Apis-UK September/October 2005

The National Honey Show 2005 - Honey Judging

EDITORIAL Back to top

During my lifetime, several organisations of note have done me the favour of giving me a shove in the right direction when I could easily have taken a wrong turning, but none of them have inspired me to take up a particular direction in life in the way that IBRA did in the early nineties. I did by then know something about bees and indeed kept two stocks in WBCs and, having left the services, I returned to university to the Bee Research Unit at Cardiff, but I really had little idea of what I would do with my knowledge. That is until I visited the IBRA stand during my first attendance at the National Honey Show in 1992. What I saw, and what they told me inspired me. It opened my eyes to literally a whole world of beekeeping and a whole world of bee science. It showed me the possibilities of a whole new career. It was truly amazing and from that moment, I knew that I wanted to get out into that world and that remaining a hobbyist in the UK was just not an option. I still rely on beekeeping to feed my family and have never regretted the direction that I took. IBRA did me a great favour and I have no doubt that IBRA has done work of enormous note for others over the years. It was therefore with some regret that I read that in order to survive, it needs to radically change its role. I suppose that in the modern information filled (overloaded) world of today, the board has taken the correct decision, but I still regret the impending departure of the small and intimate IBRA library with its one big desk that I sat at for weeks on end carrying out my research with the numerous cups of tea brought to me by the then librarian Salma. All things have their day however and IBRA will change to fit the new day. Take a look at the news article below and think how you can help it with its new aims. It deserves all our support and I for one wish it all the best in its changing roles.

Most of us will be fully conversant with the make up of a Dalek and some will remember the film Robocop. What both these have in common is the mixture of biological being and machine. Well now honey bees have been ‘forced’ into this role with the invention of an anti terrorist device that holds bees and by doing so can detect explosives etc. The device is explained in the news section below. This is a fiendishly clever idea and I have no doubt that it works, but all the same, I remain uneasy about it. Using bees on the wing to detect things is one matter, but confining them to do a job somehow doesn’t seem right. Let us know what you think.

During the many vociferous debates on the subject of GMOs in this magazine and other beekeeping magazines, I don’t recall ever reading about the role of pollinators other than bees being possible instruments of GM pollen contamination. Certainly, official ‘distances’ between GM crops and non GM crops designed to avoid contamination mentioned only bees (and then were usually wrong). It appears that no one considered that perhaps other insects with different flight ranges should be taken into account. In some revealing research carried out in New Zealand, it seems that maybe we should have thought about it. We explain below.

Also in this issue, we look at a wide range of research items, from clever bumble bees to deadly ones; through madmen playing with Africanised bees, to ozone hole research and Australian Jelly Bush honey. We report good news too, a notable example being the success of the Conwy Honey Fair which shows just what can be done in the bee world with a bit of organisation. Honey sales are soaring in the UK – leading I expect to loads of rich honey farmers; and a new and exciting bee lab is opening in the USA. Chad investigates (more or less) the perils of using ‘certain substances’ to subdue bees and if you ever wondered whether lotions and potions can cure bee stings, read the historical note below and see what the 18th Century beekeepers thought about it. I hope that you enjoy this edition of Apis UK and if you have any ideas for future editions or have anything to contribute, please get in touch.

David Cramp. Editor.

NEWS Back to top

ENGLISH HONEY
The 'English Honey' website has been updated to clarify it's aims and benefits to beekeepers and honey buyers. http://www.englishhoney.co.uk - and follow the menu link to Beekeepers/Why Register?
NEWS - A retail customer has contacted 'English Honey' to source a requirement for local honey and hive products! Using the local beekeeping association handbook I have called a number of beekeepers to establish whether they can supply this business. (Associations are welcome to provide a member handbook to assist this task). To help potential customers, a honey & hive products purchase enquiry form is now available. It's anticipated that this will be submitted where the customer cannot find a local Beekeeper. If the need cannot be met by a current registrant, I will endeavour to assist by locating a beekeeper who can meet the customer requirement. A lead will only be passed on following a registration. - follow the 'Need help' link from the home page. Please let me know if you have any comments or colleague feedback on the website. Caroline Guthrie

CHANGE OF ROLE FOR IBRA
“The International Bee Research Association (IBRA) was founded after the Second World War when there was a strong demand for information about bees and beekeeping that was not being met. Scientific information was difficult to search for and difficult to obtain. IBRA met this demand by publishing abstracts, journals and books. It also created a specialist library, collected a large archive of beekeeping artefacts and ran conferences. IBRA was invaluable and ahead of its time in making information easily available.”

So writes William D J Kirk chairman of IBRA and currently at the School of Life Sciences, Keele University in the latest edition of Bee World. He also goes on to say in his editorial that since those times there has been a revolution in information technology and that much of IBRA’s original role in searching, abstracting and supplying research information has now been superseded by large organizations and that IBRA’s role must change to meet the demands of the twenty first century, whilst being committed to its original aim of ‘the advancement of the science of apiology’. The council of IBRA now believe that that this aim can best be achieved by becoming a grant giving trust that facilitates the collection, publication and dissemination of information about bees and beekeeping. Dr Kirk cites the examples of such excellent texts as Form and Function in the honey bee and Honey and Healing and explains that in its new role it could subsidise the publication of many more similarly needed books and CDs on topics where current information is sparse or unsatisfactory.

The Eva Crane library will move to the National Library of Wales at Aberystwyth, a safer and more secure location where it will have worldwide accessibility by post, internet and visits and it will be maintained by professional staff. The large collection of artefacts will be placed as photos on CDs and then the museum will be loaned to the Beekeeping Visitor Centre at Eeklo in Belgium where much of the collection will be on display to the general public.

Apicultural abstracts will cease publication and plans for the Journal of Apicultural Research to be published for IBRA by a publishing house are being discussed.

So major changes here to one of the finest post war beekeeping institutions in the world, but ones made necessary by the immensely fast growth in information technology. IBRA stress that it will still depend on the support of beekeepers and scientists and you can best do that by subscribing annually and keeping up with your subscriptions if you are already a member.

The latest edition of Bee World explains all of the changes in more detail in the editorial as well as offering articles on some effects of latitude on honey bee colonies; A review of the confinement of small hive beetles by bees; non destructive methods of honey hunting; beekeeping in Slovenia; a beekeeping project in SW Uganda; the plight of pollinating bees; the importance of melissopalynology for beekeeping and trade. Again a real must read for all thinking beekeepers.

Bee World

BEE BEARDS WITH AFRICAN BEES!
There have been many attempts to break the record of the number of bees in a bee beard and we have all seen those excellent pictures in the last issue of The Beekeepers Quarterly of beards and bikinis, but it takes something else to do it all with Africanised bees! Yet that's what Colombian beekeeper Marin Tellez did as he stood covered in bees in a successful attempt to set a Guinness world record. Any body would have been impressed by the 35-year-old as an estimated 500,000 Africanised insects crawled over his body in Bucaramanga, Colombia. The previous world record for being covered in bees was set in 1998 in California, when about 350,000 insects (ordinary jobs) crawled over the torso of a bee-keeping fanatic.

ANTI TERRORIST BEE HOTEL
Inscentinel Ltd based at Rothamsted Research has developed a technology that which mimics the conditions of the hive and so bees trained to sniff out explosives are maintained in optimum conditions with a portable mini hive which looks after them and reads their responses to chemicals of interest in the air. The bees are exposed to tiny samples of explosives and rewarded if they respond correctly. Because they can be protected from weather conditions and because their environment is controlled, the bees can be placed on duty at night and in bad weather which the company maintains is a huge advantage over the use of swarms of bees used in the USA for similar purposes.

Bees have a number of advantages over sniffer dogs. They learn faster and are not distracted from their tasks. They don’t have ‘off’ days and their sense of ‘smell’ is at least if not better than that of dogs.

The scientists say that the range of substances to which they can be conditioned even in trace quantities is so enormous that the technology can be applied to a huge variety of situations. For further information on this device, see www.inscentinel.com (website was down recently E.d)

HONEY RAISES MONEY FOR WOMEN IN AFRICA
A new community project aimed at reducing poverty in communities in Africa is being set up by volunteers of the global charity, Mercy Ships.

The ‘Busy Bees’ project has the capacity to train 80 women in beekeeping and honey farming to help raise additional income in farming communities through a low cost, low input business. The Africa Mercy, one of Mercy Ships’ hospital ships, will be heading to Ghana next spring to provide free medical care but its community development department will also be focusing on establishing long-term sustainable businesses for its people. As well as the business benefits from beekeeping, many people in Africa are not aware of the health and healing properties associated with honey and this project will help raise awareness for this natural remedy. Education is a vital component of any community-based project in order to achieve long-term benefits.

Beekeeping can be part of the sustainable development of Africa enabling farmers to realise that it is a better alternative to practices such as destructive wild honey hunting. Local resources are available and the business is not labour or land intensive. Sharon Biddell, project manager at the Africa Mercy said: “Women in Africa continue to face enormous obstacles and they lack the training and means to prosper. Gender inequality is widespread in Africa and this women-only programme is dedicated to promoting gender equality.

“Bee products can provide valuable food and medicine and beeswax is an important cash crop. Currently there is great demand for honey and other bee products from two well established production companies in Ghana and at present orders exceed production capacities.” The beekeeping training programme will target eight selected groups of ten students in rural locations that the Africa Mercy ships will be visiting. Each group will be equipped to operate an apiary site of ten hives. Interactive demonstrations will be carried out by local skilled trainers in four stages over a four month period, guiding students through one production cycle of beekeeping.

The ‘Busy Bees’ project is just one of the many community development programmes supported by Mercy Ships helping to rid Africa of poverty. Anyone wishing to make a contribution to the ‘Busy Bees’ project or donate essential materials and equipment pertinent to Beekeeping please contact Sharon Biddell at The Africa Mercy on 0191 428 6434 or sharon.biddell@mercyships.org

DEADLY BUMBLEBEES
Now there are fears that it could eventually prove as damaging to Australia's environment as the cane toad. The bumblebee has quickly spread across Tasmania, where it's out-competing other species. Now scientists say it's probably only a matter of time before the bumblebee arrives on the mainland, with dire consequences. According to Australian researchers, the European bumblebee is far from friendly when it comes to the environment, says entomologist Dr Peter McQuillan from the University of Tasmania. Environmentally they're as potentially damaging as some of the more familiar animals like cane toads, for example. I think they'll be remembered perhaps 50 years from now as one of the unfortunate introductions into Australia. Dr McQuillan says it's probably only a matter of time before they make it to the mainland, either accidentally through travel or trade, or deliberately by horticulturalists who believe bumblebees can help certain kinds of glasshouse pollination. While research is still relatively scant, Dr McQuillan says damaging evidence is already emerging. There's been some documentation in Tasmania that they might interact with swift parrots, which are an important pollinator of blue gums, for example ? the swift parrot itself is an endangered species. So through competition with many, many species, they're like to result in these fairly unfortunate environmental outcomes.

GOOD NEWS FOR HONEY FARMERS
Honey sales are booming for the first time in decades, driven by its growing use by celebrity chefs and by health-conscious diners keen to avoid sugar. Britons are now eating 25,000 tons of honey every year - an increase of 11 per cent in the past 12 months, according to the AC Nielsen research company. The trend has reversed a 20-year decline in sales and has left British beekeepers struggling to cope with demand. The rise is being attributed to parents worried about giving their children sugar and by shoppers concerned about the burgeoning obesity epidemic.

IRAN AND HONEY
Due to its geographical position in one of the world's most turbulent regions, Iran is often in the news these days and now we receive news that its honey exports have hit a new high at US$4 million per annum. Reza Torkashvand, deputy head of the ministry’s Honey Bee and Poultry Breeding Improvement Department, said that Iran now exports 2,000 tons of honey to European countries, Central Asia and Persian Gulf littoral states. He added that there are 2.7 mln hives in Iran amongst 49000 beekeepers with each producing an average of 10 kilograms per annum. Iranian honey sells for 25,000-30,000 rials ($2.8-$3.4) per kilogram on the domestic market and growing internal demand for the product is expected to lead to a decline in honey exports in the future. On the international market, Iranian honey sells for $4-$5 per kilo and they claim that the high price reflects the natural way in which it is produced, contrasting the value of Chinese and American honey that sells for less than $1 per kilo!

SOUNDS FAMILIAR
Honey's healing qualities stump scientists. This type of announcement has long been familiar in New Zealand where for many years the non peroxide antibiotic activity of manuka honey has foxed scientists, but now similar stories are being heard from Australia where a type of honey produced in northern New South Wales has also attracted interest from scientists and doctors for its healing properties. Doctors there are recommending Jelly Bush Honey to help treat ulcers, burns, and sores. But scientists cannot work out what the honey's active ingredient is. Dr Craig Davis, from Queensland's Department of Primary Industries, says he has spent years researching the Jelly Bush Honey's anti-bacterial properties. "I can't put a name to it, it's a chemical that the tree makes, it's a floral chemical that the tree makes and secretes into the nectar that the bees collect," he said. "When the bees have collected that nectar they put it into the honey and when the honey's used it seems to have this additional factor. "It's something that we haven't been able to magically isolate with our machines that go 'ping'”.

RESEARCH NEWS Back to top

ANCIENT PLANT AND POLLEN STUDY GUIDES RESEARCHERS STUDYING OZONE HOLES
British researchers have hit on a clever way to search for ancient ozone holes and their relationship to mass extinctions: measure the remains of ultraviolet-B absorbing pigments ancient plants left in their fossilized spores and pollen.

To develop the approach, researcher Barry Lomax and his colleagues at the University of Sheffield and other leading UK institutions analysed spores held in the British Antarctic Survey's collection from South Georgia Island, a UK territory in the far southwestern corner of the Atlantic Ocean. They discovered that since the 1960s, spores from living land plants have shown a three-fold increase in the concentration of UV-B absorbing pigments to protect themselves against a 14 percent decrease in stratospheric ozone, says Lomax.

"We have initially been investigating whether plants of palaeobotanical significance are capable of adapting to changes in UV-B radiation," said Lomax. In particular, they studied the UV-B response of the club moss Lycopodium magellanicum, a native of South Georgia Island. "Now that this has been established we are investigating possible changes in terrestrial UV-B flux during the Permian-Triassic boundary (251 million years ago)," said Lomax. That boundary marks the largest mass extinction in the Earth's history and also coincides with the largest known eruption of lava and potentially ozone-destroying gases - the Siberian Traps.

The modern increase in UV-B at South Georgia is the direct result of high latitude springtime ozone destruction in the stratosphere caused by decades of releases of human-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). The situation may have been the same a quarter billion years ago, except that the earlier ozone-destroying chemicals came from the Earth itself. "Volcanic eruptions can emit gases such as chlorine and bromine that are capable of destroying ozone," said Lomax. The heating of rocks near volcanic flows of the Siberian Traps may also release a wide range of organohalogens thought to be harmful to ozone, he said.

The next step is to search for the chemical remains of the plant pigments in fossilized spores and pollen. "The pigments break down to form compounds that are stable over geological time," said Lomax, "so providing samples have not been subjected to large amounts of heat, the signature should be preserved."

The research is funded by the UK's Natural Environment Research Council, with the specific aim of finding a way to measure ancient UV-B levels by combining experimental and palaeobotanical investigations.

Bumble bee

CLEVER BUMBLEBEES
Bumblebees that watched other bees forage on green artificial flowers were twice as likely to choose the green flowers over orange flowers when it was their turn to forage, according to new research. The finding is the first demonstration that insects can learn by just watching the behavior of other insects. “Studying a variety of different animals - everything from chimpanzees to bees - that show some kind of social learning, will give us a better understanding of how social learning occurs,” said behavioural ecologist Bradley D. Worden of The University of Arizona in Tucson. “One of the cool things we’re finding out from bees is that complex behavior and advanced forms of learning can come from small brains.”

The team’s report has been released online and will be published in an upcoming issue of Biology Letters of the Royal Society. The National Science Foundation funded the research. Charles Darwin was one inspiration for the study because he wrote about the possibility that honeybees were watching and learning from bumblebees, Worden said.

While observing bumblebees in the field, the team got the impression that bees were copying the behavior of other bees. “Honeybees and bumblebees are social creatures - they live in these colonies,” Worden said. “We know that they communicate with one another, at least in the nest, but nobody had really studied whether outside the nest they’re paying attention to what other individuals are doing.” So the researchers designed experiments to test whether Darwin’s musings might be true.

They trained Bombus impatiens bumblebees to visit a particular colour for food by using artificial flowers - green or orange paper circles that were 7 cm (about three inches) in diameter. At some of the “flowers” the bees could feed at cotton wicks soaked in sugar water. Without training, bumblebees tended to prefer orange over green. The bees, which can easily see the difference between the two colours, learned to prefer the colour that had the sugar water. The trained bumblebees visited a feeding arena that had three green and three orange circles. A small plexiglass tube with an observation port was positioned 25 cm (about 10 inches) away. Other bumblebees, one at a time, were allowed to press their faces against the port and watch from three to 12 trained bees feed for 10 minutes. At that distance, an observer bee could tell that there were bees on the flowers, but probably couldn’t tell exactly what the bees were doing.

A separate set of observer bees served as controls: they got to watch the feeding arena for 10 minutes with no bees in it. Then the lights were turned off and, behind the scenes, the feeding bees and their flowers were removed. A new set of three green and three orange artificial flowers was set up in the feeding arena, but the flowers had no food and the location of the particular colours was different from what the bumblebee had observed. The observer bees were then allowed, one at a time, to visit the artificial flowers. Observers that had watched bumblebees feed on green were twice as likely to visit the green circles. To make sure that odour cues were not somehow influencing the observer bees, Worden made model bumblebees using life-size resin models of bumblebees painted in bee colours and with real bumblebee wings glued on. He then repeated the experiments with a new set of observer bumblebees watching the “behavior” of the models. When it was their turn to forage, the watchers preferred the colour that the model bees were “visiting.”

While honeybees do a dance to communicate to hive mates the location of good flowers, bumblebees do not. Worden speculates that watching other bees in the field may be particularly important for bumblebees because they cannot find out from their hive mates exactly where the good flowers are located.

FLIES AND GM CROPS
Some interesting and potentially enlightening research in New Zealand shows that native flies may be more important in pollinating crops than previously thought. This example may well be of interest to anti GM campaigners in other countries including the UK as the skills of native flies in pollinating South Island crops may shed more light in evaluating the potential of cross contamination from genetically modified plants. (I’m not aware that research of this kind has been carried out in the UK or Europe. Ed).

A study by Crop & Food Research in New Zealand is monitoring the behaviour of native flies in arable plants and has found they could be major pollinators. Until now it was assumed bees do most of the crop pollination and arable farmers have traditionally placed honey bee hives next to crops for this purpose. Native flies have, however, been found in some crops carrying up to 19,000 pollen grains, as many as honey bees. The observations are hoped to give greater knowledge of the pollinators’ ability to move genes so scientists can accurately predict what would happen if modified plants were at some stage commercially introduced into the country. "If New Zealand was ever to allow commercial transgenic crops we must first examine any possibility of gene flow from these crops to other crops, weeds and native flora," said Crop & Food Research entomologist Dr Brad Howlett.

Over the last two summers entomologists have spent 14-hour days watching bees, flies and other pollinators in fields of onions and brassicas in Marlborough, Canterbury and Central Otago. Definite patterns have yet to emerge, but they are surprised about several findings, including the numbers of native flies in onion and brassica crops. Howlett said there were more native flies found to be carrying similar pollen loads to honey bees in some areas. The bigger and hairier flies carry the most pollen, while the small, less hairy ones carry fewer than 10 grains. The range of pollinators in crops, however, varies widely even on sites that are close together.
In Central Otago it was found that two onion fields about 17km apart attracted completely different ranges of insects.
In one site where honey bees were introduced to help with pollination, there was the same number of native fly pollinators as there were honey bees.
bibionid fly On crops of pak choi (Chinese cabbage) near Lincoln and Gore, a bibionid fly was found in numbers 10 times more than honey bees and carrying the same amount of pollen. At present, it is unknown whether fly populations varied yearly and more research was needed to monitor geographic variations.

Little was known about the role of native pollinators in transferring pollen in crops before this study. Kiwifruit is the only other crop where pollinators have been surveyed to a wide extent in New Zealand, he said. While the research funded by the Foundation for Research Science and Technology until 2008 is still at an early stage, scientists hope to learn more about the potential of bees and flies to move pollen from genetically modified plants to traditional plants.

Howlett said there was international concern that genes modified for herbicide tolerance could be transferred to weeds or non-crop plants via pollen and make control more difficult. "But to evaluate the likelihood of the movement of transgenic genes via pollen away from genetically modified plants, we must first understand the mechanisms that cause pollen movement. That is what this research is all about."

Over the next three years the research will attempt to confirm initial observations by measuring the distance pollen is moved from crops and the effectiveness of pollinators. Howlett said the research could be useful if the varroa bee-mite disease arrived in the South Island and native flies were found to be effective as alternative pollinators.

NEW BEE RESEARCH LABORATORY IN THE USA
These days we usually read of bee research laboratories closing down, or cutting staff but in some very welcome news for all beekeepers and scientists we can now see the results of some bold and imaginative thinking in the USA; a new bee research laboratory. (Or at least one that has been significantly updated and placed into new premises) The University of Illinois’s new million-dollar Bee Research Facility, includes an apiary that can hold up to 50 hives of Western honeybees and has a programme up and running designed to shed new light on the roles of genes in social behavior. With a complex social system that requires cooperation in the hive and in foraging for food outside it, bees are a good model for examining the topic, which is the focus of research by UI professors Gene Robinson and Charles Whitfield, who will occupy the new lab. Professor Robinson, an integrative biology professor in the UI Entomology Department, is well known to most beekeepers interested in the scientific side of beekeeping and we have all benefited from his research. In this latest development, he and his colleagues will be moving into a building that includes a lab for artificially inseminating queen bees, and a 500-square-foot indoor flight chamber that Robinson characterized as the finest of its kind in the world. The indoor chamber allows the researchers to work with genetically modified bees without danger of introducing them into the environment at large, as well as to work year-round. Besides an indoor flight chamber and hives, the facility includes two, 2,000-square-foot screened enclosures outside that can be used for experiments and to maintain colonies of bees. While it was conceived separately, the bee lab also dovetails with research being done in the UI's new Institute for Genomic Biology. Robinson is heading a project at the institute called BeeSpace, an effort to do the first complete analysis of which genes are on and off during the normal behavior of an animal, bees in this case.

Apis Florea

QUEENLESS APIS FLOREA BEES ARE HAPPY BEES
Bee colonies can turn to anarchy when the queen dies and worker bees swap their normal habits for hedonism, Australian and Thai researchers say. The absence of the queen's pheromones makes worker bees abandon their normal role of policing the colony's reproductive behaviour, making the colony more vulnerable to parasitic bees from other colonies. But at least the worker bees die happy in this lawless state, research in A recent issue of the journal Nature suggests. Before their colony collapses, worker bees have lots of sex, in a last ditch attempt to raise a final generation of males, as well as the offspring of intruder bees.

Associate Professor Benjamin Oldroyd, an Australian bee geneticist from the University of Sydney and Thai colleagues looked at what happened when a colony of Asian dwarf red honeybees (Apis florea) loses its queen. They found the proportion of non-native (or parasitic) workers in the colony more than doubled. Almost half of the parasitic bees had active ovaries, compared with around one in five of the native workers. "Worker policing is essential for maintaining reproductive harmony and, we now think, defending the colony against parasitic bees from other colonies. But to have some chance at immortality when the queen dies they are compelled to switch off their worker policing in order to lay their own eggs," says Oldroyd. Policing behaviour in bees, discovered in 1989, means if workers start to lay eggs their eggs are eaten. But workers without a queen face an evolutionary dead end unless they can raise a new queen from one of their sisters, or a last batch of males who leave to mate with other queens. "The results of this study revolutionises our ideas about social insect colonies. They can no longer be thought of as a Shakespearean paradigm of a queen and her workers toiling away in harmony," Oldroyd says. "The colony is a very delicately balanced society that only works because of the worker policing behaviour. Once the policing behaviour is switched off it all goes awry." Researchers have not seen parasitism in colonies of western honeybees (A. mellifera), which live in closed-off nests. But they believe as A. florae nests are in trees, this makes them more exposed to parasite bees.

NEW THEORY TESTS SEX RATIOS UNDER ASYMMETRICAL LOCAL MATE COMPETITION AMONG PARASITOID WASPS
For many species, the ratio of sons to daughters a mother produces can have a profound effect on her evolutionary success. Too many sons, or too many daughters, may mean a female does not pass on as many copies of her genes to the next generation as another mother. The crucial determinant of sex ratio for many species will be how likely related individuals will interact, in particular whether brothers will be competing amongst themselves to mate with their sisters. This situation becomes increasingly likely in species with very structured populations, where only one or a few females will produce offspring locally, and related males and females will be mating with each other. To reduce this local mate competition between sons, mothers should bias the sex ratio towards daughters, reducing male competition and providing them each with more females to mate with.

NEW RESEARCH ON WASP SEX RATIOS
Most beekeepers are aware that in insect societies such as those of wasps and bees, the sex ratio is an important and usually constant factor in maintaining the correct functioning of those societies. In some new research, scientists have studied a parasitic wasp and found a different method of determining the sex ratio.

Parasitic wasps that lay their eggs on insect hosts often have such a population structure, and work has shown that sex ratios vary with the number of females contributing to a host or group of hosts, as expected. For example, in the parasitic wasp Nasonia vitripennis, females vary their offspring sex ratios in response to both the presence of other females on a patch, and the presence of eggs already laid on the host they are about to use themselves. However, often groups of hosts will be a mixture of parasitised and unparasitised hosts, and the mating environment will be influenced by wasps emerging from all the parasitised hosts, some related to each other but some not.

In a new study featured in the September issue of The American Naturalist, David M. Shuker (University of Edinburgh) and colleagues show that females alter the sex ratio they produce on a host by considering whether there are already eggs on the host they are using and if there are other eggs already laid on other hosts in the patch. The researchers developed a new theory to explain what the best sex ratios should be for different situations and to demonstrate that females qualitatively confirm these novel predictions. This suggests that females are incredibly subtle in their use of information from the whole patch when it comes to making their sex ratio decisions.

BEECRAFT
Beecraft October 2005 Volume 87 Number 10
Claire Waring Editor. www.bee-craft.com
Beecraft Subscriptions http://www.bee-craft.com/shop/
Contents: E-mail from Apimondia Andrew Gibb; Making a Buzz! Andrew Coker; A year in the apiary: storing equipment David Aston, PhD, NDB; Queen Bee! Ceri Collingborn; Bee bistros Celia Davis, NDB; Clean-up canvas competition; Shook swarming, 2005 Bernhard Schumann; Preparing honey for show and sale Erica Osborn, MA; Winning website at Apimondia Margaret Cowley; Honey, straight from the comb Peter Inson; Vita research award; The Bee Craft Photo Competition; Three, two one – stop cooking! Bernard Diaper ; In the Apiary: having fun with bees (part 17) Karl Showler; The boating bee man Mary and Nigel Orr; Bees at the bottom of the garden Phil Regan; Feed sugar, eat honey Paul Key; From the Lab: copying success Elli Leadbeater and Lars Chittka, PhD; Solving the waggle dance problem Elspeth Bartlett, PhD; Letters to the Editor; The ‘B’ Kids; Around the colony; Classified advertisements; Calendar.

Editorial: Another bumper issue for you, packed with a range of articles and reports to bring you the best of beekeeping as soon as we possibly can. This is our third 'big issue' this year. Look out for more in 2006! The big event in August was the Apimondia Congress in Dublin. Bee Craft was there and we have an e-mail from AndrewGibb on page 4 telling us all about it. Then on page 10, you can share the experiences of Ceri Collingborn, the very first Apimondia World Honey Queen! Congratulations to all those who entered the second BeeCraft photo competition and many thanks for our sponsor, Allsop. It was really encouraging to see even more entries this year, and at such a high standard. You can see the winners on page 24 and other entries will be published in future issues. You can also enter the latest Allsop competition on page 16. As our bees settle down for the winter, we can all look forward to another of the year’s highlights. The National Honey Show is again at its highly successful new venue of the RAF Museum, Hendon, London, 20–22 October. Not only is this the world’s premier honey show but it also incorporates a wonderful lecture programme featuring leading scientists and famous experts. On top of all this there is the trade show. What a way to learn something new, meet friends and make plans for the New Year (not forgetting those ‘wants’ for Christmas). Is your Association running any courses next year? You have still got time to get them listed in the Bee Craft Directory, due to be published in January 2006. See the advert on page 45 and get the details in now. Claire Waring

BEE IMPROVEMENT AND CONSERVATION
Bee Improvement and conservation October 2005 Number 21
Philip Denwood Editor. www.bibba.com
Membership: Brian Dennis, 50 Station Road, Cogenhoe, Northants NN7 1LU membership@bibba.com.
Contents: Breeding varroa resistant bees Part 3 Tore Forsman, Per Idestrom, Erik Osterlund; Yorkshire Beekeepers' Spring Field Day Monica Coates; Raising, mating and making use of queens Friedrich-Kari Tiesler & Eva Englert; Apimondia 2005 Terry Clare; Beowulf vindicated, but native bees threatened by imports Dorian Pritchard; Native bees in a church roof space Albert Knight; Group news: Varroa tolerant honeybees Ron Hoskins.
Editorial: Gormanston & Apimondia The annual summer beekeeping course at Gormanston, East Meath, Ireland again had a strong BIBBA presence. A special BIBBA meeting there was chaired by Terry Clare, of which the minutes taken by Ruary Rudd can be read in The Four Seasons (quarterly magazine of the Galtee Bee Breeders' Group: clairechavasse@esatclear.ie). Apimondia was by all accounts another success: the team on the BIBBA stand felt their hard work was well worthwhile, and favourable comments are coming in from other quarters on the appearance and efficiency of the stand.
Lecturers' Panel
With a growing demand from Beekeeping Associations for lectures on bee breeding, it has been proposed to establish a BIBBA-approved panel of lecturers who can be called on for this job. This would spread the load which at present is carried by a few committee members, bring in different approaches and widen the geographical base of expertise. Anyone interested in consideration for the panel or who can suggest names of others, please contact Terry Clare, 01634 233748/267435, terryeclare@tinyworld.co.uk.
BIBBA Mail list
Many BIBBA members make active use of the excellent Irish Beekeeping Internet mail list, which covers all aspects of beekeeping. They may not all be aware that a BIBBA mail list (BIBBA-L) has been in existence for some time. To subscribe send a message to: mailserver@zbee.com Subject Field: may be left blank. In the message body write: Subscribe BIBBA-L then send the message and wait for further instructions to complete the subscription process. Alternatively go to www.zbee.dircon.co.uk and click on Beekeeping mail lists. It would be good to get more online discussion on specifically BIBBA matters on this list.
Cell size
The small cell size debate rumbles on. A Scandinavian study reported in the September 2005 issue of Bee Culture, in the article "Commercial Beekeeping in Norway" by HansOtto Johnsen tested 20 colonies with 5.4mm cell size against 20 with 4.9mm in the same apiary. At the end of the test the small cell group had significantly fewer varroa mites and produced significantly more honey. On the other hand a study carried out by Hort Research for the South Canterbury branch of the New Zealand National Beekeepers' Association, using four different cell sizes (4.7, 4.8, 5.1 and 5.4mm) reported in the Scottish Beekeeper September 2005, concluded that "Varroa reproduction was not affected by cell size ..." and "these results suggest cells smaller than 5.4mm may actually increase [varroa] infestation." Interestingly this study measured the actual sizes of built-out cells, which turned out to be not necessarily the same as the cell size of the foundation supplied to the bees. On the information I have, neither study specifies the race or strain of bee used in these experiments. These findings should be read in conjunction with the series of articles on breeding for varroa resistance which we have been publishing, particularly the comments by Dorian Pritchard in this issue. The jury would seem to be still out on this question.
Albert Knight
Albert Knight, on whom we rely for so much in BIBBA, has been diagnosed with a serious eye problem, which prevented his attendance at Apimondia. Fortunately his condition seems to be amenable to treatment and, typically, he is determinedly harnessing the latest technology to enable him to continue using his computer and even carry out grafting. He is also celebrating the birth of a great-grandchild. We send him our best wishes, while understanding that for the time being he may not be able to continue carrying a workload which would shame many a person a quarter of his age.
BIBBA survey of A.m.m.
Please don't forget to send in samples of bees as advertised on page 31. Philip Denwood

BEES FOR DEVELOPMENT JOURNALNo.76 September 2005
Dr Nicola Bradbear Editor. www.beesfordevelopment.org
Contents: Inside information; Apimondia 2005; African Honey Workshop; Practical Beekeeping; How a Bishop became a Beekeeper; Beekeeping in the rainforest of Nicaragua; Beekeeping in Greenland; News around the World; American foulbrood; Look and Learn Ahead; Notice Board; Bookshelf.
Cover picture: This picture by Marcus Harvey shows a beekeeper playing bagpipes to accompany Philip McCabe's attempt to break the world record for a Bee Beard, in Ireland June 2005. This event took place to mark the Apimondia Congress being held in Ireland, and raised funds for Bóthar and BfD Trust. Marcus Harvey won the 'Seeds of Change & Observer' photography competition with another.

The Monk and the Honeybee - Brother Adam and the Buckfast Superbee
The remarkable story of Brother Adam, the legendary Benedictine monk who devoted his long life to a quest to breed the perfect honeybee. Working from his monastic cell in Buckfast Abbey, Devon, brother Adam created an incredible global enterprise. He collected genetic material from Europe, the Middle East and Africa which over 70 years, from which he synthesised his world-beating Buckfast superbee - culminating in an expedition to hunt the elusive black bee of Kilimanjaro.
This is an unrepeatable study of the workings of the beehive, breeding techniques and a tribute to the greatest bee master of all time. A really good Christmas present for any beekeeper DVD. Available from Northern Bee Books @ £22.50 http://www.beedata.com/nbb/beekeeping_dvd.htm

All is complete; we will remove the roof of the inner hive and see what has transpired.
Success, the comb alignment for hive 6-4, as shown below, no longer runs East-West. From the compass bearings superimposed upon the photos it may be seen that the change of direction in hive 6-4 is in the order of 70 degrees, the rotation being in an anti-clockwise direction, when compared with hive 2-4.

Let us be generous and concede the possibility that this change may have been caused by the introduction of the vertical magnetic field.

From the magnetic field diagram shown below it may be seen that the magnet was placed on top of the inner hive with the south pole being uppermost. This results in the arrows showing the field direction to point vertically upward.

One may therefore reason that if the magnet was placed with the north pole uppermost, causing the field direction arrows to point downward, the 70 degree angle of deflection could now occur in a clockwise direction. We may well have evidence to show that this may be the case.

Chance, coincidence, good fortune, call it what you will, influences our interpretation of seemingly cold hard fact.

The following day, after the swarm was placed into hive 6-4, another swarm was collected and housed in hive 1-4.(Site plan below refers)

The position was some 9 feet away from hive 6-4 provided with the vertical magnetic field. It was not a large swarm, it was not expected to survive the winter, at best it might act as a control providing E-W comb under normal conditions. It became apparent in the autumn that the comb was not being built E-W but rather to the alignment of hive 6-4, being roughly N-S. The comb at this time had not adhered to the side of the box and it was not until the following summer that the roof of the inner hive could be removed with any confidence to reveal the actual comb orientation. The photo below refers.

Clearly something is amiss with our theory. Comb alignment of this nature has not been observed before, perhaps comb is built on a purely random basis, with chance and coincidence providing an erroneous reason for its direction.

So far in these simple genetics articles we have looked at the genetic make up of the queens and drones and explained how these genetic characteristics can affect colonies. A key factor in all this is the number of chromosomes in bees and to summarise so far, remember that:

Each egg contains a unique combination of 50% of the queens genes and sperm contains 100% of the drone’s genes.

All 10 million sperm produced by a drone are identical clones. As a drone results from a queen only, he inherits her characteristics, converting her egg into sperm and carrying this to another queen.

Since each queen mates with 10-20 drones, colonies are comprised of subfamilies, each having the same mother but different fathers.

This "extra" close relatedness may explain the cooperative, and altruistic behaviours found in colonies.

It may also explain why workers forego their own reproduction in favour of helping their queen mother raise more sisters. Their sisters are more closely related to them than their own offspring would be. (75% vs 50%) .

The Role of Mitochondrial DNA
Whilst looking at the subject of genetics and as a small digression, it is worthwhile looking at how genetics can be used as an investigative tool in tracing the lineage of bees. In order to track the lineage of bees, for example to tell if a bee is a European type or an African type, researchers look at the mitochondrial DNA. Mitochondria are important in that they reproduce separately from a cell. They are small organelles that are found in every living cell. Originally it is thought that they were once independent free living bacteria but is now living in symbiotic relationship with host cells, having at some time been incorporated into cells. Their job is to release energy by burning sugar with oxygen. In this way they make respiration possible. When a cell divides, the mitochondria divide as well but the small amount of DNA that they have remains separate from the nucleus. Also, when the sperm and egg unite at fertilisation and create a new genetic composition, the mitochondrial DNA stays unchanged. They get passed along through the generations without their DNA ever being changed by males. The DNA is changed only by occasional mutations. These changes slowly accumulate and these accumulations enable scientists to differentiate the different bee lineages.

In next month’s issue we will take a look at how researchers and queen producers use this knowledge to ‘breed’ queens. By breeding superior stock, honey farmers can increase their honey production, reduce swarming and enjoy other improved characteristics in their bees. There are plenty of good books on the subject, not least those by Steve Taber and John Atkinson and those readers who are serious about the subject should take a look at these.

At the Workshop led by North of England Bee Inspector Ian Molyneux we were strongly advised to adopt his management-regime, viz:

Ian was emphatic about Open Mesh Floors (OMF): he said there is no longer a choice; all new beekeepers must start-off with open-mesh-floors; all old bee-masters should convert their hives as soon as possible. The reason is simple: there is a natural varroa-drop in any hive which can reduce varroa populations considerably over a season. If you have open mesh floors, the mites fall through the mesh and die. If you have solid wooden floors, the bloodsuckers just wait a while then hitch a ride on a passing bee back to parasite heaven.

I have five National 14” by 12” hives and one Dartington Long Deep Hive; of these, only the Dartington Hive was designed and constructed with an open mesh floor as an integral feature. This hive has consistently been the most vigorous and productive; it has always come through the winter with the most brood in spring. It has never suffered mouldy-pollen combs in winter or chalk brood in Spring, while the National hives with wooden floors have. I am convinced that this is due to the better ventilation, temperature and humidity control which results from open mesh floors. Hive debris, waste-pollen and varroa mites tend to drop straight through the floor, making for a cleaner hive. Dead bees are dragged out through the 8mm entrance slot. My experience over 3 years is that bees do not suffer in any way from using open mesh floors all year round. Winter survival has been far better; Spring build up-has been very good and honey crop has been best of all my hives.

Improved Ventilation
All of my National Hives had varroa-floor inserts above solid wood floors, but these give far less actual ventilation than an open mesh floor. An open-mesh-floor could have a ventilation-area of 18” by 18” , totalling 324 square inches; in practice it will be less - about 250 square inches allowing for woodwork. By contrast, a varroa floor insert above a wooden floor will only allow air through the hive entrance – which is ½” high by 18 inches wide – a mere 9 square inches. That is a massive difference in air supply.

Inspired by the Bee Inspector’s workshop I decided to construct open mesh floors for my remaining National hives. Buying these would cost anything from £18 - £40 each. Using DIY the total cost was less than £20 for four floors – a unit cost of £4 to £5.

A local building supplier (Travis Perkins) stocked planed, external timber and I bought two 4.2 metre lengths of 3.5” x 1.5” timber and two lengths of 2.5” x 1.5” timber for just £14 including VAT. Metal floor mesh from bee equipment suppliers can cost up to £5 per hive; this in my view is far too much, so I opted for a semi-rigid plastic mesh sold as greenhouse shading from my local garden centre at £1.50 a metre length. It has diamond-shaped mesh of about 3-4 mm and is rigid enough to span 15” without sagging. The mesh for four hives cost me less than 50p per hive. The entire cost to build four national-hive floors was about £5 each. One cannot flame-sterilize plastic mesh – but epoxy-coated metal has the same limitation and is about 1000% more expensive. Stainless steel mesh is even more costly. Galvanised expanded steel mesh from Stamfordham Ltd. Is the only other reasonable option. Plastic mesh can be brushed clean and sterilized with bleach and soapy water; if damaged it is less than 50 pence per hive to replace. It does not rust or react with any acidic solutions used against varroa.

Dartington Underfloor Entrance
I have been very impressed by the under floor slot-entrance used in the Dartington design, and built my mesh floors on this principle. This is not a new idea; it was widely used up to the 1950s but used in a solid wooden floor it causes problems with debris build-up. In the Dartington design the under floor entrance gives the bees access at about frame three- and the bees keep it completely clear of debris. In contrast, even if I left my National hive entrances wide-open in winter, I usually found mouldy pollen, wax debris and damp floors on first spring inspection. This never happens with a mesh floor and an under floor entrance.

How Does An Underfloor Entrance Work?
The bees fly into a covered vestibule which is a sheltered space about 4 inches deep and four inches high, running the full width of the hive. They walk across the landing board and climb the rear vestibule wall to enter the hive through an 8mm wide vertical slot that runs the full width of the mesh floor.

Two small wooden rails – about 3/8 x 18” long – rails for varroa monitoring tray

I used an electric drill to bore nail holes and then glued and nailed the pieces together. Gave all exposed surfaces two coats of Cuprinol clear timber preserver – which contains Zinc Acetepac but no insecticides.

You can just see two hardwood rails which allow a monitoring tray to be inserted under the mesh floor when checking for mites.

Figure 4 : 8mm wide Entrance slot in floor
Here you can see the view from ‘inside’ the hive if you were looking down through the frames onto the floor. Bees climb up through the 8mm wide slot visible in this picture and enter the hive at about the frame 3 position.

Conclusion
Transferring the bees from the old floors to the new took just a few minutes for each hive and within ten minutes they had adjusted to the new entrance. We have had very hot weather over the last week with temperatures reaching 30 degrees C and combs have been distinctly soft when examined. As soon as the mesh floors were in place it was evident that the temperature and humidity within each hive dropped considerably.

It will be a simple matter to slide monitoring trays under the hive from the rear whenever they are needed; however, they will not be left in place during the summer. I might leave them in place during the winter to minimise draughts, though this has not been necessary with the Dartington Long Deep Hive. http://www.dartingtonhive.co.uk Graham White

History
I started keeping bees in 1963 and at one time had 130 colonies, and have always raised my own queens on a regular basis. For a number of reasons I had a spell where I had no bees myself for about 15 years until restarting in 2002, but retained interest in my local Association, and continued to attend meetings. At one stage I could expect a success rate of getting queens mated from a sealed cell well in excess of 90%, but since returning to active beekeeping that success rate has dropped alarmingly, in my own experience to 50% or less.

When restarting I obtained 5 colonies from various sources and rigourously culled the poorer queens. In doing this I realised there was a problem in achieving the level of successful matings I had previously enjoyed.

In the Dec 2004 issue of BBKA News I wrote an article on my experiences, and asked if the problems were related to varroa. I received several replies and these fell largely into two groups, those who had kept bees for around 15 years or more, and agreed with me that there was a problem, and those with less experience who indicated that my experiences were “normal”, which is understandable if that is all they had known. One person who regularly raised a large number of queens appeared to have a success rate as low as 15%.

I received references to research work that had been done abroad, and there were indications from what I considered to be reliable sources that varroa and it’s treatment may be a contributory factor, and in a variety of ways.

Drones that were parasitized by varroa as larvae may have reduced sperm and lower viability if, indeed, they managed to survive to sexual maturity, and it appears that some treatments may accumulate in beeswax, and possibly cause the following problems:-

I am not qualified to make comment on the above findings and they may well be superceded by later information. We should also remember that the work was done abroad and may have involved treatments that are not cleared for use in the U.K.

I had become convinced that varroa was the main cause because the queen mating problem appeared to have gone up the country at roughly the same rate as the spread of varroa, and there were no problems before it’s arrival. I accept that in normal circumstances something occasionally goes wrong, but not at the current rate. If you think about it bees will not survive many generations with such a low reproductive rate, and we must have had spells of weather during the time bees have been in this country that were very much worse for successful mating than we have had over the last few years.

Since issue 001 of this document appeared on the BBKA website I have had a lot of correspondence from all parts of the country from concerned beekeepers telling me they have had similar problems to me. What is significant is that some of those who had previously told me there was no problem have changed their minds, simply by comparing their experiences with mine.

There have been three further possible theories put forward and these are listed later.

The reason for this document
I believe the problem is very serious and poses a threat to beekeeping in this country, but of course it must first be recognised, which is not easy when so many dismiss it as being caused by the weather, or birds taking the queens on the wing, which are the traditional reasons for queens not getting mated or quickly failing. Firstly the weather has got far more bee friendly over my time in beekeeping, and results should be better, not worse, and secondly I don’t believe that birds are taking 4-5 times as many queens as they used to. If that was the case they would be taking workers as well and colonies would be much weaker.

My initial warnings did not set off the alarm bells in the places I would have expected them to. There seemed little evidence that others had noticed the same problems I had, and when I spoke to beekeepers there was initially denial, then when I explained the symptoms I had a different response. In my locality many people are noticing problems in getting queens mated and laying properly, but only after I have alerted them. I have had correspondence from all over the country from beekeepers who have had problems. I have also had contact with beekeepers who keep records who haven’t experienced problems. These are just as important.

I had done nothing different than I had always done and I was sure that if I had difficulties then others were as well, it was simply that very few people had noticed them.

Judging from my own experiences and having a mathematical brain I could see real difficulties ahead, especially for those with only a handful of colonies.

It quickly became obvious to me that there was possibly a big problem, and if nothing was done a large number of colonies would be lost. If it was related to varroa I couldn’t understand why there was little mention from other countries where they had varroa some time before us.

I hope these notes will firstly alert beekeepers to the threat, and secondly offer advice in order to minimise the effects until the problem can be investigated thoroughly. It is in a form that can be easily printed so that local associations can distribute to their members.

Symptoms
It does not seem to matter if the cells are swarm, emergency, or artificial. They can all result in failure, and in roughly the same proportions. When raising queens myself my preference is for the punched cell method and the “take” has still been very good. I normally have 10 cells in a cell raising colony and it has always been normal to lose one or two.

1. Queens emerging with deformed or stubby wings. This has now become quite common. Fig 2. shows one from a batch of 18 sealed cells that was raised in my local Assn apiary, see ** below. I believe this may be a virus similar to Deformed Wing Virus, although I have had queens like this that have been raised from colonies where the workers show no visible signs of DWV, as this one had. It is obvious these queens can’t fly and I am sure that many virgin queens that “disappear” have been sufferers and not been noticed.

2. Queen cells with dead and decomposed larvae in them. Fig 3. shows three cells from a batch of 10 that were raised in the same colony. They are all dead and in different states. The two on the right have both coloured up, but are different sizes.

3. Instances where a queen has obviously emerged but never starts to lay. This could be connected to 1. above

4. Queens getting mated, but laying a variable amount of drone eggs in worker cells. The amount can vary from the odd few to 100%. These are easy to see due to the raised cappings. Make sure they are actually worker cells though. Don’t forget it is rare for drone cells to be on their own, they are usually in patches. Fig 4 shows an example, and it is obvious that these drones are in worker cells.

5. Patchy brood. I am not sure why this is as the cases I have seen are not always linked with something obvious such as chalk brood. The egg laying pattern is often good, suggesting that the eggs are not viable and are removed by the bees.

6. Recently mated queens laying eggs either off centre in the base of the cell or two eggs in a cell. This is not to be confused with laying workers. Often there are other problems as well such as drone brood in worker cells. Often the larvae develops off centre as well. This may be because the queens are smaller than they should be and they are unable to locate the correct part of the cell.

7. Queen cells being built soon after a queen commences to lay, in some cases in small colonies. This is sometimes in colonies where there appears to be no visible problem with the brood. I assume that for some reason there is a problem with the queen substance or the amount that the queen is producing.

8. Queens “disappearing”. This happened twice in one week in my local Assn apiary with the current seasons queens (2005), one in a colony on 4-5 frames and one with 7-8 frames. In both cases there was a problem with the brood. I also had the same in my own apiary with two colonies, one with a current seasons queen (2005), and the other with the previous seasons (2004), both with perfect brood. Both colonies had given around 60-80lb of early honey and had 4 full supers on. They had both yielded around 150lb of honey. In none of them was the timing right for a queen to be lost or killed during manipulation.

9. Young queens freely laying drone eggs only, but both sides of a brand new wire Q/E! This suggests that queens are smaller than they should be.

12. Queens stopping laying. If they restart it is usually with a high percentage of drone brood, and often total drone brood.

13. A high percentage of undersized drones in colonies. This I think must be the result of drones being reared in worker cells. Figs 5&6 show both small and normal sized drones.

14. Brood cappings that are domed more than normal worker, but less than normal drone brood. I have not investigated this much to find out what bees are produced.

15. Drones being retained much later in the season. This has previously been an indication that the bees are not happy with their queen, and it seems logical that this is the reason, but in many more instances.

If so please contribute to the forum or contact me. I have set up a facility for problems to be recorded. On the BBKA home page under “Site Navigation” click “Support Boards” then “Beekeepers Forum” then look for “Report Queen Problems”. Just explain your experiences as best as you can.

** The queen cells from this batch went to several beekeepers and I have not been able to track them all, but apart from the queen in Fig 2, I have also seen:-

Two Q/C’s taken by one member and neither emerged. On opening one there was a brown decomposing larva where the outlines of an adult were recognisable, and a guess would be that it was about 12/13 days old. The other had a very small coloured “queen” that had not decomposed, but with no wings, probably 14/15 days old.

Three others had the cells bitten down by the workers, and two more had decomposed larvae in sealed cells. That makes at least eight of the eighteen that have failed.

In case there are unrelated reasons for queen failure, things that have been reported by other people that I haven’t experienced myself are listed here, together with their location.

What are the causes?
I think we can largely discount the weather, and it seems logical to me that there is a possibility that the problems are partly caused by varroa or it’s treatment in some way. The problems on the current scale have only appeared since the arrival of varroa, and travelled up the country at roughly the same rate as it’s spread.

There are several issues involved and they may not be related, which is why it is important to establish the reasons at an early stage. The main issues I think we should concentrate on are:-

Since the release of Issue 001 of this document there have been three other possibilities that I have been made aware of. All seem feasible so I mention them here, together with my own thoughts in italics. I have to stress that no work has been done to date but these are all suggestions I think are worth further investigation.

There has appeared on the BBKA website Support Board “Beekeepers Forum” a posting, “Possible Impact of Pesticides on Queen Rearing/Mating”. This was a contribution from a Berwickshire beekeeper called Graham White, who goes under the name of “Border Beeman”. This concerns a generic product called IMIDACLOPRID. There is also a follow up posting “Imidacloprid – Letter to Advisory Committee on Pesticides”. Since they appeared Graham has written another item, and details are also on the BBKA website. Click on “Articles” under site navigation on the home page, then on No 15 “Concern over Imidacloprid”. (Published here in this issue of Apis-UK. Ed)

This is rather fragmented and not easy to follow, but all the links should be visited. This should be of interest to all who have a concern for the environment, and I am amazed that it does not appear to have been picked up before.

Graham has obviously done a considerable amount of work in tracking this lot down. I have had some of his findings checked, and it seems that the references are from reliable sources, many from the manufacturers themselves. What is alarming is that it appears that this chemical is being used in the UK, when it is banned in France. As far as the connection with the queen problems is concerned it seems quite feasible that this compound could be contributing to queens appearing to be lost on their mating flights. The French beekeeping lobby is presumably much stronger than ours, but one hopes that BBKA Executive will apply all the pressure required to see this through to a conclusion. R.P

I have had several people contact me about the so called “gender bending” chemicals. These apparently affect many species including humans. They are called Endocrine Disruptors and seem to affect the male reproductive parts by mimicking the female hormone oestrogen. They are present in many synthetic items used in daily life including plastics, pesticides and even shampoo.

The reports I have seen have mentioned reduced sperm levels, and reduced sex drive as well as alteration of male reproductive parts. Just typing “Endocrine Disruptors” into a search engine is frightening. From one website I visited I quote, “Scientists now fear that seals, dolphins, otters, birds such as peregrine falcons and even honey bees are heading towards a uni-sex existence that would lead to extinction”. This should be investigated as it is possible that the laying of drone eggs in worker cells could be caused by this. I am slightly more cautious of this theory because I would have thought that it would have had an effect earlier than it has, due to the length of time they have been in existence. R.P.

As the result of mentioning the queen mating problem in a beekeeping column I write for my local paper the West Sussex Gazette, I had a telephone call from a gentleman who is an ex-beekeeper. He is concerned at the rapid decline in the insect population in his area, where he has lived all his life, and been keeping records for over 30 years. He has been doing some investigation into the effects of the emissions from mobile telephone masts. The theory seems to be that the emissions are affecting the fertility of a whole range of creatures, and he thought this might explain the problems beekeepers were having.

I have had one fairly brief meeting with this person and he has clearly done some research, and his findings seem relevant to our problem.

I know nothing of the technology involved, but I guess that the emissions may be similar to microwaves. It is known that they are used for pest control in some situations.

It might be that larvae are slightly “cooked”, and I wonder if some minute changes are made in the larval stages of the queens, and that could be a reason for their reproductive parts being affected in some small way.

Are drones being affected when flying in drone assemblies where they may be receiving a constant bombardment of emissions?

A considerable amount of work in this area has been done at the University of Athens by Dimitris J Panagopoulos and Lukas H Margaritis. I suggest the reader punches their names into any search engine, and looks for any relevant literature.

It seems to me that this is the easiest theory to prove or disprove and could be done quite quickly and relatively cheaply. R.P.

I am not qualified to make further comment on any of the above, but have done further reading and it seems possible that the problem is much more complex than I originally thought. All of the suggestions so far, except the endocrine disruptors are relatively new, so perhaps my thoughts on linking the problem with varroa due to the timing are also appropriate to the other suggestions.

Without investigating too deeply there does seem to be a hint that the more remote areas of the country are having less of a problem than the rest. This actually fits in with all the suggestions.

The addition of these three possibilities might make a solution much more difficult to achieve as they are all out of the hands of beekeepers.

What is being done?
I have been in contact with both NBU and BBKA. It seems to me that BBKA are the organisation that should drive any investigation, although we must accept that apart from paid staff all other work is done on a voluntary basis. They do of course have connections and these will be vital.

This document will be updated when there is new information, and there is a link to the forum where beekeepers can make a contribution.

Beekeeping magazines will be kept updated, but I don’t know them all, so if you are an Editor then please e-mail me so I can put you on the list. Information can be sent to Editors, but there is no guarantee they will print it, and if they do sometimes it is changed.

Until we have scientifically proven information I am willing to speak at major gatherings of beekeepers as much as anything to highlight the problems. We need to inform as many beekeepers as possible and I see this as meaning a convention/conference situation rather that a local group of a dozen people.

I am building a network of reasonably serious and responsible beekeepers throughout the country, preferably who raise queens, in order to gain information that can be put on a standard form, which is yet to be devised. It is not my intention to make much more work than would already be spent, and I am sure that most beekeepers records would be adequate. The intention is for contributors to keep very basic records that can be referred to if necessary. It does not matter if they have had no problems, as this might help us understand more. I would like to make contact with anybody who is willing to take part, but it is important that they have e-mail access otherwise it makes much more work for me. This can be done with the help of another beekeeper.

What do I think needs to be done?
We need to establish that there is a much higher failure rate in getting queens mated successfully in other parts of the country. There is no doubt at all in my mind, as I have spent a lot of time during the summer of 2005 helping beekeepers locally (Sussex) overcome the problem. At the time of writing we have 19 colonies in our local Assn apiary and we have had problems with around 25 queens during the summer. I have seen in excess of 70 colonies with problems during 2005. Now I have highlighted the problem I am getting more reports from other parts of the country.

What should beekeepers be doing?
Management techniques will be developed, but until then can I suggest that beekeepers take the following steps:-

“Drone brood. One comb in every colony should give a good drone population. I suggest you place one drone comb in all your colonies. Those in the undesirable colonies should be removed when sealed, placed in the freezer to kill the drones and varroa, cleaned and reused. They should be replaced by a comb of drone brood, larvae or sealed, from a good colony. The cleaned combs could then be put in the good colonies and the process repeated. This would ensure that all drones in your apiary were from good colonies and would also give some degree of control of the varroa. Please note, bees will not accept combs of drone eggs. You may also have a problem with chalk brood in the drone combs, so perhaps better to put them in the middle of the brood nest to avoid chilling.”

My view of this is that it would have to be managed quite well otherwise varroa might be bred in the good colonies, which of course will aggravate the situation. I would suggest that each frame was coded in some way such as the use of coloured drawing pins. If used sensibly this could be combined with the IPM technique of drone culling, and in fact would be an improvement as many more drones will be retained. I think a good way of producing good drone comb would be to get them drawn out above the Q/E, then extract the honey, before putting them in the brood box. Some spares would need to be available in order to rotate them. The only problem I see is what to do with the cleaning of them. There are some beekeepers who put them outside for the birds to clean up, but I would avoid this as there is a possibility of spreading foul brood. R.P.

Suggested Management Techniques
The three non varroa related possibilities have made management techniques more difficult, but if I am correct in my assumption that varroa might be one of the causes it seems there are three things that need to be addressed.

I think that short term we ought to be developing ways of reducing the possible causes, rather than wait for those causes to disappear.

At the moment I am planning to join forces with my local Assn for queen rearing in 2006. I intend to hive swarms on fresh foundation, and treat them with thymol and oxalic acid as well as adopt as many IPM techniques as possible. These colonies will be used for supplying larvae, building queen cells, and mating queens. I am looking at having a minimum of 8 colonies for this purpose, all in the same apiary.

My main honey producing colonies will all be used for rearing drones using the method described above. I think that if the drone combs were frozen at the middle of July this would kill the varroa, which might have built up by then. I have been advised that varroa mites will die within 24 hours if frozen, but as the brood in the combs will retain some heat for a time, I think that 3 days should be satisfactory.

With this method I am aiming at raising queens that have not been subjected to chemicals, hopefully free of viruses, and will mate in an area that has been flooded with good healthy drones.

This can easily be achieved by anybody on their own, with other beekeepers, or an Association.

We must all assume there is going to be a high failure rate and we should make allowances to cover it. I suggest that you decide how many honey producing colonies you want, lets say, in multiples of four. For every four run an extra two smaller ones in pairs. These will be called “floaters”. Make 2 x 4 frame nuclei fairly early in the year, and put your 2 worst queens from your main colonies in them. In the colonies they were taken from introduce previously started queen cells. If they mate successfully leave them alone. If they fail, then introduce queens, possibly in a nucleus, from the “floaters” and unite the remainder with the other one in the pair until you have further queen cells, then split it again. That way you have the same number of productive colonies all the time and the back up ones for emergencies. The “floaters” can be kept down to a fairly small size by moving them in order to lose flying bees to the main colonies. Five frames of bees will winter well in most winters. This can be done with differing numbers of colonies, and those with only one or two can work together. There is also scope for an Association to do the same in their teaching apiary, so that members can make use of spare queens.

Comments from others in personal communication
Since I first highlighted the problems in getting queens successfully mated I have received a steady stream of correspondence from a variety of sources, and from all over the country.

At this stage without much research I am assuming that varroa and/or it’s treatment is the main cause, so I list below some of the more interesting points that are relevant. Some might not be directly related to the problem, but are connected in some way. I have edited where necessary, and made comment in italics where I think it is appropriate. Please note that some are as a result of observation or memory and may not be as a result of recording.

“The website is fine for alerting people to a possible problem and perhaps more note will be taken of queen failures. You never know, perhaps some bright Ph.D. student will pick up on it”.

“……..I had one QC with a dead larva. Some of the beekeepers within the drone catchment area use thymol as I do. Another local beekeeper with 50+ colonies has 18 out of 20 queens mated in 3 comb nucs. He regards this as normal having kept bees for about 60 years. He originally used formic acid when varroa was first found in 1997, but more recently thymol. 18 out of 20 is what I would have expected before the current problems”. This is well worth investigating. R.P.

“What I have noticed over the last two years is that an (obviously) mated Q has laid well for a month or so, then disappeared!” How many times have I heard that? R.P.

“More recently some colonies have produced huge numbers of drones in the worker cells at the top of the brood box (I use national brood and a half) this in the area most in contact with the strips. At first I thought the Queens had become drone layers - but the deep brood (furthest from the strips) has always been laid up with worker.” This is interesting. I keep my bees on single B/C’s, and have found that drone brood in worker cells is evenly distributed on the frames. Although against instructions, a control would be to put both strips to one side of the brood box. This also tends to suggest that chemicals might change an egg from fertile to infertile or influence the queens choice in what she lays. I understand that pyrethroid residues are more concentrated in the areas nearest the strips. Observations from others would be helpful. R.P.

“Breeding for resistance. This is the ultimate answer. All it requires is that beekeepers should identify the less susceptible colonies by collecting 50 to 100 mites from each colony once a year (Aug/Sep) and examining for damage to the mites. When I first started looking I found between 3 and 20% of mites damaged. After 2 generations of selection by instrumental insemination I achieved an average of 50%. This was maintained in open matings last year which I have recently checked, varying from 44 to 54 %”. I have had several comments about varroa resistant bees, mainly referring to experiences in other countries. My own view is that although the example above was from a beekeeper with less than 20 colonies, the results are very encouraging, but it is probably medium/long term, and would rely on a high level of commitment by everybody. It would need dedicated work from a number of competent queen breeders to make any headway, and would need some form of national queen breeding programme. In principle this has a lot to commend it, but the annual turnover of beekeepers of 10% and the inability or unwillingness of a significant number to partake would make it unworkable without some form of legislation. It would require a ban on imports, otherwise there will be a constant stream diluting the work. R.P.

“You seem to be collecting data so I am sending a précis of my apiary records for this season. In brief after all 6 colonies successfully coming through the winter I had a situation by the end of July where all 6 were queenless. Two ended up with drone laying workers, two are now OK and the other two still in doubt.”

“……. when this year two strong swarms I caught and settled into brood and a half Nationals successfully suddenly became Queenless, I have been pondering why. Other beekeepers known to me have had similar problems with Queens this year.”

“I was pointed to your article online by one of my beekeeping chums who knew I had had some queen problems. It did strike a chord and made me rethink the problems I'd had which I had blamed on the swallow population …. mainly because more experienced beekeepers said it was likely. It didn't seem like that satisfactory an explanation to me so I'm glad I read your piece”. There are many similar comments, mainly by beekeepers who were not convinced about birds and weather. R.P.

“If the problem is caused by varroa, then we are seeing natural selection taking place, with some of the well mated queens, and the successful drones, coming from more resistant colonies.”

“Have you read any of Rinderer's papers published in the ABJ on Mating and the Bee Yard?

I have had several references to work of this type. This is very valuable and shows that we need a comprehensive literary search. Some of the papers quoted go back to 1983, and although may still be relevant there must be subsequent work somewhere. R.P.

“It was interesting to find that a University in Germany have been working with a University in Brazil on this self same problem.” Same comment as above. R.P.

“The occurrence of one-sided winged queens should also be investigated in wild colonies (difficult!) and untreated hives (must be some ?) to be sure that this is not a simple genetic trait. The possibility of non-pyrethroid triggers should be borne in mind.” This came from a technical person and shows there is much research to do. R.P.

“We have had drone layers at the teaching apiary & one of our teachers made sure we all saw it”. This shows a good positive attitude, and hopefully this document will encourage teachers to get beekeepers to contribute to the debate. R.P.

“I raised about 24 queens this summer in North Devon using Apideas for mating and got 90% success in mating. However, I have noticed about 50% of these queens were quickly superseded either in the Apidea or a few weeks after introduction to a nucleus. I have been raising queens on and off for nearly twenty years and the supercedure problems have been the highest ever this year.”

“Your BBKA News article makes me wonder if what I thought was bad luck has a more worrying cause.Of eight hives which I had hoped to winter, the queens in three have failed to produce healthy brood. One was a large cast which eventually produced slabs of drone brood, another a collected swarm (or cast) which produced no brood at all. The third failure occurred in a hive which started queen cells, did not swarm but failed to produce a new laying queen. I am not a novice and at one time ran twenty five hives. I have no recollection of this problem happening before. In common with all beekeepers I have had the occasional mating failure due to bad weather conditions but this cannot have been the problem this summer.”

“Just a quick note to say that you are not alone in experiencing poor mating and laying. I tend to graft into queen cups and have had good levels of success over the years. However the last 2 - 3 years I have experienced identical problems to those you outline in your article (high failure rates - and of those that do mate a good % do so only for days and are then no longer to be found - only emergency cells on the few eggs they must have laid). I treat annually for varroa - and have not had any heavy infestations. Like you I can only assume that varroa is the cause.”

“………BTW I have been watching your queen problem threads with interest. I have had a couple of quick supercedures this year (new queen in June, superceded in late July/August for apparently no good reason) but don't feel I know enough about what I did or didn't do which may have affected the bees decision.

Next year I am hoping to do some more concentrated queen rearing so will let you know what happens then.”

This is typical of the “British Standard Beekeeper”. Those with a small number of colonies are not likely to notice a problem until someone alerts them, simply because of the small numbers. Often records aren’t kept and it is difficult to remember what happened and when. This person obviously intends to do something positive. R.P.

“Queens that cannot mate are in no-ones interest, and the problem needs fixing by open discussion with the people who have the current facts, or the wherewithall to make a case for funding for more research.”

References
Dec 2004 BBKA News Roger Patterson
“ “ Francis Ratnieks
Feb 2005 BBKA News Roger Patterson
June 2005 BBKA News Tom Robinson
Aug 2005 BBKA News Roger Patterson
Aug 2005 Bee Craft Roger Patterson
Sept 2005 Bee Craft Celia Davis
Oct 2005 BBKA News R. Parsonage, Dorian Pritchard, Roger Patterson

This year's National Honey Show was for the second year at the RAF museum in Hendon. This venue has the advantage of FREE parking and easy access from the M25, M1 (junction 4 Southbound), A41, A5 and the North Circular (A406).

This is a well established honey show which dates back to the 1920s. The National has set very high standards in the competitive classes, which means competitors have to follow the rules very carefully and pay attention to every detail; you only make the judge’s job easier by not doing so.

Every year I hear a number of competitors say “I will never show at the National again - the judge was wrong”. If it’s any consolation it was five years before my honey was good enough to win first prize at the National. This may be a controversial opinion: aren’t beekeeping associations at local honey shows supposed to challenge their members so that they are prepared and know the standards expected to compete at national level?

Why be disheartened if your exhibits fail to win prizes? Learn from your mistakes and look at the positives and you will do better the following year.

Did you notice that the Dexion honey stands have gone and have been replaced by new aluminium display units? This represents a £2000 investment by the National Honey Show. The new honey stands were only just ready in time. The new stands have reduced the show setting up time considerably which will have a cost saving in the long term.

One other development in the NHS operations room was a new software package developed by Paul Kelly to manage the entries and prize winners' database; this was tested live for the first time. Paul was on site modifying his code as bugs were found and then squashed. I was impressed, what used to take a whole room of volunteers to do can be managed by just two in the fraction of the time.

My role at the show was to maintain the National Honey Show website and update it with daily images and make the results of the competitive classes available as soon as they were published. I was situated in exhibitor’s hall (Halton Gallery) which was viewable on our live webcam during the whole show.

Download the results of the competitive classes and the four winning essays "A strategy to increase the number of beekeepers" from the URL: http://www.honeyshow.co.uk/results.shtml

All visitors to the RAF museum can go in the National Honey Show traders/sales hall FREE of charge. If you wish to see the National Honey Show exhibition and/or attend the lectures (designed to interest mostly beekeepers) the daily entrance fee is 7UKP - payable at the National Honey Show booth in the main museum entrance.

One of the many benefits to becoming a National Honey Show member is the FREE advance copy of schedule the following year. For details of membership visit the membership page URL: http://www.honeyshow.co.uk/membership.shtml

More traders supported the show this year which filled up all available space in the hall, I heard that some traders reported doing better this year and others didn't do so well. I wonder if the slow down in the high street is also effecting beekeeping suppliers?

The lectures ran over the three day event which were all listed on the National Honey Show website. I went to Albert Knight's lecture entitled "Practical Aspects of Queen Rearing". Albert used a Power Point presentation and delivered a good talk to a packed lecture theatre. Printed notes were available at the end to take home, with permission from Albert we have reproduced them in the next article.

Practical Aspects of Queen Rearing - Notes of a talk given at the National Honey Show 2005

The content of this talk covers:-

Preparing colonies for queen rearing
Grafting tools and aids
Use of incubators
Types of mini-nucs
Overcoming the limitations of mini-nucs
Choosing and using mating sites

Preparing colonies for queen rearing
To rear good queens requires a strong colony with an abundance of nurse bees, plenty of pollen and open stores.

Preparing such a colony starts the previous season, for it should go into winter as a double brood box colony without a queen excluder and with a young queen and with an abundance of winter bees, by that I mean bees raised in August to October, for these are the bees that will kick-start the colony next Spring.

In Spring ensure the colony is healthy and the queen is present and in the bottom box and laying and with room to lay. Fit the queen excluder between the two brood boxes.

Once the colony has an abundance of nurse bees (that is newly hatched workers) and plenty of open brood, the colony can be made ready to accept transferred larvae.

The day before the larvae are to be given, go through the colony and rearrange the combs so that all the frames of open brood are in the top box together with frames of pollen and open stores. The queen should be caged while this is being done, or if the queen cannot be found then brush all the bees off the frames that are being transferred from the bottom box to the top box. The nurse bees will quickly move up from the bottom box to cover the open brood.

The bottom brood box should have some frames of drawn comb that the queen can continue to lay in. If there are frames of open brood left in the bottom box that cannot be accommodated in the top box, then the bees should be brushed from these and the frames given to other colonies.

The next day the bottom brood box is set up on its own on a new site facing the opposite direction on a new floor with a cover board and roof.

The top box stays on the original site. If grafts are to be given using cell cups the a frame of cups should be placed in the middle of the box, the cups having been lightly sprayed beforehand with a weak sugar syrup. The next day the frame of cups can be removed and larvae transferred into them. These are left for a minimum of 18 hours, then the two brood boxes are restored to their previous positions, that is the box with the queen in at the bottom, a queen excluder in place and the box with the grafts in on top.

Six days later the cells will be sealed and these can be removed and transferred to an incubator or to a cell finishing colony, or can be left as they are to go on to completion.

If an incubator in not being used then the cells can be used by inserting them into nucs on the 10 th day after grafting, or they can be left in the colony by caging the cells and allowing the queens to emerge. It is advisable to use the queens the same day by introducing them into nucs at the same time as the bees.

I’ve described in detail one method of queen rearing, but there are many variations using the natural forces that trigger bees to raise queens.

The set up may be designed as a one-off queen rearing event in the season if only a few queens are required, or it can be designed as a continuous cycle over several weeks to produce numerous queens.

This year we have used a continuous method we call the ‘John Harding’ method. This is based on a system similar to one designed by one of our members, John Harding. This uses three units connected together by plastic tubing that allows free passage of workers from one unit to any of the others. Queen excluders are fitted to prevent queens from moving out of the boxes they are in. The centre unit is queenless and the two outer units are queenright.

A special cover board on the centre unit has rows of holes drilled to accept the type of cells being used. Prior to grafting the frames in the units are manipulated so as to give the centre unit frames of open brood and frames of pollen and open stores. The grafted cups are inserted into the holes in the cover board that previously had corks. The tubes are blocked by slides for 48 hrs to induce queenlessness.

Using this system we were able to remove the cups when the cells were sealed, or as we often did, remove them as started cells to give to visiting beekeepers after 24 hours then grafting again for our own use.

There are lots of variations such as the ‘Cloake’ method that can be used to raise queens but the basic principles are used by all of them.

Grafting tools and aids
There are a variety of tools that can be used for grafting, but fine tipped ones such as the Swiss gafting tool are the best.

A good light makes it easier to see larvae and a magnifier too is useful for aging eyes.

The larvae selected must be very small, not much bigger than an egg, these are actually easier to pick up than older larvae.

Use of incubators
These can be made by a handyman or purchased. An incubator is essentially an insulated box with a heater element controlled by a thermostat and a fan to ensure an even temperature throughout the unit. Water is necessary to give humidirty.

These should be run at 34˚ + or – 1 degree. Humidity should be between 60 – 70%.

The queen cells should be put into individual cages that have slots in the base to hold a small amount of liquid honey. This ensures that when the queens emerge they have access to food immediately.

As queens hatch they should be removed from the incubator as they quickly die in the high temperature. They can be kept for two days without worker attendants if required by placing them in a warm place such as an airing cupboard. Check daily that they still have food available.

Types of mini-nucs
There are the commercial nucs such as Apidea, Kirchhain and Warnholz. Small units can be made by dividing up brood boxes, or small nucs can be made with half frames that can be joined together to make full frames that can be put into standard brood boxes when required.

Overcoming the limitations of mini-nucs
Mini-nucs need certain requirements to ensure they function well. These include:-

The right amount of bees. 300ml for Apideas and 500 ml for Kirchhain and Warnholz.
Suitable food.
Positioning on the mating site near a natural marker such as a tree, bush of some othe feature.
Confinement after being made up for three or four days in a cool place.
Liberating on the mating site at dusk.
After the first queen is mated removing her leaving queenlees for a few days before inserting a ripe queen cell. Providing room for the second queen to lay.

Choosing and using mating sites
The aim should be to have a site that gives some degree of isolation.

This is not so difficult as one might imagine. One only has to look at a large scale map to see areas that are sparsely populated, this often means few beekeepers.

Moorlands are typical places that are often suitable as mating sites, that is until the heather is in bloom, but by then one can be finished for the season.

A mating site may be 50 miles away from one’s apiary, but can be worthwhile. Obviously full colonies that have been selected as good breeding stock have to be taken to the site, and the maintenance of these and attention to the nucs mean reqular weekly visits.

Ron Brown’s book on “Managing Apideas” and the “BIBBA guide to Managing Mini-nucs”.

In this article, David Eyre, a Canadian beekeeper offers some expert advice on one aspect that (at times) most frustrating of manipulations; Queen Introduction.

For as long as I can remember, and that really is a long time, I was always taught that on re-queening a hive, if there were queen cells then the incoming mated queen would eliminate them as a matter of course. I would like to state categorically, that statement is incorrect.

I breed queens as part of our operation and have done so for over 20 years, or at least I did until the United States Department of Agriculture changed the rules, making it virtually impossible to export queens into the USA from Canada, so would like to think I have some experience in this process.

As part of our business we re-queen a great many hives and never had a problem until I slipped up last year. I removed an unsuitable queen from a test hive, but only after giving her the hive tool test, found the queen I had earmarked to replace her had been promised to a customer. No problem, I would leave the hive to its own devices for a few days, and then replace her at the next mating.

It took a few days until I had a queen available, by which time cells had been made, but not sealed. From my teaching the cells would be removed by the new queen, so, being in a hurry, as always, decided to leave them.

I always check on queens after a few days, just to make sure things are as they should be, only to find no eggs. Lots and lots of sealed brood, good pattern, but no eggs or open larvae whatsoever.

Obviously something was badly amiss, so I proceeded down through the hive and found an opened emerged queen cell. Looking even further I could not find a queen anywhere, and as virgins are not easy to find in a big hive decided to wait. We do, as standard practice, mark all our queens with the current year colour, so would recognize anything I found. I calculated backwards and concluded that one of the cells had emerged but had not mated or started laying yet.

This now involved a wait until the virgin was mated then starts to lay, after which time she could be found and replaced, which was the final outcome.

Reading up on my notes over the winter piqued my interest, it was against all my teachings. Therefore, I decided this year to repeat the original mistake just to prove a point.

So earlier this year I made the same ‘mistakes’ and sure enough got the same results.

The moral of this little tale, ‘remove all’ queen cells before introducing a mated queen, contrary to what the ‘book’ says. David Eyre

I write this article as an explanation to those of you who have seen worker honeybees in your gardens with dabs of blue paint on their thoraxes. Far from it being an experiment by the celebrated Rothamstead Institute, these bees are not the hapless participants in a scientific study, the truth is far more disturbing.

Despite my efforts in raising him for the last 17 years, it seems that my son’s strength of character has managed to withstand virtually all of the moulding and enforcement I have subjected him to. I have tried various techniques and psychological ploys to understand his workings; I pretend to like his music which irritates him, and I say enthusiastic things when he dyes his hair which maddens him more than the music liking. Therefore, returning home one evening, to a smell pervading the house which was, shall we say, distinctively herbal, I knew not to fly-off the handle; recognising all the signs of a ‘teenage experimental period.’

Having dispatched his friend Craig from the house I entered my son’s bedroom with the intention of having a frank and honest chat about the use of drugs, recreational or otherwise, despite my frustration, I decided not to go in too heavy handed. It seems that I am not so up to date on the facts and figures surrounding the issue of drugs in our society. Schools these days have decided that rather than teaching our youngsters their times-tables, or the history of our Kings and Queens , or even basic grammar, they should teach them about drugs, drink and the birds and the bees. Actually, they don’t even teach much about bees at all, most of the teenagers I meet have never even heard of Snelgrove: shocking.

I was duly informed by my son, whose pupils were the size of dinner plates, and who kept sniggering, that marijuana had been decriminalised and that it was ok to have an amount that could be considered to be for ‘personal use.’ I reminded him that his time in my house would soon be up unless I was allowed to confiscate his entire stash of skunk (as he called it.) Being an honest chap and respectful of his father’s wishes he handed over a small bag of greenish substance before saying something about it being his first time, something else about me being ‘way cool’ (which made me forgive him in an instant) and declaring that he had a strong desire to eat and made off for the fridge.

I caught up with him some moments later and between his devouring almost a whole loaf, a jar of blackcurrant jam and three chocolate bars he described to me the effects that he was feeling. ‘Chilled out,’ was how he described it to me, ‘seriously relaxed,’ he uttered. Admittedly he did look fairly relaxed with his various limbs dissolved over the kitchen work surface. I suggested he went to sleep it off and told him that we would have a more serious chat in the morning when he was more ‘himself.’ He tricked me again by saying that Craig also thought that I was ‘way cool’ and traipsed off to bed.

I was in quite a predicament of course as I was now in possession of an amount of decriminalised substance that could have been a class-A drug for all I knew. One thing did stick in my mind though, the fact that this drug, when smoked induced a feeling of ‘relaxed euphoria.’ I had recently received a colony of bees as an unexpected ‘present’ from Tom Bartle who knew that I was keen to build up stocks. This present was not all it seemed as it turned out to be the most vicious colony of bees that I had ever chanced upon. Their stingers made sting proof gloves appear to be made of silk and they had an alarming burrowing ability which should be added to the list of undesirable traits found in bees. The ability to burrow down ones socks, glove ends and up ones top should certainly be on a level with traits like following, general bad temper and running to the edges of combs.

Just as a little experiment I thought, why not get rid of the marijuana and see if it has any calming effect on my bees, all in the pursuit of good science you understand. I was quick to phone John Chamberlain and explain the situation: he was keen to watch the procedure. Some minutes later we were approaching the hive down wind so as to catch them unawares. The marijuana had successfully lit first time and produced a thick bluish smoke. I puffed the smoker generously into the entrance and awaited the rush of guards that had issued during the last aborted mission to enter the hive which had emptied itself of bees in a matter of seconds. There were so few bees at the entrance this time that I wondered whether the colony had actually absconded.

There was now a good deal of smoke in the vicinity of the hive, it wasn’t an unpleasant smell at all, and John commented on its pleasant aroma, so pleasant was the smell that John suggested I give the bees another few squidges of smoke. This I did. We puffed the smoker again as we timidly went to lift the hive lid. The crown board came off to reveal very little space for the cramped bees which were all just sat there, unmoving. They appeared to be paralysed. We had placed the smoker to one side while we removed the two supers and made our way to the brood box. We were unaware that from this position, the smoke from the smoker was rising from the spout and drifting over us while we worked.

I remember finding something very amusing, for the life of me I can’t remember what. Then John burst out laughing. His laughter fuelled my own and the fact that we had no idea why we were laughing made it all the more funny. ‘Let’s find the queen and mark her!’ chuckled John. Then a thought came to me that I considered so funny that my desire to laugh made it impossible to speak: impossible to breathe even. With the last ounce of air in the bottom of my lungs I managed to gasp,

And so we did. We both had marking kits on us and set about our insane task without any thought as to its merit. Lord knows how long the two of us stood there dabbing thoraxes with blue varnish. Any bee that showed the slightest sign of movement was given another squidge of smoke. I think back in amazement at our transformation. Rather like lobsters being slowly cooked from cold water we were completely unaware of our gradual yet complete intoxication.

It may well be that I had discovered the most perfect smoke to use on honey bees; I would just have to alter the method of smoke application. I awoke the following morning, rather dazed and confused on the lawn. My wife had not been too alarmed as I had looked ‘comfortable’ and so left me in situ. John however, whom she had found asleep on the compost heap was given a bed for the night: fortunately few questions were asked.

Despite marijuana smoke being so effective in calming the bees down, I would have grave reservations over its wider use owing to the possible contamination of the honey by residues of the drug. Legality is another minor issue. With regard to the bees from the hive that we smoked, I noticed no lasting effects in their behaviour through subsequent manipulations. I will of course be playing no further part in the testing of any drugs on my bees in future; despite this John has told me that he is conducting trials by himself using the dried leaves of opium poppies. Chad Cryer

Pleasures may be divided into six classes, to wit, food, drink, clothes, sex, scent and sound. Of these, the noblest and most consequential is food: for food is the body’s stay, and means of preserving life. (al-Baghdadi, Arab philosopher). We will all have our opinions on that, but here is a recipe that may prove the saying.

There are many ‘cake’ recipes that use honey instead of sugar but in these, honey is a secondary ingredient. In this recipe the actual cake is a honey cake. This is an Andalucian recipe derived directly from medieval Arabic cookery, Andalucia of course being a centre of Arab culture in the middle ages.

You will need:
300g white flour.
150g butter and another 100g of butter.
2 egg yokes.
salt, pepper and saffron.
250ml honey.
50g chopped almonds and pine nuts.

Mix flour and salt and the 150g of butter.
Add the saffron (after steeping in hot water) to the egg and mix into the flour making a stiff dough.
Roll out and cut into shapes.
Melt some butter in a pan and add some honey.
Fry the dough shapes slowly and when browned sprinkle with nuts and almonds. Then turn them and repeat. Be careful you don’t burn the mix. Keep as low a heat as possible to do the job.

This month's Fact File is in the form of a letter from Graham White that gives factual and well set out information on the confusing and not well understood subject of Imidacloprid. Ed.

This article is written by Graham White which is a digest of his letter sent to the UK Advisory Committee on Pesticides with regard to a systemic insecticide called IMIDACLOPRID.

Imidacloprid is produced by Bayer Crop Sciences and marketed in the UK under a variety of trade names including:

• 'Chinook' for seed dressing of oil-seed rape seed.
• 'Gaucho and Montur' for seed dressing of sugar beet seed.
• 'Prestige' for dressing of potato seed before planting.
• 'Confidor' for treatment through irrigation water in greenhouses (ornamental plants, tomatoes, cucumber and sweet pepper).
• ' Merit Forest' for treatment of forest plants against insect attacks.

I have confirmed the widespread use of 'Chinook' for oilseed rape and for sugar beet but have not been able to find out whether it is also used for potato sets, commercial greenhouses and forest plantations.

1. As a beekeeper I am concerned that we are beginning to see evidence of unusual collapse of bee colonies in the UK.
2. As a conservationist I am concerned that the large scale use of this highly toxic, systemic and persistent insecticide in the UK is effectively sterilising fields of all soil-invertebrate life including: earthworms, beetles, ladybirds, butterflies, moths etc. This has profound ecological implications, especially for insectivorous birds and mammals.
3. Imidacloprid is highly persistent in the environment and is absorbed into all parts of the crop-plant: pollen, nectar and seeds. If collected by bees it is progressively concentrated in honey as the nectar is evaporated. It seems likely that it will be present in sunflower and rape-seed oil, - even if in small quantities. As a neuro-toxin this may have implications for the food chain and human health.

Banned in France - Approved in the UK?
I became aware of Imidacloprid due to articles about massive loss of bee colonies in France, Switzerland, Sweden and Canada. I append a number of articles from government agencies, bee-research laboratories and other sources in those countries. Beekeeping is a very large and influential industry in France and concern at the economic loss from colony-deaths was very widespread. Large demonstrations were held in Paris and intense lobbying went on. The outcome was that the use of Imidacloprid as a seed-dressing for sunflowers, oilseed rape and potatoes was banned in France and it remains so.

Situation in the UK
When I consulted the Pesticides Safety Directorate online database and searched for the term ‘Imidacloprid’ I found just one reference to its approval as a seed-treatment for sugar beet (do try searching yourself). This implied that the use of this insecticide here in the UK was rather limited. However, after a great deal more searching on other sites I found that it is actually used on a truly massive scale as the dominant seed-treatment for oilseed rape, marketed under the trade name ‘CHINOOK’ in the UK or 'GAUCHO' in France. This discrepancy in the PSD database seems odd and I have emailed them directly to ask why this is so?

The obvious question is: why does a pesticide that has been banned throughout France continue to be approved for very wide scale use across the UK ? Moreover, why is it so hard to find in the PSD database?

Impact on Beekeeping in the UK
Currently there is growing concern in the UK about the unexpected collapse of bee colonies in summer (a time when they normally thrive) and a sporadic incidence of failure of queen bees to mate or prosper. As yet the evidence is anecdotal and a national survey/ study is urgently needed but if the pattern follows that observed in Sweden, France and Canada, it seems a reasonable hypothesis that Imidacloprid may be a causal factor. Imidacloprid is a systemic insecticide which attacks the nervous system of all invertebrates; the target pests are flea beetles and wireworms etc but beneficial species such as bees, earthworms and beetles are also killed. The pesticide is dusted onto seeds before they are planted and is used on a worldwide scale on crops including: sunflowers, oilseed rape, potatoes, wheat etc.

French and Swiss researchers found that after Imidacloprid is dusted onto sunflower seed, or oilseed rape, it permeates the entire plant, including the nectar, pollen and seeds. The loss of bee colonies in France was concentrated in sunflower or oilseed rape growing areas. Imidacloprid only needs to be present at 10 parts per billion to kill bees outright. Bees exposed to 5 ppb simply do not return to their hives.

“Klaus Wallner confirmed in his study of Imidacloprid prepared Phacelia with a burden of 50 g/hectare, that the bee’s honey-sac average contamination was 5ppb and the pollen taken from the 'pollen baskets' of the bees contained 7ppb. The centrifuged honey contamination level could not (yet) be ascertained. The level was less than the 3ppb trace ability level for honey.

Clarification in France:
In a report issued by the French Agriculture Ministry it was stated: According to the sunflower variety the residues in the flower on the 65th day (at start of blossom period) varied between 2.5ppb (Pharon) and 8.7ppb (Natil). These values could possibly be higher at point of harvest. The sunflower pollen is contaminated at an average level of 3ppb (up to 11 ppb max.). In untreated plantings (sunflower, rape and corn), which were planted in Imidacloprid-contaminated-soil, up to 7.4ppb was detected in the flowers.

“The Bayer study produced a mortality rate due to Imidacloprid for bees as follows: The LD 50 (the lethal dose which kills 50% of test organisms within 48 hours) lay between 3.7 and 40.9 Nanogrammes of Imidacloprid per bee. Long term injury was investigated by Bonmatin. He achieved an LD 50 after 8 days by feeding individual bees an Imidacloprid/ sugar solution of 0.1 ppb. The substance showed itself to be highly toxic when delivered over time.”

Conclusion
I would be grateful if, in your capacity as a member of the Advisory Committee on Pesticides, you might raise this issue with your colleagues and convey to them the widespread international concern regarding this systemic pesticide, which has led to the ban in France and attempts to ban it in Canada. I append a number of documents and web site links. I would particularly recommend the PDF file from the 'Journal of Pesticide Reform' for a definitive scientific summary of ecological impacts and current lab research. Also the Swiss research appended as a PDF article is very concise. Graham White, 3 Oxenrig Farm Cottages, Lennel, Coldstream TD12 4EY

01890 882 713.

Update:12/10/05
I wrote to Dr Miles Thomas of the Central Govt Science Lab and asked him for current usage figures for Imidacloprid and formulations containing the chemical. See his reply below with figures which are not published yet but he seems happy to let us have them. I added the figures up and it comes to 734,203 hectares (over 1.5 million acres) of crops treated with Imidacloprid, or formulations including Imidacloprid in 2004. That is a truly massive amount of systemic insecticide. The actual report will give actual weights of pesticide involved.

"Hi Graham,
We have not yet published the report for the 2004 survey but it is nearly complete. We estimate the following seed treatment use:

Beta-cyfluthrin/imidacloprid mixture
OSR 311,620 ha
Linseed 22,821 ha
OSR or linseed grown on set-aside 31,815 ha (29,537 ha OSR)

Regards Miles
--
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr Miles R Thomas Phone: +44 (0)1904 462 410
Head, Pesticide Usage Survey & GTN: 5129 2410
Knowledge Management Systems Fax: +44 (0)1904 462 253
Central Science Laboratory Email: m.thomas@csl.gov.uk
Sand Hutton York YO41 1LZ Web: http://liaison.csl.gov.uk
----------------------------------------------------------------------"

HISTORICAL NOTE Back to top

Most books on bees at one point or another mention bee stings and what to do about them. Early beekeeping books were no exception and in this Historical Note, we take a look at the advice given in ‘An Account of Bees’ where a Mr Worlidge takes us through some cures that work and some that don’t. ‘An Account of Bees’ is taken from material extracted from the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Sciences and the whole is contained in Thomas Wildman’s treatise on the management of bees published in 1770. Myths abound on this subject to the present day with various potions sold off as sting cures by snake oil salesmen and as a child I always remember being told to put bicarbonate of soda on wasp stings and lemon or vinegar on bee stings (it may have been the other way round). I don’t suppose that either of them really did any good but I guess that as a kid, if you were told it would work, it generally did. But let us look back to the 1700s.

After talking about the use of the correct clothing and the use of herb-scented fans, the author goes on to tell us the following:

‘Oil of olives, or any mild oil is thought by many to be a cure for the pain and inflammation arising from the sting of a bee; but repeated experiments have shewn that it fails oftener than it succeeds. It seems probable that the success sometimes met with was rather an accident rather than a cure; for there are many people to whom the sting of a bee does not occasion any pain or inflammation: some men disdain to use the least precaution, even when they are sure of many stings. There are perhaps many other remedies which owe their reputation to similar causes. Vinegar is equally unsuccessful; bruised parsley is thought by many to give ease; Mr Roque of Walham-green, says that being stung even by a wasp, the leaves of burnet, rubbed pretty hard upon the part so injured, immediately took off the inflammation. Honey, which may be got out of the body of the bee, which inflicted the wound, is thought to be a good cure. Indigo dissolved in water, has been found effectual; as have the juices of the succulent leaves of vegetables, renewed as often as they grow warm, and some recommend as the most sure remedy, to heat a piece of iron in the fire, or, for want of it, to take a live coal, and to hold it as near and as long to the place as you can possibly endure it. One necessary caution is, to pull out the sting from the wound as soon as possible; for the longer it remains in it, the deeper it pierces, owing to the peculiar make of the sting itself’.

This poem is taken from Hiawatha by HW Longfellow and describes the arrival of the European honey bee to America. And interestingly the arrival of the new plant ‘White Man’s Foot (Clover) which followed him and the bees. Similar mentions are made in Mayan folklore in Central America and Spanish chroniclers when writing down Mayan sayings often made references to the white man’s or stinging fly.

Whereso’er they move, before them
Swarms the stinging fly, the Ahmo,
Swarms the bee, the honey-maker;
Whereso’er they tread, beneath them
Springs a flower unknown among us,
Springs the White man’s Foot in blossom.

11th-13th November 2005 - Central Association of Beekeepers. The Autumn Conference of the Central Association of Beekeepers will be held in the Falcon Hotel, Stratford-upon-Avon. This is a wonderful opportunity to meet other beekeepers in congenial surroundings, with good food and hear a number of experts talk on a wide range of topics. The talks confirmed to date are: Biological Control of the varroa mite with pathogenic fungi, by Dr David Chandler, Warwick Horticultural Research International. Spatial Modelling of bumble bee populations by Dr Judith Osborne, Rothamstead. For details and to book contact Mrs MR English, 6 Oxford Road, Teddington, TW11 0PZ. Tel: 020 8977 5867 or E-mail norman.carreck@bbsrc.ac.uk http://www.cabk.org.uk/

Sunday 13th November 2005 - Integrated Varroa Management Workshop. Hosted by Melksham & District Beekeepers Association at Cooper-Avon Sports & Social Club, Melksham House, Market Place, Melksham, Wiltshire. Entrance Ticket £6.00. For more details Download Leaflet and Download Programme (Both PDF files which need Acrobat Reader 4+ to open).

13th - 18th November 2005 - International Beekeeping Congress 2005 India. Le Meridien Bangalore, India (Organized by: Century Foundation, Bangalore). On behalf of the Organizing committee of the International Beekeeping Congress, it is our privilege and honour to extend a warm invitation to you to participate in the deliberations of the scheduled congress to be held from November 13-18, 2005. The main aim of the congress is to bring together the beekeepers, honey traders and International Scientific Community involved in research and development of beekeeping for sustainable livelihoods and rural development. The proposed congress will disseminate advanced information on beekeeping for further improvement. Bangalore is a beautiful city, the capital of Karnataka in India. Karnataka has unique flora and fauna including important honeybee species. This congress will be an opportunity for the delegates to visit various biodiversity hotspots in the country. We are sure; the congress will present a unique opportunity to share the recent trends in beekeeping and development. Also, you can enjoy the wonderful hospitality of Indian people. The local organizing committee and Century Foundation will try their best to make your stay comfortable and enjoyable during the congress. We are looking forward to meeting you during the Congress. Organizing Secretary Chairperson – Scientific Committee Dr. V. Sivaram Email: info@cenfound.org Web: www.cenfound.org/IBC-2005/indexpage.html

Saturday 26 November 3pm - Kent Education Group Guest Lecture Celia Davis: Mr Bee. To be held at Langton Lecture Theatre, West Kent College, Brook Street, Tonbridge.
Celia Davis is the widely-respected author of ‘The Honey Bee Inside Out’ - a lively, detailed account of the anatomy and physiology of the honey bee presented in a clear and concise format. She has a degree in agriculture and has been ‘fascinated by insects’ since childhood. She has kept bees for over 20 years and gained her NDB in 1996 having previously won the Robert Hammond Award and the Wax Chandlers Prize. She spent six years on the BBKA Examinations Board, is a correspondence tutor and continues to lecture on beekeeping, insects and environmental aspects to a wide range of groups. Her talk to Kent beekeepers promises to be one of great interest. Mr Bee - This talk attempts to change the average beekeeper’s view of drones as useless, expendable members of the bee community. It will cover all aspects of the drone’s life and its importance to the colony. Drawing on her experience in beekeeping and her wide knowledge of the insect world Celia will relate the structure of the drone to its function, stressing how perfectly adapted the drone is to its role. She will also discuss aspects of the relationship between the life cycles of drones and Varroa.

The lecture starts at 3pm and there will be refreshments, a stand from Northern Bee Books and more. Doors open at 2pm. There are excellent parking facilities at the college, good links to the motorway and it is only a 10 minute walk to the mainline station and the town centre. The venue has disabled access. Tickets £3.00 available in advance and further information from Terry Hardy telephone 01622 832066 or email theresa.hardy@virgin.net Terry Hardy (Kent BKA) 6 Springrove Cottages, Goudhurst Road, Marden, Kent, TN12 9JU. Download Celia Davis Lecture Leaflet PDF

Saturday 25th February 2006 West Sussex Beekeepers' Association - 'Better Beekeeping' Convention at Brinsbury College, on A29 north of Pulborough. Speakers - Margaret Thomas and Paul Metcalf. Trade Stands. A superb day of beekeeping with four excellent lectures. Tickets £6 in advance (£8 on the day) from Derek Yates, Longton, Shipleey Road, Southwater, RH13 9BQ. Further information from John Hunt on 01903 815655 or email john_bateman_hunt@hotmail.com. Download Full Details PDF

20th - 24th March 2006 - Eighth Asian Australian Apicultural Conference 2006 Perth. Western Australia. For all information please visit the website http://www.beekeepingwestaus.asn.au or contact: Debrett's Conference & Event Management PO Box 441, Nedlands, WESTERN AUSTRALIA 6909 Telephone: +61 (08) 9386 3282 Email: honeybee@debretts.com.au

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Quote of this month

The quote for this month comes from one of the most well known entities of the 20th Century: “All we need is to be industrious, not like a machine but like the honey bee.”

NEW CDROM Back to top

Pollen Identification for Beekeepers. An Illustrated Key to accompany Rex Sawyer's Book.