Apiary demonstrations useful for beekeepers to learn new skills

“As I write this report, there are gales blowing, driving rain and black clouds in the sky and I will still issue the warning that we are in the swarming season.

“Colonies have been building up reasonably well. Nucleus boxes which had small patches of brood in early April have, with feeding, produced more brood and will develop into honey productive colonies this summer. Larger colonies need close watching for the next couple of months. If queens are clipped, inspections should be carried out every nine or 10 days and with unclipped queens, every seven days. “The first inspections will be to make sure that the colony is developing satisfactorily, has enough food to last until the next inspection should the weather be bad and the bees unable to forage, and enough space for the queen to lay. It is generally reckoned that a colony needs about the equivalent of one brood frame of stores (5Kg) per week when it is raising brood. “The control of space is not so easily judged. The queen needs space to lay the 1500 eggs per day of which she is capable. To facilitate this, it is sometimes necessary to remove excess food from the brood nest and replace it with drawn frames or frames of foundation. Bees need space so that they can move around easily in the hive and can thus communicate with each other about the state of the colony. Bees also need space to store the unripe honey so that they can remove the excess moisture before storing it as ripe honey in storage cells in supers.

“My own rule is to add a super when bees are on seven frames in the brood chamber and then add further supers as they cover the frames on each super. Should there be a good flow of nectar from for example, the sycamore, bees can fill a super in as little as three days.

“This provision of plenty of space, coupled with a young queen, may well be enough to prevent the colony from making swarm preparations.

“The beekeeper should also be on the lookout for a colony making swarm preparations. Finding queens cells need not necessarily mean that the colony will swarm. The bees may have decided that the queen is deficient in some way and may build supersedure cells. These will be recognised by the fact there will five or less and they will be constructed on the centre of the brood frames. If this is the case, the beekeeper need not do anything.

“When swarm cells are built, they will be on the bottoms of the frames and will be numerous. Many beekeepers will use their hive tools to destroy all these cells as soon as they see them. This is not good beekeeping practice as (i) the queen may have already left with the swarm and there may be no other eggs/larvae upon which queen cells can be built, resulting in the slow decline of the colony as a colony without a queen is doomed (ii) the bees will promptly begin to build queen cells on the only larvae available to them i.e. older larvae which will result in inferior queens, known as scrub queens and the swarm will issue from the hive only days after the beekeeper thinks he has dealt with the problem.

“Instead of destroying queen cells, the beekeeper can make an artificial swarm. This will satisfy the swarming instinct which has developed in the colony.

“Ulster Beekeepers’ Association has made provision for the detection of the small hive beetle should it arrive in our apiaries. It is a very destructive beetle, the larvae of which destroy bee larvae and spoil anything with which they come in contact. It has reached central Italy and scientists believe it is only a matter of time before it reaches the British Isles. It can travel on bees imported into the country and on plant and fruit material. The UBKA has distributed to Associations small, flat, light, plastic corrugated traps into which the small hive beetles will crawl for protection from light. These traps are slid into the bottom of the hive on the open mesh floor and taken out on each inspection, put into a plastic bag and shaken to see what comes out. To receive traps for your apiary, contact disease Officer, Brian Richardson.

“Fermanagh Beekeepers’ Association held a very successful demonstration in the Apiary at the Enniskillen Campus of Cafre. Andrew Elliott demonstrated ‘reading’ the hive, pointing out the different types of bee i.e. workers, drones and the queen, showing varroa control by drone brood sacrifice and where honey and pollen are stored. There being no colonies making swarm preparations, Ethel Irvine showed, using empty hives and frames, a commonly used method of swarm control.

“Attendance at these apiary meetings and the skills learned is just as valuable to the beekeeper as is the knowledge gained from talks during the winter months.

“A reminder that the annual barbeque will be held on June 13, a change of date, with demonstrations in the Apiary beginning at 10am and the barbecue itself at 12.30pm. The change had been made necessary by the date for the Preliminary examinations being June 6 and the practical aspect will be at the Apiary. We wish the candidates all the best as they sit their first examination in beekeeping,” she added.

In the report for Fermanagh Beekeepers Association for the past month, Ethel Irvine comments on the changeable weather conditions which beekeepers have experienced in recent weeks.

“As I write this report, there are gales blowing, driving rain and black clouds in the sky and I will still issue the warning that we are in the swarming season.

“Colonies have been building up reasonably well. Nucleus boxes which had small patches of brood in early April have, with feeding, produced more brood and will develop into honey productive colonies this summer. Larger colonies need close watching for the next couple of months. If queens are clipped, inspections should be carried out every nine or 10 days and with unclipped queens, every seven days. “The first inspections will be to make sure that the colony is developing satisfactorily, has enough food to last until the next inspection should the weather be bad and the bees unable to forage, and enough space for the queen to lay. It is generally reckoned that a colony needs about the equivalent of one brood frame of stores (5Kg) per week when it is raising brood. “The control of space is not so easily judged. The queen needs space to lay the 1500 eggs per day of which she is capable. To facilitate this, it is sometimes necessary to remove excess food from the brood nest and replace it with drawn frames or frames of foundation. Bees need space so that they can move around easily in the hive and can thus communicate with each other about the state of the colony. Bees also need space to store the unripe honey so that they can remove the excess moisture before storing it as ripe honey in storage cells in supers.

“My own rule is to add a super when bees are on seven frames in the brood chamber and then add further supers as they cover the frames on each super. Should there be a good flow of nectar from for example, the sycamore, bees can fill a super in as little as three days.

“This provision of plenty of space, coupled with a young queen, may well be enough to prevent the colony from making swarm preparations.

“The beekeeper should also be on the lookout for a colony making swarm preparations. Finding queens cells need not necessarily mean that the colony will swarm. The bees may have decided that the queen is deficient in some way and may build supersedure cells. These will be recognised by the fact there will five or less and they will be constructed on the centre of the brood frames. If this is the case, the beekeeper need not do anything.

“When swarm cells are built, they will be on the bottoms of the frames and will be numerous. Many beekeepers will use their hive tools to destroy all these cells as soon as they see them. This is not good beekeeping practice as (i) the queen may have already left with the swarm and there may be no other eggs/larvae upon which queen cells can be built, resulting in the slow decline of the colony as a colony without a queen is doomed (ii) the bees will promptly begin to build queen cells on the only larvae available to them i.e. older larvae which will result in inferior queens, known as scrub queens and the swarm will issue from the hive only days after the beekeeper thinks he has dealt with the problem.

“Instead of destroying queen cells, the beekeeper can make an artificial swarm. This will satisfy the swarming instinct which has developed in the colony.

“Ulster Beekeepers’ Association has made provision for the detection of the small hive beetle should it arrive in our apiaries. It is a very destructive beetle, the larvae of which destroy bee larvae and spoil anything with which they come in contact. It has reached central Italy and scientists believe it is only a matter of time before it reaches the British Isles. It can travel on bees imported into the country and on plant and fruit material. The UBKA has distributed to Associations small, flat, light, plastic corrugated traps into which the small hive beetles will crawl for protection from light. These traps are slid into the bottom of the hive on the open mesh floor and taken out on each inspection, put into a plastic bag and shaken to see what comes out. To receive traps for your apiary, contact disease Officer, Brian Richardson.

“Fermanagh Beekeepers’ Association held a very successful demonstration in the Apiary at the Enniskillen Campus of Cafre. Andrew Elliott demonstrated ‘reading’ the hive, pointing out the different types of bee i.e. workers, drones and the queen, showing varroa control by drone brood sacrifice and where honey and pollen are stored. There being no colonies making swarm preparations, Ethel Irvine showed, using empty hives and frames, a commonly used method of swarm control.

“Attendance at these apiary meetings and the skills learned is just as valuable to the beekeeper as is the knowledge gained from talks during the winter months.

“A reminder that the annual barbeque will be held on June 13, a change of date, with demonstrations in the Apiary beginning at 10am and the barbecue itself at 12.30pm. The change had been made necessary by the date for the Preliminary examinations being June 6 and the practical aspect will be at the Apiary. We wish the candidates all the best as they sit their first examination in beekeeping,” she added.