be aware that we shall be suggesting making an adapted version of his hive to slightly different dimensions (internal dimensions of 300 x 365 rather than Warré's 300 x300mm). This is to make it easier to install bees for those getting their bees on nucs.

Online Top Bar Beekeeping training

2011-02-09T10:48:00.006Z

Introduction to the Art and Craft of Top Bar Bee Keeping

Sorry about the short notice but this has only been announced today.

Image © Phil Chandler - Biobees

On Sunday February 13th at 9:00pm Phil Chandler, of Biobees fame, will be hosting the first part of a two part on-line training course introducing people to the Art and Craft of Top Bar Bee Keeping. This hour long session should prove to be fun for those new to the craft.

The second and final session is on 20th February.

Further details - can be found on the OrganicView website - you will need to scroll down the page.
Booking - you can pre-register here.
Cost - Basically you give "whatever you think it is worth for you to learn 'live'"!

Phil has said that he will record the two sessions so I expect that those who miss it can catch up on his podcast page here - remember these podcasts are always worth a listen.

Robin - 9th Feb 2011

Should I site my hive in the Shade or Sun?

2011-02-08T09:59:00.017Z

I am a great believer in the Natural Beekeeping Network (aka Biobees Forum) and often follow threads and conversations there especially as this is what got me into Sustainable Beekeeping in the first place. Occasionally I'll post a response or ask a question myself.

Wooded Warré in high summer

Today someone asked about the merits of keeping bees in the shade as opposed to the modern norm of placing hives in sunny positions. It seems pretty clear that hives in the sun with south facing entrances produce more honey, that's why beekeepers do it, but I'm not so sure that this is good and I'm certain it ain't natural. I am consequently posting my response here to share it with all YABeePers who may themselves be considering where to place their hives:

Here in the UK, where bees are natural, our habitat was mainly deciduous woodland until the human clearances just a few thousand years ago - bear in mind that bees evolved in their present form over 30m years ago (some put this figure as high as 100m years). Ergo they lived mostly in shady areas in decaying trees, etc. Roll forward a few million years and man interferes and starts 'keeping' bees - ie managing where they live, etc. Man notices that bees in the sun work longer hours - logic suggests that longer hours = more honey to crop therefore believes 'this is good'! Over time keeping bees in the open/sunshine has therefore become the norm for us so that now all beek's believe that sun is good, shade is bad.

However, we've not asked the bees their opinion. Ask yourself why bees apparently make excess honey for their needs? Does this happen to such an extent in the wild? Granted a shaded hive's bees work shorter hours so make less honey BUT does this mean they spend less time on other important duties that we don't yet fully understand? Is a colony in a shaded/sheltered area not better protected against the ravages and extremes of weather, hot and cold and windy? And don't forget that our woodlands were deciduous so those areas that appear shady and dark in the summer often get abundant sunshine in the winter and spring when the trees have no leaves. Maybe their winter shelter is more important than their summer forced labour?

My theory is that by keeping bees in the sun we are probably overworking them and/or diverting them from other duties and probably exposing them to additional problems; this may be one more of the many 'stresses' that we now see them suffering from.

I am keeping a hive in wooded areas like you describe where they only get sun in the summer to test this out - I'm using Warrés to try and keep them as near natural as possible but I'm sure it would work for hTBHs. Like you I notice they forage for far less time than my hives in the morning/evening sun. Now that doesn't mean they gather less - maybe they are fitter and therefore able to gather more over a shorter period - I don't know. Still early days for my experiment but I can confirm that my wooded bees are still alive now (Feb) - watch this space.

I hope this helps. I'm sure that many will argue against it, especially those whose main interest is in the honey, not the bees. But you can't deny it's a sound Natural Beekeeping argument.

I hope that this helps new YABeeP beekeepers in their thinking about where they are going to place their new hives. I think it's a test really - are we in this for the bees or the honey?

You can follow or even contribute to any responses there may be on the Natural Beekeeping Network here.

© Robin Morris - YABeeP
08 Feb 2011

Were they Listening?
Well, would you believe it? Having expounded this 'shady areas' theory only this morning, I later today passed near the hive I was discussing only to hear the wonderful sound of happy bees in full activity – so I grabbed my camera and took this video:

Now I know that, in fact, they were grabbing the opportunity offered by today's freak warm and sunny weather following a long and cold spell – the first 'fine' day here all winter. However, I prefer to believe that they had got wind of my words and were rejoicing in what I was saying!

Membership - 2011

2011-01-26T23:00:00.008Z

As Free as a Bee
At our pre-season planning meeting last week a small group of YABeePers have looked again at our membership structure. After two years of successfully running as a peer-support group we still see no need to charge a membership fee so have agreed to continue with our loose and informal set-up.

However, over the last 2 years our mailing list has grown massively and is starting to become inoperable. We also we need to ensure that we comply with the provisions of the Data Protection Act. We are therefore introducing a slightly more formalised self-nominated membership system. This introduces 3 categories of membership Full Member, Occasional Member and Distant Supporter. These categories are designed to make our administration/communication simpler rather than impose a membership class system. It's up to the individual to choose which membership category they think they fall in to.

In order become a member of YABeeP in 2011, attend meetings and workshops and continue to receive corporate communications, everyone is required to complete and sign our membership application form (81KB Adobe PDF file) which you can download from here or here - please download the form first rather than printing it from the Scribd or Hotmail websites.

ACTION required by all current members and supporters - Can I please ask you to complete one of these forms for each member of your household who wishes to join, print it, sign it and post it to me by 26th February. Anyone not returning forms by this date will unfortunately no longer receive YABeeP communications.

Robin

26th January 2011

Natural Beekeeping on BBC2

2011-01-20T19:35:00.020Z

Natural Beekeeping gets a main stage platform tomorrow night on BBC2. This provides something very positive after a week of relatively negative news, given the British Beekeepers' Association's (BBKA) continued refusal to divorce themselves from insecticide manufacturer at their Annual Delegate Meeting last week-end.

Carol Klein of BBC
Gardener's World fame

Natural Beekeeping hits prime-time BBC
If you are free try and watch Carol Klein's Life in a Cottage Garden tomorrow night (Friday, 21st January 2011) at 8:30pm on BBC2. In this Spring into Summer episode she is featuring Phil Chandler of the Natural Beekeeping Network who introduces a Top Bar Hive which Carol’s husband Neil will be using.

If you missed it then you can see the extended version here on the BBC iPlayer:

The BBKA again Fail British Bees
If you missed the BBKA Executive's latest disgraceful manipulations to stay in bed with the pesticide industry despite their membership you really should read the British Beekeeping website and follow the Latest Update link.

You probably know I left the BBKA over this issue a couple of years ago. Up to now, YABeeP has agreed that new members should, if they wish, feel free to join their local conventional beekeeping branch for a period as they might gain some benefit. I have to say that I have now changed my mind on this and will argue strongly against our members joining any branch that requires BBKA membership. Given the wealth of evidence that these pesticides are killing our bees can you honestly consider yourself a Sustainable Beekeeper if you belong to an organisation that sees their manufacturers as 'the plant protection industry'(sic)? They also refuse to be open with their membership about what they are up to and fail to operate democratically in order that they can manipulate their membership?

If you are also a BBKA member you sould consider resigning and clearly stating in your resignation why you are leaving. Remember, it's only a Beekeeper's Association, not a Bee Welfare Association; their interests are wholly in supporting honey production and sale using intensive farming principles, not the magnificent insect itself!!!

Expect to hear more on this at future meetings.

2011 Meeting Dates

2011-01-11T08:40:00.038Z

YABeeP aims to provide peer support to individuals, families and groups who want to encourage wild bees and/or keep bees themselves using natural beekeeping methods – our interest is in honey, bumble and solitary bees.

In 2011 we will hold our informal meetings at 10:30am on the second Saturday of each month during the bee season - March to October. Meetings last about 2 hours and, weather permitting, usually include a chance to get hands-on with bees:-

2011 Dates:

March 12th Meeting - Includes an introduction to natural beekeeping, winter review and introduction to the hive building workshop.
April 9th Meeting - Don't miss this one as we have Carlo Montesanti from the Bee Guardian Foundation as our guest speaker talking on "Don't Call Me Honey : Bees the bigger picture". We will also cover 'Getting honeybees for your hive'. The meeting will be followed by........
April 9th Workshop follows on from meeting - Build your own solitary bee house - practical & fun.
April 30th all day workshop. Build your own honeybee hive - practical & fun. In 2011 we will be building Warré hives, adapted to allow for the easy introduction of framed bees for those buying their bees in nucs.
May 14th Meeting - to include and 'Kitting yourself out'
June 18th Meeting - to be followed by our annual BYO Barbecue/garden picnic lunch. NB: This meeting was originally 11th June but had to be moved - my apologies.
July 9th Meeting - 10:30am Yatton Library
August 13th ~~Meeting~~ Due to holiday commitments we have decided to cancel the August meeting.
September 10th Meeting
October 8th Meeting

If you wish to join one of these meetings we'd love to see you - please email YABeeP@googlemail.com or tel: 01934 876275to let us know who you are, how many will attend and to get directions to the meeting. We hope to hear from you.

Why do we meet?

Meetings allow us to:

Welcome new members to learn about our aims and principles and decide whether they wish join us,
Provide an environment to network with each other to expand our knowledge, ask questions and share new ideas and thoughts on helping bees,
Provide an opportunity to get hands on with bees (dependant on weather of course) and see into a working hive/bee box
Allow us to meet socially and have the occasional BBQ, picnic, etc., after all life’s not all about bees.

Typical meeting

Where do we meet?

Meetings mostly take place in the Yatton area as this is central to our North Somerset patch, however, we may occasionally meet at a members home elsewhere. The venue details and a map are emailed to members the week before each meeting.

Meeting format

YABeeP believes in holding informal meetings; we don't instruct our members or provide formal training courses but use a 'learning through doing with support' philosophy. Meetings are used to provide peer support and help for those new to bees. We also try to have short 10/15 minute themed talks at our meetings, mostly given by our own members (volunteers always needed!) but occasionally bringing in a local(ish) expert. Weather permitting, we also use meetings to let members get up close and personal with bees and experience the workings of the various bee homes we use.

Learn about hive types

Up close & personal with bees

Workshops

In addition to our monthly meetings we also hold practical workshops as demand dictates. These tend to be all day affairs which allow members to build their own hives for honey bees or homes for bumbles and solitary bees. As well as being highly productive – you should expect to complete your project within the day - the workshops held to date have all been great social events! These workshops will be listed in the Dates section above in red when arranged.

Horizontal honeybee hive workshop - the fruit of our labours

Build a wild bee home
(photo © Simon Johnson)

page written by Robin Morris

Christmas Lunch - 2010

2010-12-14T20:54:00.003Z

Our champions

Something had to give and I'm afraid it's been keeping this website up to date, much better the group flourishes so that's where I put my energies.

That said, I couldn't let Sunday's marvellous Christmas meal pass by without comment or putting it on record.

Lou's had one too many!

This was a joint meal between YABeeP and our swarmed colony, the Bristol group - just a shame the Bristol Queen couldn't make it on the day!

Boy's corner

I, and I'm sure everyone that went, especially want to thank Jo and John for both organising it, finding the venue, shopping, preparing the puds and punch and setting up and clearing on Sunday. You did a really great job guys and we all very much appreciate it. You'll already know from the atmosphere on the day (or should I say 'buzz' being a bee group) that everyone had a really great time. When we started the bee groups we hoped to get folk interested in our way of looking after bees but we never realised that we would also make such great and fun friends as well.

The wild bees survive
Quite a few of use, either before the meal or following, even went to see our adopted wild bees that are living out in the open in a wind tunnel. I'm very happy to report are still alive and well in the middle of Bristol - what fantastic news especially given the cold of the last few weeks - what can we learn from this?!!!

Again many thanks to Jo & David and everyone who came.

That's my Dad!

Our wild city bees - click on image to see full size

The Importance of Managing Grassland for Bumble Bees

2010-11-05T21:52:00.001Z

I have received the following flyer from Marc Carlton who many of you will remember from the excellent Bumble Bee Box Building day we ran last December.

These talks by Dr Pippa Raynor of the Bumble Bee Conservation Trust take place near Monmouth and, just over the river at Shirenewton, a village just outside Chepstow. Too late to organise a YABeeP trip but if, like me, you wish to attend please make your own arrangements.

Chop & Crop

2010-07-26T08:44:00.000+01:00

Dear All,

Really sorry but both Naomi and I missed your last meeting (17th July 2010) having both thought it was a different weekend. Feel really apologetic because we were going to talk about our stressful 'chop and crop' TBH transfer and our huge gratitude to Robin and Ali who took time to visit us soon after and offered wonderfully positive support and made us both feel very much better!

Since then I have also transferred a nucleus of bees on standard frames into one of 'Nick's feral hives' in Devon and this was a piece of cake in comparison, which confirms why we had the particular difficulties we had with the first transfer.

Basically the first nucleus arrived on standard sized frames made of 4 x solid bars of wood, nailed securely with long small headed nails at each corner. The wires holding the foundation into the frame zig zagged across the foundation from side to side and were secured to the side bars of the frame - there were no attachments of this wire to either the top or bottom bars. The wooden bars were tougher to 'crop' and the heavy duty nails and their length meant we just couldn't get the frame peices apart easily. It was also more complicated because we had to cut the wires up each side of the comb as well as trying to separate the comb along these edges. As soon as the supporting bottom bar was detached the comb simply fell off the top bar, this happenend every time no matter how careful we tried to be. We did eventually manage to salvage a couple of frames by just shortening the side bars and putting the frame with these still attached into the TBH. The combs were well built out and full with either honey and/or brood and we weren't convinced that we could have successfully sewed them onto a top bar so we simply lodged them as straight as possible into the hive in the correct order and left the bees to it.

We were really 'traumatised' by the whole event. There was running honey everywhere, we smashed more bees than should have been necessary and also lost brood cells. There was honey literally pouring and then dripping out of the bottom of the hive for 3 whole days. The bees had only one entrance open and didn't appear to suffer from robbing but how this didn't happen i don't know!! We had trapped and kept the queen secure throughout the whole transfer so we assumed she should be ok after her release into the hive and within 2 days bees were coming and going with pollen so we hoped all was ok. Amazingly, within 4 days the bees had begun to build new comb along the empty top bars down towards the old slumped combs and quickly began emptying the damaged comb cells and transferring contents out of the hive or up into new stores (presumably). Now about 3 weeks later all seems as well as could be expected. The bees have joined some of the old brood comb to the new comb from the top bars and have then been able to eat under the old comb so it's no longer sitting on the base of the hive and/or against the side walls of the hive. They have have now built on 9 of the top bars and apart from the area of brace comb onto the original, the new combs are straight and appear seperate. We have managed to remove some empty original comb and wires which had been emptied and was no longer being used but are going to leave the 'mess' of brace comb to sort out in the autumn or next spring.

The second nucleus from 'Easybees' in Glos. arrived on the traditional frames of shaped soft wood with a split bottom bar. The frame was stapled together with lightweight staples and the wires zig zagged from top to bottom through the foundation and were only securely attached to the top bar. The combs were less well built out and not so full of honey and/or brood so probably not such good value but it did make the transfer easier. The bottom and side bars were simple to 'chop and crop' and pull apart, there were no wires to cut through as the 'bottom corner crops' fell outside the wired area (the feral boxes are wider at the base than the TBH) and the original top bars fitted neatly into the rebates of the hive. The comb remained intact and securely wired to the top bar and therefore transferred easily without any breakages. An easy and relatively painless transfer with only a small loss of comb and a few bees. They are apparently flying well to and fro but I haven't seen them since the transfer 10 days ago.

Hope this is helpful, we don't intend to buy further nuclei and it wasn't the way we really intended to start but for future reference, if nuclei are being considered, I would stringly encourage purchasers for TBHs to check in advance that the frames are wired from top to bottom and only secured with panel pins/ staples. I personally wouldn't attempt a transfer on side wired frames again!

The second Bristol Sustainable Bee Group meeting is this coming Saturday 31st July 11-1pm in Bishopston where everyone else will have a chance to see what a mess the transfer was and how amazingly the bees have coped!! All welcome from Bristol and Yatton and apologies again for missing the last Yatton meeting.

Best wishes

Jo and Naomi

I've a problem what should I do?

2010-06-11T09:52:00.011+01:00

As the so say 'leader' of our group I often get asked about issues and problems someone has with their bees despite the fact that I always start our meetings by explaining that I'm a relatively new beekeeper and am certainly no bee expert.

Happy bees

Luckily we now have a few far more experienced bee people in our group and are well connected to 'experts' to call on. We can also use the internet forums like Biobees (my personal favourite for sustainable beekeeping) to seek views and advice.

Using our group's resources will often give us a clear answer and strategy of what to do. However, sometime it's not so clear or we find that there is a wide range of, often differing, views and opinions. This is especially true when seeking views on internet forums where respondents can come from a wide range of different climate and cultural backgrounds or are at a different stage along their path to sustainable beekeeping - always bear this in mind when seeking forum opinions.

So many opinions, what do I do?

When I'm in doubt about what to do with bees because of a wide range of conflicting opinions my own philosophy as a sustainable beekeeper is to first ask myself what would the bees do in the wild? If I can answer this then I facilitate them to do just that.

If you can't answer that question then I would suggest that you leave them alone or at least choose the least interference option, they know far more about bees than we humans ever will so they are far better equipped to sort any situations out. I really believe that, athough our intentions may well be good, the more we interfere the worse we make it for them. This 'leave alone' principle can be very hard for us to do for, as humans, we cannot help but think we must help, we have answers - human nature makes it difficult to trust others, especially when the others are only insects, despite the fact that they have had 40 million years of evolution to learn the ropes!

Exposed colony in Bristol center

Ask yourself what's the worst that can happen?

It probably won't happen, but they could die off - but should we see this as a failure? I think not. We have to accept that in the wild, as in captivity, colonies do sometimes die out quite naturally; maybe this is nature saying that their genetics or some other aspect was not good enough - the survival of the fittest at work. I believe that the best lesson we can then learn is to accept this as nature being nature and doing what she knows best.

The alternative is to interfere ourselves and do what we think is right. They can still die off because what we did was either not correct or it added further stress to already stressed bees. If they die following our interference then their death certainly is our fault for interfering.

The Advantages of Sustainable Beekeeping
To me one of the advantages of sustainable beekeeping is that we don't have to heavily invest, both in time and money, in our craft with expensive hives, weekly inspections and all the beekeeping paraphernalia that goes with more conventional methods. After all, if you've invested heavily then you're under huge pressure to interfere to try and guarantee your 'crop' and recover some of your investment. It's far easier for us to sit back and see nature take control.

I hope this helps, please forgive the ramblings of an old man!

Robin - June 2010

15-May-2010 Meeting Note

2010-05-24T12:59:00.000+01:00

Yet another glorious day for our meeting - just as well as with at least 29 people, and I don't think everyone signed the contacts sheet, we'd have struggled to get everybody indoors! Yet again many thanks for those who brought biscuits and Joyce for the baking - yummy!!!

Our speakers in full flow

Yet again we were able to welcome some new members from both near and far.

Just as we were about to start we had a visitor from the next village to report a swarm so there was more even reason to keep the meeting short! We had already re-jigged the agenda as it was felt that to do a round-Robin of introductions would take far too long with the numbers present so instead members were asked to give an exceptions report on their colonies, additions, deaths, strange happenings, etc. - we'll probably stick to this format in future as a shorter business meeting allows more time for informal networking after.

Future events
None of interest were known - a quiet time on the sustainable beekeeping front, I guess everybody's busy chasing swarms.

Event Feedback

hTBH autopsy

Safe Land for Bees event - A brief report back was given on this successful day held in Bristol on 11th April. For those who would like to hear Barrie Trower talk on microwave communication he will be appearing in Glastonbury this summer. Similarly Carlo Montesanti's from The Global Bee Project will be talking at Cadbury Garden & Leisure. When dates are known I'll circulate them to members. As a result of this YABeeP we have now hooked up with The Global Bee Project as Carlo is interested in getting groups like ours established around the country and thinks we can assist - I'll be seeing him on Monday so can report back to the next meeting.

The Kingsdown/Cotham Bee Group Launch - YABeeP was invited to talk on bees at this launch and several members went. Nick Miller had suggested that if there was sufficient demand then he would extend the group from his Spanish style feral bee boxes to include those interested in top bar hive hives along the lines of YABeeP. It would be linked with the Bristol Slow Food. Nick is currently away in Spain but will hopefully arrange something when he returns.

Gareth starts with a hug

The Global Bee Project - Robin caught up with this Stroud based group that are doing tremendous things to promote bees. We have agreed to meet with Carlo Montesanti next week to discuss how we can support them particularly in spreading the word about setting up a network of local groups like YABeeP. Given their work YABeeP members are encouraged to join them, become Bee Guardians and post what you are individually doing on their website.

Monthly Features
Monitoring for Varroa & Nosema

Nick Delaney gave a short talk on this subject. Nick has kindly let us have his notes which, as it is an important area which we wish to refer back to, has been posted separately here. Many thanks Nick.

Gareth also contributed by outlining his own essential oils Varroa treatment and a simplistic method for identifying when mite numbers become a problem which is posted here.

Inspecting a horizontal Top Bar Hive

Once the business proceedings had ended our guest, Gareth John, gave us a practical demonstration on this subject starting with an autopsy on a recently deceased horizontal Top Bar Hive (hTBH) which had been dwindling since the winter with no new bees, then moving on to inspect a living hive. Because of the large numbers the group split and Nick kindly took some of our number next door to inspect his hives.

Wot's going on 'ere then?

The 'dead' hive still had around 20 bees in the colony and interestingly one of these turned out to be the queen - well spotted Ali! There was no disease or excessive varroa seen so it was surmised that she had not started laying post winter hence the colony die off. Luckily, Simon J had a queeenless hive so he took her hoping that a new strong colony would kick-start her into laying - keep us posted Simon.

An inspection of the live hTBH was carried out by Gareth John. The hive has central entrances and natureal wool carpeting as a cover over the top bars, below the roof. The warmth of the bees could be felt through the top bars once the carpet had been removed and this suggested that the colony had expanded leftwards from the hive's central entrance. The left hand followed board (which has provision for a jar feeder) was removed. The first two bars contained open stores of nectar/honey. Following this were 8 bars well filled with a mix of pollen, sealed and unsealed brood and eggs (which were pointed out to interested group members). Very little drone brood was present. No queen cells were found. Attachments between the sides of the combs and the hive wall were carefully cut using a sharp blade, cutting in an upwards direction before each bar was carefully lifted out. There was very little cross combing between the top bars.

YABeeP members all thank Gareth and his wife for travelling down from Oxfordshire to give us this excellent demonstration and pass on his considerable hTBH experience - we hope to see them at other meetings.

Other Business

Hive Building Workshop - 22nd May

Given we have now entered the busy period swarming period and the small numbers wanting to build it was agreed that this fixture would be dropped. Those wishing to build hives needing and needing help are to contact Robin and we will either arrange a couple of evenings or one to one sessions. A further workshop will probably be arranged for later in the year.

Bristol Group

Lazy queen goes to new home

Given the growth of YABeeP and the numbers attending from Bristol it was felt that we need to do something to 'help along' a stand-alone Bristol group. Both Nick Miller's Kingsdown/Cotham group and Safe Land for Bees could be the catalyst plus we have been informed by Phil Chandler of Biobees that some who attended one of his recent hTBH courses also plan to start a group so we really need a YABeeP Bristol Champion to possibly arrange a meeting and help move this along. If anyone feels up for the challenge please contact Robin asap.

Raising Funds

Whilst YABeeP wishes to stay a free and open group without the ties of formal membership, committees and constitutions we do need to raise some funds to cover the increasing costs of swarm collection and a few other bits and pieces.

A merry throng

Following some discussion it was agreed that with immediate effect we would charge members who receive bees via YABeeP as follows. £25 for a colony of honeybees (swarm or split) and £10 for a nest of bumbles. Swarm catchers acn also claim a mileage allowance of £0.50 per mile.

Bumble bees

Members with empty bumble boxes wishing to have a rescued nest need to get their empty box, clearly marked with their name, to Robin. Bees will then be allocated on a first-come-first-served basis as we rescue nests - see Bumble Rescue Programme link.

Next Meeting

The next meeting is Saturday 19th June and this will end with a lunch time American BBQ so if you are saying for food please bring something to contribute - all YABeeP members and hanger's on are invited.

Thymol and Tea Tree String Varroa Treatment

2010-05-24T12:56:00.003+01:00

by Gareth John

At our 15th May 2010 YABeeP meeting our guest speaker Gareth John explained the Thymol and Tea Tree String varroa treatment and inspection regime he has developed that is showing considerable success and iIt was agreed that he would share this with us.

This has been discussed on a thread on the Natural Beekeeping Network (Biobees) which you can read here. However, for those of you who don't use internet forums Gareth has produced the main recipe and methodology which is shown here. This also includes a simple way of calculating when mite drop levels become a problem:

Thymol and Tea Tree String Treatment
Recipe

10g of thymol crystals
10 drops of tea tree oil
Olive oil, say 25 ml
Sunflower oil, say 50 ml
One or two pieces of bees wax (walnut sized)
Two or three teaspoons of fine sugar (icing sugar)
Thirty 50mm (2 inch) lengths undyed garden string (eg. hemp)

The only things I measure accurately are the thymol and tea tree.

Method

Gently warm the oil and beeswax until the beeswax just dissolves and then add the thymol crystals. Stir to dissolve these. (They smell strongly, so do not touch them with your hands.) Cool and add the tea tree (it will evaporate if the mix is too hot). Then add the sugar and stir. The mix will turn lumpy and sticky at this stage. The consistency should be that of soft butter. Place the pieces of string in the mix and coat them thoroughly. Use enough string to soak up all the mix.

This makes about enough to treat 3 hives once each with 10 strings apiece. Make up a fresh recipe for each treatment as I suspect that the thymol breaks down over time. The treatment is most effective when the bees are active and the weather warm. The dosage rate is about 1/4 that of commercially available thymol treatments and much more effective in my experience.

To apply, move the top bars apart enough to push a piece of string down between each leaving a short length of the string just proud of the bar. When the bars are closed up, these little tails will be visible so you will know which bars are 'stringed' and which not. The string, being sticky, will catch on the face of the comb. That's fine. Do this for each of the brood bars .

Over time the bees will chew at the string and throw bits out of the hive entrance or push chewed pieces through the mesh floor. Such research as I have seen suggests that thymol does not persist in the combs but, to be sure, I do not apply the treatment when a honey flow is in progress if I intend to harvest the honey and I remove any remaining strings.

Mite Counts
Sticky boards can be cut from the sides of plastic milk containers or similar and smeared with vaseline. They do not have to cover the whole hive floor, just a good portion of the brood area. Leave the boards on for 2 or 3 days and then count the mites.

Calculate the daily drop. The monitoring regime that I use is to count at intervals through the season. For example count for a 7 day period in mid March, then again for 7 days in mid April. This will give a baseline idea of the mite load following the winter. Then count for two or three days once a month thereafter through to October or November.

Calculating problem drop rates
Daily mite fall will gradually increase through the season, from 2 or 3 a day in March and April, peaking in September or October at maybe 10 a day, before falling away sharply in October or November. As a rule of thumb, the daily natural fall will be roughly the same as the number of the month in the year - so March 3, April 4 etc. What you are looking for is a sudden and dramatic increase in natural mite fall. What I typically see is daily fall in single figures for quite a while followed by a count that is in the high teens, or 20's or 30's or even higher. (My record so far is 4 a day followed by 80 a day 3 weeks later!). It's that spike that says the mites are reproducing faster than the bees can control their numbers. That is the time to apply the treatment! If no spike occurs, the bees are coping.

During treatment the mite fall can reach a daily figure into the low 100's, which then falls off and should return to something approaching single figures, although this is not always the case. For example, the level may stabilise somewhere in the teens. That's fine as long as the count remains at that level and does not start to spike again. If the numbers do not fall, or seem to be spiking again, I apply a second string treatment. Typically I find a round of treatment in the spring holds things under control until somewhere after the honey flow when a second round of treatment is sometimes needed. Bees that have originated from feral stock are likely to show a better tolerance of varroa mites than those from hives that have been routinely treated. The aim of the regime described here is not to eradicate the mites, or even to reduce their numbers to very low levels. It is to help the bees when things gets beyond them but, otherwise, to leave them to manage things in their own way.

Monitoring for Varroa & Nosema

2010-05-23T23:02:00.005+01:00

by Nick Delaney

Notes from a talk by Nick Delaney given at our 15th May 2010 meeting:

A. Varroa Destructor
Follow this link for images of varroa destructor.

Summary

Varroa is an external parasitic mite, distributed particularly in Asia (origin site), the US, the UK and continental Europe.
Varroa infestation provides a context for significant weakening of a colony through infection, disease and shortened lifespan.
Varroa control is therefore viewed as a primary aim of much beekeeping activity, although methodologies vary greatly.

Description

Adult females are reddish brown in colour, have eight legs and a flattened ovoid body of 1 – 2 mm in diameter. They attack both brood and adult bees, sucking blood and leaving open wounds, which weakens the bees and spreads disease/infection.

Adult males are about half the size of females and yellowish in colour. They only attack sealed brood.
Mites have a preference for drone brood, probably because the pupation period is longer.

Impact
As noted above, the feeding habits of the mite results in parasitic weakening of the host and, most importantly, cross-contamination of disease. The major disease indicators of varroa infestation include deformed wing virus, acute bee paralysis virus and slow paralysis virus.

Bees can tolerate varroa at low levels and are believed to have co-existed with the mite for decades in Asia, where hive mite populations do not increase exponentially throughout the season as is the case in Europe.
However, once a critical mite population threshold is reached hives will be affected by a combination of:

Decreased adult bee weight
Decreased adult bee lifespan
Virus spread
Deformed wings
Reduction in drone numbers
Increase in drone infertility

It is probable that a fatal mite threshold is reached in European (mellifera) honeybees because the pupation period of the European honeybee is two to three days longer than that of the Asian (cerana) honeybee. In Asia, therefore varroa mites, which breed in capped brood, only have time to produce one offspring. In Europe between 5 and 6 offspring are produced on average.

It is this hyperbolic increase in mite population throughout the brood season in
Europe which creates the critical infestation threshold and typically overcomes
a colony during the cold season due to a fatal weakening of the winter bees.

Monitoring
Due to the destructive nature of varroa infestation it is essential to monitor mite population throughout the season and take action if levels breach a safe threshold.

The standard monitoring methodology is to count mites falling to the floor of a hive using a sticky board, preferably in conjunction with a mesh varroa floor.

The sticky board is left on the hive floor, ideally for seven days, and the number of varroa stuck to the board is then divided by the number of days the board has been in place.

This calculation gives an average daily mite count which is then multiplied by a season-dependant constant to provide an estimate of mite numbers in the hive. In the UK, typical seasonal multipliers are as follows:

May to August 30 times average daily mite drop
September to October 100 times average daily mite drop
Rest of year 400 times average daily mite drop

Thus, if one counts 28 mites on a sticky board left in place for 7 days during May, this gives an average daily drop rate of 4 which, using the May to August multiplier estimates the mite population to be 120. The same drop rate in March would suggest a mite population of 1,600.

The National Bee Unit (NBU) recommends mite control intervention when the estimate infestation level based on such a calculation exceeds 1,000 mites (although the old MAFF guidance was 2,500 mites, so some leeway).

Treatments
There is little disagreement about any of the above discussion. Where practices begin to diverge is in the treatment used to bring mite levels down and/or maintain them below a critical level. Possible treatments fall into 4 broad categories:

1. Hard chemicals
Varroa has traditionally been treated with Apistan (fluvalinate) or Bayvarol (flumethrin) which was initially successful in radically reducing mite populations.

However, eventually the blanket application of these chemicals meant that mites were effectively selected for resistance and these treatments are no longer effective.

The use of chemicals is also likely to contaminate honey.

Whilst new chemical treatments are being developed and, notably in China and the US, illegal chemicals are widely used inevitably such practices will simply create further resistant strains of mites.

Current guidance even in forward thinking traditional environments such as the NBU is therefore to avoid hard chemical treatments.

2. Soft chemicals
There have been attempts to develop chemical treatments which are not systemic and which will not therefore build up resistance. A key group of such treatments are naturally occurring acids such as formic (fumigant) and oxylic (liquid) acid.

Whilst effective in controlling varroa, dosage is extremely difficult to control and both acids are harmful to bees in the wrong dose.

Even at the right dose, the acids appear to shorten bees’ lifespan and whilst a colony can cope with this during the summer, a shortening of the lifespan of winter bees can cause colony collapse.

3. Natural
(a) Powder dusting
Usually powdered sugar, dusted over bees and combs, which results in a 30% drop of phoretic mites in first hour after treatment. Also thought to stimulate grooming which can improve mite fall.

Whilst this simple mechanical treatment undoubtedly reduces the number of mites in the short term, the 30% efficacy rate means that frequent and repeated treatments would be necessary to control a hive suffering true
hyperbolic mite population growth.

This treatment also does not attack the breeding and juvenile mites still in capped brood at the time of treatment.

This treatment is probably therefore only suitable to maintain mite populations in colonies which already display signs of natural mite resistance.

(b) Essential oils/plant extracts
There are a number of products based on essential oils and plant extracts, predominantly thymol, which have been used with varying degrees of reported success.

Whilst a natural extract, bees dislike the smell of thymol and may be disturbed by its use. It will also taint honey if used before harvesting.

For an essential oil recipe and methodology visit this link.

(c) Integrated Pest Management (IPM)
IPM is an attempt to bring together various methods of pest control that, in combination, contain mite levels more effectively than any single treatment.

The following combination of activities would be in line with a generally ‘natural’ approach, and should be successful without the need to resort to chemicals.

Free cell size
Powder dusting
Drone trapping in traditional hives or culling in horizontal Top Bar Hives
Interruption of brood cycle through hive splits
Varroa floors
Essential oils

(d) Behavioural breeding
This isn’t really a treatment but it is probably the long-term solution to the varroa problem.

In nature, parasites co-evolve with their hosts. There is no advantage to the varroa in destroying its host colony, quite the contrary, and it is likely therefore that over time it would evolve to moderate it population growth in European bee colonies. Bees also would naturally select for mite-resistant traits.

The blanket use of hard chemicals when varroa first appeared in managed European bee apiaries means that such co-evolution has not yet properly begun. However, some European bee strains, notably Russian, have a natural resistance to varroa built from a propensity to groom aggressively to remove mites from adult bees, and to detect the mites in capped brood and eject the infested pupae from the hive.

Several projects are now underway to breed from these strains and in time it is likely that naturally resistant bees will be made available to commercial beekeepers and hobbyists.

In the meantime we should all monitor our own colonies and, where possible, actively look to split and expand our more robust populations.

B. Nosema
Follow this link for images of Nosema

Summary
A common, host specific unicellular parasite of the class microsporidian, which affects all insects. Nosema apis is the species which affects the European honeybee.

Description

Under a microscope the parasite looks like a grain of rice. It develops and multiplies in the cells of the epithelium in the mid-gut of adult bees and is mainly transmitted through the transfer of spores when young bees clean up faecal material on contaminated comb.

Impact
Reduces the lifespan of infected bees, increasing winter mortality and causing poor spring build up.
There are no specific symptoms but the disease is linked with dysentery and virus diseases indicated by bees crawling outside the hive.

Infected colonies can appear to recover during summer when bees defecate away from the hive and infected bees die without transmitting the disease.

However, the spores persist on contaminated comb and often trigger a more severe infection the following winter.

Monitoring
Due to the lack of direct symptoms there is no specific monitoring programme but where bees display any of the linked indicators noted above a simple diagnosis test should be performed.

Kill 30 to 35 bees and mash the bodies in a pestle and mortar with a few drops of water. Observe a drop of the resulting soup under a x400 microscope to identify the distinctive rice-shaped spores per the photo above (the NBU will do this test for you).

Treatment
The only effective treatment for nosema apis is Fumidil © B, an antibiotic fed to the bees through treated syrup.

It is difficult to use correctly, and combs will also need fumigating with acetic acid or replacing using a shook swarm technique as the spores persist in the comb even if reduced in the bee population.

by Nick Delaney
May 2010

Bumblebee Rescue Programme

2010-05-23T12:15:00.017+01:00

Being interested in all species of bee YABeeP will often attend calls as part of our swarm collection duties where the householder has a problem with bumble bees. Most beekeeping groups don't do this as bumbles don't produce honey in sufficient quantity or of a taste acceptable to the human pallet.

Moving the humble bumble

Bumbles nests are quite small building up to only a maximum size of around 200 bees in high summer - compare this to the 50,000 plus bees in a summer honeybee colony. The bumble is an annual species where the nest dies out each autumn and only the newly hatched queens, around 10 - 15 of them, survive the winter. These new queens leave the nest and hibernate in the ground ready to start a new nest afresh next year while all the males and female workers die off. Another good reason to leave your garden tidying to spring when the hibernating bumbles have safely emerged.

Typical bumble rescue box

When on a bumble call-out we always try to educate the caller to try and persuade them to keep and enjoy the bees, in the knowledge that they won't sting and will be gone come the winter. Please note I said that they don't sting - bumbles can sting, but they won't unless their nest is attacked or you violently antagonise them by flailing your arms around in an attempt to knock a curious bee away. In fact bumbles are probably the most passive stinging insect and will just fly around a person who takes up camp in immediately front of their nest. Most of the 250 species of bee in the UK don't have stings, it's only the bumbles and honeybees that do. The best advice if a bee, or wasp for that matter, flys around you is to stand still and ignore it. It has no interest in attacking you but is just checking you out to see whether you are a source of pollen or nectar. Once it has finished checking it will fly off.

Sometimes, however, the householder for their own personal reasons will be too worried and insist that the nest goes - what a shame that our modern excessively health and safety concious society means that folk are brought up to fear these charming gentle creatures that are responsible for so much of the pollination of our crops and flowers. Did you know that commercial glass house and polly-tunnel growers import bumble nests to pollinate their crops and kill the bees when the job's done - what a crazy world!

A nest of Red tail bumbles in a rescue box

Provided the bumbles are readily accessible YABeeP will remove them and relocate into a safe location, usually our member's gardens. The main species we get called to around North Somerset are ground nesting Buff-tailed, White-tailed and Red-tailed which prefer to nest in old mouse nests - these are easily relocated by placing them in a purpose built bumble box and moving them to their new location. Amazingly they immediately learn where their new home is and come and go quite happily. The other less common species we sometime have to move is the Common Carder which lives in the open in plant mass and is far harder to relocate successfully.

Examples of bees moved

May 2010 - Milton Buff Tails
One of the calls we attended in mid-May 2010 was to a garden in Milton where, following advice seen on a CBBC programme, they had successfully attracted a Buff-tailed bumble queen to nest in a very small nest box which they had hung on the wall. Unfortunately, the box was too small to contain a full nest of Buff-tail's and they had nowhere in their small garden to re-site them into a bigger box so we relocated them.

23 May 2010 - Milton bumbles moved into their new home

The original nest box now inside the new one.
As the nest outgrows the smaller box it
can expand into the larger box which has
a perspex viewing window on top

Returning Buff-tail bumble (Bombus terrestris) forager lands at entrance

May 2011 - Clifton Tree Bumble Bees (Bombus Hypnorum).
The owners of a house in Clifton were having extensive building work done, so rang YABeeP. The Bristol Museum's Etymologist had confirmed that these were rare so the owner asked that they be moved. Jo and Ali were happy to oblige.

Tree Bumble Bees are quite rare at the moment, having colonised Britain in 2001. It is suggested that they prefer to live in holes in trees. However, this colony decided upon a disused, rather large wasps' nest in a loft in Clifton. Link (scroll down to 'Rarer Bumble Bees' section). They are now safe and rehoused at Ali's.

Bombus Hypnorum, the Tree Bumble bee

taken residence in old wasps' nest.

At a guess, they started nest-making at the bottom of an old

wasps' nest and the weight of their honey cells made the bottom break off.

They made their nest from the roof insulation!

There is a lot of nest unseen under this little lot.

Boxed and ready for relocation.

Bye bye Bristol, hello Yatton.

For more information on this species see the Bumblebee Conservation Trust website.

Also see this BBC video on bumble bee flight patterns.

See also YABeeP's main Bumblebee page.

Honeybee Cut-out

2010-05-22T21:18:00.013+01:00

As part of YABeeP's swarm collecting duties Ali and I performed a 'cut-out' of bees from a window hip roof of a property in a nearby village yesterday. These were wild bees that had been living there for a year. The whole operation and surrounding story is detailed below - click on any image to enlarge it.

Background
The story starts in June last year (2009) when, as part of our swarm collection duties, I had been called to a property in the next village. The owner had bees coming & going from the hip roof of a downstairs window. At the time I was able to confirm that it was a established colony of honeybees, however, I was unable to remove them as this would call for the dismantling of part of the roof and a builder would be needed to make good. I gave the usual explanation about the honeybee life-cycle and advised that, in my opinion, the bees would probably not be a problem for the householder. However, there was also a wasp nest in the same roof which were clearly a concern to the owner. We left it that I would be happy to attempt a 'cut-out' once she had spoken to her builder and had agreed to their costings to repair the roof.

Bees entrance under top corner of tiles

Like most amateur beekeeping groups, YABeeP normally just collects swarms which by their nature reside in the open. Once a swarm has moved in to its new home it ceases to be a swarm and becomes a colony. Removal of a colony is a far trickier business and an established colony requires a lot of time and care if one is to preserve the bees.

In the event the builder didn't manage to speak to me until the autumn when it was clearly too late in the year for a cut out to have the chance to rebuild their colony and survive the winter.

2010

First peep at the prize

Move forward one year and, just as we were settling down for last week's monthly YABeeP meeting, the owner arrived reporting that a swarm had issued from her roof colony, darkened her sky's and alarmed both her and her neighbour. A wild swarm, what an exciting prospect for us so we agreed to attend as soon as the meeting ended. It is worth mentioning here that as a sustainable bee group we particularly appreciate wild or feral bees as they managed to survive without being subjected to the chemicals, additives and butchery that many conventional beekeepers practice.

Does my bum look big in this?

As soon as the meeting ended a small party of YABeePers went a-swarm-hunting – a bit like Morris dancing but with bees, not bells! Unfortunately, the swarm had high-tailed away and could not be found but arrangements were made to meet up with the owner's builder to discuss the cut-out to remove the bees.

Yesterday

As subsequently arranged Ali & I attended yesterday morning, planning to avoid the full heat of the sun as the weather had turned hot. We arrived with ladders, bee vac, swarm boxes, comb boxes, buckets, and all the paraphernalia necessary for collecting an established colony of bees. We were exhausted before we even started just carrying in all the equipment and setting up!

Healthy and strong despite earlier swarm

The exercise started with the removal of the mortar sealing the top tiles which entailed multiple hard blows with a hammer to break the rock hard line of sealing mortar. All this bashing on their roof meant the bees knew full well that something was up so sent their guard bees out to greet us.

Once a few tiles were removed we established that the comb was attached to the rather old and disintegrating roofing felt which was now now sagging under the weight of a years worth of very laden and sticky honeycomb. With the assistance from a very brave and willing Jenny, the household gardener who I loaned a beekeeper's suit to, 3 of us attempted to cut out the felt trying to rescue at least some of the brood comb. It may have been the hot weather weakening the comb though more likely it was the weight of honey combined with a weak and flexing felt but we totally failed in rescuing any so it ended up as a damage limitation exercise removing slabs of oozing comb a piece at a time without crushing bees, especially the queen who we needed to preserve to keep the colony viable - what a sticky exercise ending up with cardboard sheets of rescued comb littering the floor!

Given that this colony had only swarmed a few days earlier there was a mass of bees remaining and a loads of honey, it was a truly healthy colony. Their health is all the more surprising given that last summer the owner had called a pest company to poison the massive wasp nest which was just inches away from the honeybees - see photo. This just goes to prove that bees left alone and not interfered with by the beekeeper can and do make really strong colonies. They know what they are doing, just give them the space and allow them to do it; as with many things in nature man really does not know best! What a nonsense that some, more ignorant, beekeepers are calling for wild swarms to be destroyed – and yet they they still wonder why the bees are having problems!!!

After a while we had managed to remove all the comb and, for the most part, had left the bees undamaged – although there were a couple of hundred honey-drenched bees on the ground wondering what had hit them. With some improvisation we rigged up a Warré box above the void of bees hoping that the bees and queen would move up into it so that we could return at dusk and remove the bees and hive them up in a members hive – in effect they would have made a wild bee shook swarm.

With honey everywhere it was time to clean up ourselves and all the equipment used – boy does the sticky stuff get everywhere! Then, in the full heat of the day, we had to remove all the imported equipment all the way back to the car. Arrangements were made to call back at dusk and, if successful, remove the bees. There was a nagging fear that the bees might ignore the box we had so helpfully provided for them and just move further into the roof space, though we had a contingency plan should this happen to return the following and and vacuum them up in out YABeeP patent bee vac.

Warré box in situ

We managed the whole exercise with just a couple of stings each taken through our gloves – so much for Ali's kevlar protection! I had one exciting moment when we were clearing up when a bee flew into my ear canal. The sound and tickling makes it very frightening and I probably acted like a total woose but I had experienced the same thing last year when I also took a sting when trying to extract the bee so, with Ali's caring demeanour (she laughed her socks off really), we waited and allowed it to reverse out and fly off with no harm done to either of us – phew!.

The story develops

Just inches from poisoned wasp nest!

Later that afternoon I received a further call from the owner reporting that a swarm had been found in a neighbour's garden. Could this be last Saturday's swarm, that would be 5 days outside so not likely but just in case I got there asap to retrieve the prize. In the event I got arrived just too late – they had been there half an hour beforehand but the swarm had just left with just a few stragglers remaining on the rose bush. Scout bees had been seen earlier nosing around two spots on the nearby house and upon investigation we found them at the second spot still in the process of 'moving in' to a rainwater drain that entered a really substantial porch roof-space. Cursing that I'd just missed this swarm I advised the owner of their options then left.

The Prize

Job done

Ali and I returned as promised that at dusk to hopefully remove the bees from the original site only to find that they'd totally absconded; not in the box or the rest of the roof space. Disappointing for us not to get those bees given all that hard work we'd put in but the owner was happy that they'd gone at last and at least we have helped contribute to the local feral population.

Post script
We'll never know for certain but piecing together all the evidence it is highly likely that the swarm I just missed earlier that evening was probably the absconded bees from our cut-out. It's surprising that they found their new abode so quickly but then they knew the area and, after all, had just exchanged one roof space for another. So much for the recession, these bees had bucked the economic trend and moved up market!

I just marvel at how healthy these wild bees were and only hope that their new landlords accept them and allow them to stay and they can then throw off swarms which we will happily collect in the future.

Robin
22nd May 2010

Bumble bees going cheap! Or should that be buzz?

2010-05-14T13:54:00.016+01:00

Our 1st swarm of 2010

A message to all YABeeP members:

Whoopee, the swarm season has started for us!

As you know we already operate a honeybee swarm waiting list.

However, if you built a bumblebee box which didn't attract any bees this spring so is currently vacant and you still want some tenants then bring it along to tomorrow's meeting - please write your name clearly on or under the box in weatherproof ink. The calls have started and Ali and I have already been to 3 bumble calls this week - she is now the proud mum of a nest of buff tails.

YABeeP's bumble recovery service!

We will then use your box on any future calls when we recover bumbles which you can then place in your garden and enjoy - again they'll be offered on a first come first served basis.

Robin

Bees of Yatton

2010-05-02T22:52:00.047+01:00

[Note: This YABeeP webpage records the bees seen in and around the local area. Started in April 2010 the development of this page is very much a 'work in progress' - species will be added as members photograph, research and record them - please be patient.]

Bees are classified in the family Aculeata, part of the order Hymenoptera and are listed below according to their 3 general groupings - Solitary bees, Bumble bees and Honeybees. We have decided to also include other species of interest either because they mimic the bees (e.g. Bombylius major, a parasite of the solitary bee) or because they evolved from a similar species - e.g. wasps. Click on any photo to enlarge it.

A. Solitary Bees

There are over 200 species of Solitary bee in the UK and are generally grouped as ground nesting, cavity nesting and parasytic bees.

Species: Hairy-footed flower bee - Anthophora plumipes

Description: Active from March to late May. Flys with a darting movement - moving quickly then hovering. The male can be easily confused with a bumble bee although the female is all black with orange-yellow hind legs. The male is similar to Bombylius major, although the latter only has 2 wings being a fly which mimics a bee.

Female Anthophora plumipes entering nest in the mortar of Yatton church. Note orange hairs on hind tibia

Link to BWARS pictures

Genus: Mining bee - Andrena

Description: There are over 60 species of the Andrena mining bee in the UK. Mostly active April to early June. The female tunnels into ground to make nest in soil, often unnoticed in the grass of our gardens though they can have volcano like mounds surrounding the holes which are glued by a substance the bee excretes. The tunnel can be up to 12" deep with many branches where the female stores pollen & nectar and lays eggs in individual cells. The eggs do not hatch until the following spring. Some species share a common entrance but build separate branching chambers below. Whilst they do posess a sting it cannot puncture human skin so is harmless to children.
Pictures - Species probably Andrena nitida or Andrena haemorrhoa nesting in lawn in Yatton during May

Link to the Garden Safari website for identification of the more common species of Mining bee.

B. Bumble Bees

There are around 20 species of bumble bee in the UK.

C. Honeybees

Apis meliffera

There is only one species of honeybee in the UK known as Apis Meliffera - our native bee being from the race European Honeybee or Black bee. However, because of the commercial interest attached to honeybees different races of Apis Meliffera have been moved around the world by beekeepers in search of a 'better', ie more commercially productive, bee - a practive YABeeP strongly disagrees with. These races have all interbred and the true native British bee, which had over the millenia adapted to our environment and climate, is only found in a couple of pockets. The honeybee you see in your garden will be a mixture of several races of bee.

Species: European honeybee - Apis meliffera

Apis meliffera with full pollen baskets

Description: A true social bee common in the area and active year round though the colony goes into winter cluster so is rarely seen flying over the cold winter periods.

D. Bee mimics and others
Species: The Common Bee-fly - Bombylinus major

The Common Bee-fly (Bombylinus major)

hovering to feed on Myosotis (Fotget-me-not)

Description: This fly which mimics a bee acts like a cuckoo and flicks her eggs near to the entrance of solitary bee nest sites. The larvae are brood parasites of these bees esp. Andrena species.

Adults feed on nectar, using their long proboscises whilst hovering beside a flower. Aubretia is one common garden plant frequently visited.

Note: All photographs on this page are originals © YABeeP

Let's all pull together

2010-04-17T08:30:00.000+01:00

I think that everyone would agree with me that our last meeting was all the richer because of the efforts by Ali, Beanie and Jenny who had, at my request and sometimes reluctantly, prepared brief talks on subjects for the meeting:

Ali - The Importance of Pheromones to the Sustainable Bee Keeper and YABeeP Schools Project
Beanie - Planting for Bees
Jenny - RBI Day Report Back

They also kindly gave me their notes which have been added to the website as a permanent resource for those who missed the meeting, future members and others who I know follow our website from around the globe!

Not only did their contributions expand our knowledge and enrich the website but they found that their research benefited them and, most importantly, they enjoyed it!

Can I again ask ALL YABeeP members who attend meetings to volunteer to do the same at future meetings? We make no charge for joining YABeeP so here is your golden opportunity to give something back, enrich your life and learn something useful at the same time – I'd call that win-win!

Remember, you can do this even if you are new and know next to nothing about bees and beekeeping – you'll be amazed at what you can learn from just half an hour's research on the internet using a search engine – Google is your friend!

There are no experts in YABeeP, and that applies especially to me, so you'll not be criticised, you'll be applauded – you are amongst friends here.

If you want some inspiration see this document for ideas but you can choose any topic you like, whatever interests you so long as it's bee related. In particular we have little expertise on Bumbles and Solitary bees.

It's been suggested that those contributing in this way could maybe jump a couple of spaces in the 'waiting for bee swarms' queue which might be an idea for an incentive, though for the present I'm hoping that contributing to YABeeP is the only incentive required.

Go on, give it a go and let me know!

Robin

Misc subjects

2010-04-14T22:58:00.015+01:00

We will add links to miscellaneous topics posted on this site page which will, over time, build to form a subject matter linking page.

Bees of Yatton - A page describing the varieties of bees found locally
Bumble Bees - How to make a Bumblebee box from a recycled pallet
Bumble Bees - YABeeP's Bumblebee Rescue Programme page
Conventional bee hives - Why don't sustainable beekeepers use conventional hives?
Gardening - Planting for Bees
Honeybee cut-out - a description of a 'cut-out' we did in Claverham
Horizontal hives - Where should my entrance be?
Interesting Snippets - links to ad hoc snippets on bees
Member's Hives - pictures of YABeeP members hives
Noema - see this article by Nick Delaney
Pheromones - The Importance of Pheromones to the Sustainable Bee Keeper
Schools - YABeeP Schools Project
Temperature - Dealing with extreme cold weather
Varroa destuctor - see this article by Nick Delaney
Warré hives - Finishing touches to a Warré hive
Warré hives - How to Modify a standard Warré floor
Warré hives - Moving a swarm into your Warré hive

Horizontal Hive - Where should my Entrance be?

2010-04-14T17:10:00.011+01:00

Several folk are starting horizontal hives (aka Kenyan or long hives) this year [2010] whereas the main hive of choice last year was the Warré - see footnote.

There are, however, a couple of issues around the 'management' of the horizontal hive that, from my own experience, I don't think work so well so I have been seeking advice from a friend, and experienced beekeeper, Gareth John, who uses horizontal hives and whose opinion I really respect. Thank you Gareth.

YABeeP members who have recently built horizontal hives may wish to take Gareth's suggestions on board when starting their own hives and if so, will need to make a small adaptation to their hive entrances before they are populated. At least you will have time to consider this alternative before starting and, if unsure, discuss it in the group or seek advice on internet forums like the Natural Beekeeping Network.

Background
The horizontal hive we use follows plans generously made available by Phil Chandler - The Barefoot Beekeeper. Admittedly, we tend to make a couple of adaptations by adding top bar rims/buffers, extended varroa trays and windows, but the main hive body is exactly to Phil's design. I always recommend that new horizontal hive users buy his book as it's excellent value for money and gives you information on how to manage his hive design.

Phil's plans use 3 entrance holes in the middle of the sloping side of the hive and use two follower boards either side of the colony to expand the size of the hive as the season progresses and retract it as winter approaches.

Irrespective of hive type bees tend to keep their brood area (where they raise their young) in the general vicinity of the entrance of their hive and use the further reaches of the hive for storage.

The Problem
By using a central entrance the beekeeper has to, as the season progresses, decide whether to move the follower boards to expand the hive area on the left or right or both sides of the colony. If only expanding in one direction, probably the most logical way, you are likely to meet the end wall well before the season reaches its peak in which case you then have no alternative than to expand at the opposite end. This can cause disorganisation for the bees and will certainly give you, the beekeeper, additional complications when deciding form what part of the hive to harvest comb, how to refresh tired brood comb, etc.. If you expand both sides simultaneously then again bees can be confused and they end up expanding outwards in two directions - basically you end up with a zig-zag colony.

The argued advantage for this central entrance method is that it provides more flexibility for you and also provides a false wall at each end to give additional insulation in the winter.

The Solution
The alternative suggestion, on the other hand, is to use end entrances and just one follower board as is commonly used in horizontal hives in other parts of the world. Indeed since suggesting this I have noted that most of the long style hives I have seen from around the world and those in use in earlier history tend to have mostly end entrances.

The end entrance provides a fixed starting point with expansion in only one direction – you have the whole length of the hive to expand into. Consequently, you end up with a hive with brood at one end and honey at t'other.

Additional advantages include a single direction for the bees to work when consuming stores over winter – they don't have to travel back and forth.

You also have more space at the opposite end to the entrance where you can store your bits and bobs or possibly raise another nucleus – I often found when the hives were getting full that 2 small areas were just too small for other uses whereas one larger space would have been much more useful. This additional space also makes it easier to raise 'splits' in the same hive body. A split is a way of raising an artificial swarm – you split your colony into two having ensured that each part of the split has the correct types of bees plus a queen or viable queen cells.

It is also probably easier for you to estimate the amount of honey you have with an end entrance as you will know that one end is brood and the other extreme pure honey store. With two ends in use there will be two ends where honey may be stored and the demarcation line is not always so obvious – you double the judgement needed.

An End Entrance

We are still advised to have the 3 x 1" (25mm) entrance holes at one end of the sloping wall, rather than the flat end - about 2" from the floor. This way the overhang provides better shelter and mouse protection for the entrance. It also means that your entrance is the 'cold way' on your hive giving your bees access to the sides of the combs. Note: Beekeepers refer to an entrance that that runs parallel to the comb as 'cold' and one that runs at 90° to the comb as being 'hot'. There are argued pros and cons for each but most UK horizontal hive beekeepers tend to use a cold entrance.

Of course, you are free to decide for yourself whether you prefer to use a cold entrance in the sloping side (see illustration) or a hot end entrance.

In Conclusion
Given my previous experience with central entrances and this new advice I am fully persuaded to try the end entrances myself – it makes total sense and will probably make my beekeeping easier. If you wish to do the same then, like me, you will need to stop your central entrances and add 3 holes to one end of the hive. As per Phi's original plans you can still have a second single entrance at the opposite end and side of the hive for future use if you ever choose to do a split or temporarily house a second colony. This second entrance will need to be plugged with a stopper until needed.

For YABeeP members I have purchased a new, more meaty, hole cutting saw since the last hive building workshop so please feel free to bring your hives back and make use of it. However, you'll have to buy your own champagne if you want the corks to bung up the old holes - though I could be persuaded to assist you polish off the contents of the bottle to save it going to waste!

Robin Morris

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Footnote: The Warré hive is, in my opinion, the best hive for both the bees and those starting out keeping honeybees due to its simplicity and non-interference management style. However the horizontal hive offers other advantages such as the ability to produce splits so makes an excellent follow-on hive.

RBI Day Report Back

2010-04-13T06:25:00.002+01:00

By Jenny Bradley

Several YABeeP members managed to get along to the 2010 Combating Colony Loss day run by the Regional Bee Inspectors in Devon and this is Jenny's report:

Whilst the day was centred on conventional beekeeping practices it was suggested that the RBI are becoming more receptive to alternative hives and beekeeping husbandry.

In particular, they are recommending that chemicals for disease and pest treatment only be used where there is a problem, not as a prophylactic. All can leave residues in the hive. The day concentrated on nosema and varroa with workshops on both. Artificial swarming was suggested as one means of varroa control. The old queen is taken to a new hive and the older worker bees follow her. Varroa prefers younger bees and particularly the brood and so mostly remains in the original hive where it can then be killed. Swarming is therefore a 'natural' way of controlling varroa. They suggested monitoring varroa and treating above a certain threshold level. After treatment the mite can be back to full levels within 3 weeks.

Nosema is a parasite that lives in the gut of the bee. It does not cause dysentry but often appears with it. It affects a bee's ability to digest food and prematurely ages the bee thus shortening its life. It can be identified by mashing up about 30 dead bees with water into a 'soup' and putting it inder a microscope. Nosema looks like a grain of rice.

The final talk of the day was from Norman Carreck of Sussex University. Sussex does much work on bees and other swarming insects. His fascinating talk began with a historical account of incidences of bee diseases showing that colony collapse and disease is not new. He said that confining bees to a hive is the ideal place for disease. Colony loss is rarely from one single cause but it is often difficult to pin the cause down. Causes include late springs, lack of food, diseases, too many hives for the available forage. There are 30+ viruses in bees. The university is carrying out research on colony collapse and bee deaths. The amount of damage to a colony is not related to the number of varroa mites in a hive. However it seems to make bees more susceptible to deformed wing virus and to a lesser extent, slow paralysis virus. Research shows that if there are more than 2000 mites in a hive the colony will die within a year, but it is because they have deformed wing virus too. Another virus, Kashmir virus is virulent when varroa is present and harmless without. The spanish blame nosema for colony deaths, France insectidices and the USA viruses but they all have varroa. The USA has 30% colony losses, Europe up to 53% and Japan 25%. South America, Africa and Australia have no colony losses. Australia has no varroa, african bees are resistant to varroa and south american bees were brought from Africa and although they have varroa, it is a less virulent strain. Research is therefore clear that it is not the varroa in itself which is a threat to bees, but varroa in conjunction with another factor, a virus. Therefore varroa is our major problem. There is a serious lack of control measures and vaaroa has no natural pathogens. Research on a potential fungal control is waiting for further research money, funding having been withdrawn when varroa became so widespread that it was no longer notifiable. There are hygenic bees which are resistant to varroa. Britain has 10% hygenic bees. These are a hope for the future.

The day was extremely useful and it was also reassuring to see that there appeared to be a growing recognition that practice has to change.

Planting for Bees

2010-04-12T22:26:00.009+01:00

by Jean Vernon

Bees use our gardens and the countryside to forage. Since wildflowers, orchards and hedgerows have been in decline they have become more and more reliant on our gardens.
As beekeepers we can do a lot to support our bees and help provide the best forage plants for their needs. Just by visiting a few seasonal gardens and observing what plants bees are visiting, both bumble and honey, we can get a better idea of what they like and need.
Most plants are good for bees but some such as Alliums are said to enrage them and should be avoided if you have testy bees.
This guide is for all bees not just honey bees. Some flowers such as the pea family, most honey bees cannot access, but these are good forage flowers for bumblebees. For a definitive list of bee plants check the web.

Wild and Natural
There are a few basic rules that apply to plants for all bees. First of all leave an area of your garden wild, where weeds and wildflowers can grow. Bumble bees in particular like a natural wild area to nest and forage. Many weeds such as vetch, clover, dandelions and daisies provide excellent pollen and nectar for bees and should be allowed to floweer. For the rest of the garden choose plants that are native to the UK, that are not highly bred and that have single or open flowers where the flower parts are exposed for bees to gather pollen and nectar.

Winter foraging
Unlike most bumblebees, honeybees do forage all year round if the weather is conducive. Over the winter the colony is much reduced and feeds on honey and pollen stores, sugar supplied by the beekeeper and also winter flowering plants. By concentrating on growing plants that flower during the lean winter and early spring months the gardener can hugely support local bee colonies.

Hedges

So what do you grow? If you have a small garden you can still provide plenty of forage for bees but you need to be more selective about what you grow. Think about the boundaries of the garden. Can you plant a hedge instead of a fence? If so plant a mixed hedge of native hedging plants, it will provide shelter and nesting sites for birds and a whole variety of food sources for bees, birds and pollinating insects. Include pollen rich plants such as hazel, blackthorn, willow and alder.

Trees for bees

One or two trees in a small garden can provide masses of pollen and nectar. Again think about things that provide vital food in the winter and spring. Alder is a very good source of early pollen; Crab apples and wild cherries have masses of pollen and nectar rich flowers fairly early in the season. You don’t have to grow normal hazel, though it will provide a harvest of cobnuts too, contorted hazels are attractive and have catkins overloaded with early pollen.

Propolis
Don’t forget that bees also collect and need tree resin to make propolis. Tree buds before they burst are an excellent source of this resin.

Vertical Gardening
Think about using the vertical surfaces of the garden to grow flower rich climbers such as honeysuckle, blackberries, clematis and roses. Don’t forget climbing beans, sweet peas and other climbers from seed that will quickly clothe a trellis and provide pollen and nectar for bees. Ivy is also an important source of nectar and pollen in late autumn and winter.

Winter/early spring

Winter and early spring flowering shrubs can make all the difference to early foragers. It’s a good time to visit a local nursery or garden centre where you’ll find a whole range of winter flowering and winter interest plants. Choose carefully, avoid double flowered hybrids and buy plants with scented, bright flowers that attract insect pollinators. Many winter flowering plants flower on bare stems, good plants to include are Viburnum farrei and Viburnum bodnantense. Mahonia are a must for winter bees and have fabulous blossom in January and February when the rest of the garden is bare. Witchhazel, heath heathers (calluna spp) and also Ling heathers (Erica spp) are also good out of season sources. Don’t forget early spring bulbs such as snowdrops and crocus and even species tulips.

Late Spring
But in a late spring other plants become essential food sources as the bee colonies increase. In fact this can be one of the most difficult times for the bees to find sufficient food. Flowering currants, aubrietia, berberis, cherries, apple blossom, lungwort (pulmonaria), hellebores and early tulips are all good bee plants for April.

Productive crops for you and bees
One of the most important roles that bees play in our lives is as pollinators. To get the most from your garden consider growing bee plants that also provide a harvest for you. There are many bee friendly herbs that are not just culinary plants; some can be used for medicinal purposes too. Great herbs to grow include thyme, lavender, rosemary, marjoram, borage, chives, catmint (nepeta), fennel, St John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum), lovage, hyssop and calendula (pot marigold).

Vegetables

For vegetables choose flowering plants such as broad beans, runner beans, peas, mangetout, tomatoes, courgettes, squash, cucumbers, aubergines and French beans to provide nectar and pollen for the bees and plenty of fresh veg for the family too.

Fruit
Almost all types of fruit, except perhaps rhubarb, (which is botanically a vegetable anyway), need pollinators. Apples, pears, plums, peaches, apricots, currants, raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries, blackberries, cherries and more all need pollinating insects to transfer pollen from flower to flower, even a small garden can support a wide range of fruit throughout the year and produce a bountiful, fresh and healthy harvest.

Popular bee plants

Popular bee plants include buddleia, lavender, sedum, clover, Echinacea, rudbeckia, verbena, helenium, weigela and many, many more. Check on the internet for basic lists of bee plants, but also look at what grows locally and which plants attract bees.

All in the name
Look out for plants that mention bees in their names, such as Melissa officinalis (Lemon balm), Melianthus major, Euphorbia mellifera and bee balm (bergamot); these are sure signs that these plants are good for bees.

Annuals
There are also many annual flowers that can be sown from seed each year to fill gaps in the garden and provide nectar and pollen for foraging bees. Good plants to choose include calendula, cosmos, cleome, poppies and nigella but there are lots and lots of others.

Variety
Finally grow a variety of different plants that flower at different times of the year so that there is always something in flower in your garden. Watch which insects visit the flowers and any which are particularly popular with bees and other pollinating insects can be grown en masse the following year.