British Bee Keepers Spring Convention 2013
The Spring Convention is a major event in the beekeeping calendar and probably Europe’s biggest national beekeeping event. With more than 30 lectures from international and leading UK speakers and 40 workshops and courses during the 3 day event, there is something for everyone, expert, improver, beginner and non-beekeeper.
Around 5pm today the apiary seems to be very quite and no activity. Hoping the weather improves.
About a dozen bees been out n about today at around 2.00pm weather has been around 2 degrees
Nectar and pollen are vital for the honeybees’ all year round life-cycle, from March to September.
If you are considering making plants and flowers available in your own garden for your bees, It’s a good idea to have at least two nectar- or pollen-rich plants in flower at any one time during this period. The nectar feeds the adult bee, while the pollen is collected to feed the young. Of course, the more flowers you have, the more attractive your garden is to bees, so you can never have too many!
The flowers and the arrangement of flowers in your garden are what attract honey bees and native bees. Bees like a diversity of bee-friendly flowers, with large patches of each kind of flower. They prefer a less manicured, more random garden—with weeds.
Here’s what you can do to make your garden more bee-friendly:
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FLOWERING TIME |
SUGGESTED PLANTS |
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March – May |
Bluebell Bugle Rosemary Pussy willow Lungwort Winter flowering heather
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June – July |
Aquilegia FoxgloveLaburnum ComfreyGeranium Lupin
Campanula Monkshood Ceanothus Birds foot trefoil Chives Thyme Cotoneaster Everlasting pea Honeysuckle Everlasting wallflower Sage Vipers bugloss Catmint |
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August – September |
Buddleia LavenderCornflower Rock-roseCentaurea Scabious
Delphinium Marjoram Escallonia Sea Holly Hollyhock Sunflower Heathers |
Bluebell, bugle, crab apple, daffodil, flowering cherry and currant, forget-me-not (Myosotis), hawthorn, hellebore (Helleborus corsicus,
H. foetidus), pulmonaria, pussy willow, rhododendron, rosemary, viburnum, thrift (Armeria maritima).
Aquilegia, astilbe, campanula, comfrey, everlasting sweet pea (Lathyrus latifolius), fennel, foxglove, geranium, potentilla, snapdragon, stachys, teasel, thyme, verbascum.
Angelica, aster, buddleia, cardoon, cornflower (Centaurea), dahlia (single-flowered), delphinium, eryngium, fuchsia, globe thistle (Echinops), heather, ivy, lavender, penstemon, scabious, sedum, Verbena bonariensis
Bees are four-winged, flower-feeding insects. They have enlarged hind feet, branched or feathered body hairs, and generally a stinger. Honeybees and bumblebees are the most common. Bumblebees are larger and stronger than honeybees. Bees are beneficial insects because they produce honey and pollinate crops.
The drones are lazy boys. Their only work is to mate with a queen and only the fittest few will get this pleasure. Otherwise they sit around the hive being looked after by the workers or hang round on the bee equivalent of street corners waiting for a young queen to come by. All summer they luxuriate. But when the weather gets cold the workers drive these passengers outside to die. And yes, its true that when a drone mates with the queen he dies in the act – but he dies smiling.
It is the thousands of worker bees who keep the colony going. From the day they are born they slave away without complaining; cleaning and guarding the hive, feeding the developing bee brood (babies), building the honeycomb, and collecting nectar to process into honey stores for the long winter when there are no flowers. The workers keep the hive cool in summer and warm in winter. And they communicate very efficiently too – they can tell their sisters where to find the best flowers, and the amount and quality of the nectar they will find there. They can tell if the queen is safe and if that new bee trying to creep in is a stranger from another hive coming to steal their precious honey.
Life Cycle
The honeybee goes through a number of development stages before becoming an adult. Whether it becomes a queen, a worker or a drone, all honeybees must make the transition through the four stages of metamorphosis; egg, larva, pupa and adult. The queen lays her eggs in the cells of the honeycomb. Fertilised eggs become workers (or a new queen) while unfertilised eggs become drones. The worker bees work hard feeding the rapidly growing larvae. Finally, the honeycomb cells are capped over so the larvae can spin their cocoons and pupate in private.
When the transformation from pupa to adult is complete, the young bee emerges from the cell to take its place in honeybee society. The process from egg to adult can take as little as 16 days for a queen or as long as 24 days for a drone. Once a worker emerges her life span can vary from just a few weeks to almost a year depending on the season, the food available and the work she has to do. The new worker bee is soft, fluffy and rather undeveloped. Over the next weeks various specialised glands will mature determining the work she does in the colony. The work includes cleaning, feeding the young brood, packing nectar and pollen in the cells, building wax honeycomb, guarding the colony finally graduating to nectar, pollen, propolis and water collection.
Honey
Honey is a thick liquid produced by certain types of bees from the nectar of flowers. While many species of insects consume nectar, honeybees refine and concentrate nectar to make honey. Indeed, they make lots of honey so they will have plenty of food for times when flower nectar is unavailable, such as winter. Unlike most insects, honeybees remain active through the winter, consuming and metabolizing honey in order to keep from freezing to death. Early humans probably watched bears and other mammals raid bee hives for honey and then tried it themselves.
Bees collect nectar from flowering plants and store it in their honey sac in their abdomen where, by the action of the enzyme invertase, it is partially converted to honey. When back at the hive, they pass it on to the house bees who continue this change after which it becomes honey. The honey is put into cells but because its water content is too high the bees need to fan dry air over it to evaporate excess water until its sugar content is about 80% at which point it is ready to be sealed into the cells by capping with wax. If stored in an “unripe” condition the honey will ferment. The average load of a foraging bee is 40mg. and may be taken from 100 to 1000 flowers. Each trip lasts between 1/2 – 1 hour and the bee might make 10 trips per day. Honey is used by the bees, along with pollen, to feed the colony. The bees will collect honey until the hive is full or the weather prevents them, this is exactly what the beekeeper wants as he can estimate how much honey the bees need to over- winter and how much he can take for himself.
It is necessary for bees to swarm in order to reproduce the species. There are believed to be several factors which cause the colony to swarm though it is not entirely clear whether just one factor or a combination of factors initiate the swarming instinct. Swarming normally occurs when the colony is at its numeric peak, therefore overcrowding and restricted ventilation are factors, but the main factor was discovered by a series of experiments conducted by Dr C. Butler. He found that the Queen bee produced a pheromone (Queen substance) from her mandibular glands that inhibit worker bees from making queen cells. The substance becomes spread all over the Queens body as she is groomed and is transferred to the workers. The bees then spread the pheromone to the rest of the colony. If the workers do not get enough Queen substance through overcrowding or because the Queen produces less as she ages then they will start to make Queen cells. Several Queen cells can be produced; quite often but not always, the first virgin Queen to emerge will kill the other Queens as they emerge from their cells.
January
The queen, surrounded by thousands of workers will be in a rugby-football shaped cluster in the hive. There is little activity except on a warm day when workers take the opportunity for making defecation flights. There will be no drones present, but some worker brood will be raised.
Little work is required at this time of the month. If the ground is covered with snow, shield the entrance to cut out the light and prevent workers flying and perishing in the snow.
Estimate less than one hour for the month.
February
The queen, still surrounded by workers in the cluster, lays a few more eggs each day. There are still only workers in the hive and again take occasional cleansing flights on warm sunny days.
Little work is required, other than prepare equipment which will be needed in May.
Possibly one hour for the month
March
This is the month when colonies can die of starvation. If the bees were adequately supplied in the autumn, this should not happen, but, it still does. With lengthening days, the queen steadily increases her rate of lay; more brood means more food consumed and the bees are not brining any nectar in.
On a fine day, when the bees are flying, you can take a quick look inside without disturbing the bees too much by removing the frames. If no sealed stores are seen, small quantity of syrup should be fed.
One or two hours during the month.
April
Hopefully, the weather will improve and some early blossom appears. Flowering currant (Ribes) is usually the earliest nectar yielder, but oil seed rape (OSR) crops flower at about the same time.
The odd drone should start to appear and the rate of brood rearing should increase dramatically to give rapid expansion of the colony. On a fine day when the bees are flying, find and mark the queen so that she can be recognised more easily later on. Put a queen excluder and super of drawn combs when necessary.
Two or three hours for the month.
May
With good weather, nectar and pollen can come in thick and fast. The queen will be reaching her greatest rate of lay and there should be brood across most of the brood box.
Add supers as necessary. Some honey can be removed; it must be removed if oil seed rape is grown nearby. Watch out for swarming preparations. Inspect hive weekly. Have a spare hive ready, and artificially swarm where necessary.
Five or six hours for the month.
June
Unswarmed colonies will be very populous. The queen’s rate of lay should drop.
If rape was worked by the bees the honey in the hive will need extracting, in which case care should be taken to ensure that the bees do not starve during the ‘June Gap‘. Keep up weekly swarm control inspections for unswarmed colonies; artificially swarm when necessary.
Five or six hours for the month.
July
If the weather is good the main nectar flow will occur. The hive population diminishes as the queen’s rate of lay drops. Drones are still present.
Add supers as necessary. Continue weekly swarm control inspections if still necessary. Possibly reunite colonies.Four to six hours per month.
August
The colony strength diminishes fast. Drones are still present. Outside activity is reduced ince there is little nectar available.
Swarm control inspections are no longer necessary. Possibly restrict the size of the entrance to prevent robbing by wasps or other bees. Replace the old queen with a new laying queen if one has been reared. Forget the bees – you can go on holiday! One or two hours for the month.
September
Drones are likely to disappear overnight.Hive population is much reduced. Queens often stop laying completely.
Remove the honey. Leave bees to their own devices. Start winter feeding towards the end of the month.
Two to three hours for the month.
October
Very little activity – the bees are preparing for winter.
Finish winter feeding. Put on the mouse guards. Check hive is secure for winter.
One or two hours for the month.
November
Even less activity. Bees will probably go into a cluster.
One hour for the month.
December
The bees are in a cluster.
Enjoy Christmas!
Nothing for this month.
Very quite in the apiary no activity from any off the hives, weather very cold and specials off snow this afternoon, hoping the weather changes and gets better as we need to check on the bees and there food supply.
Time 12.00 no activity from any off the hives all quite on the western front, hope this weather improves so we can enter the hives and see the food supply and see if we need to help the bees out with food.
Not long now just over a week away and myself and a few other un-registered bee keepers will be sitting the Introduction to Beekeeping Course on the 2th and 3rd of April 2013.
Local Beekeepers 