Reigate Bee Keepers Association (RBKA) BBKA Basic ... · Aston & Bucknall 2010 Keeping Healthy...

For the sole use of RBKA members. Not for further publication in any form. 2017 Revised Edition ©A.Cornwall 1

Reigate Bee Keepers Association (RBKA)

BBKA Basic Assessment Syllabus Notes 2017

These syllabus notes are intended only as an extra guide & set of notes. They should in no way reduce the reading of appropriate beekeeping texts. The key general sources used to compile these notes are listed below. The more specialist sources used are listed at the start of the relevant syllabus points. Please do not pass these notes on to non-RBKA members, as they contain links to our members’ only website. These notes are designed to help prompt discussion of the weekly themes during the active season at our teaching apiary, Henfold Copse.

My thanks to the RBKA members on Hive H for helping me trial some parts of these notes and to Celia & Bob for their advice. All comments are entirely my own & do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the RBKA Executive Committee or its members.

Andrew Cornwall, Hive H Tutor. July 2013

In 2017, BBKA has a new Basic syllabus and just in time, I’ve written revised notes to go with it. Some major changes and a whole lot of renumbering. 5 sections down to 4. Beware! You now need to at least pass in each of the 4 sections. Watch out for my revised handouts, only available at Henfold. Many thanks for all the requests for me to produce revised notes & handouts. Your kind comments have been much appreciated. Glad that fellow hive tutors are finding them as useful as those taking the Basic assessment. This is the 4th edition of my notes, built upon my increasing knowledge as I work my way through the BBKA modules and the feedback on the first three editions.

Andrew Cornwall, RBKA Education Coordinator. April 2017

Language Used by the BBKA Education & Husbandry Committee

The syllabus setters take great care, we are told, in their choice of language. They employ a pyramid structure to all of their educational work. The Basic syllabus is so worded as to give a good indication of the level of knowledge required for each syllabus point.

Explain / Detailed Description High Level of Detailed Knowledge

Demonstrate Step By Step Knowledge of Process

Describe More Detailed Knowledge

Elementary Account / “Key Words” & Some Description Detailed Knowledge

Aware Basic Headline

Knowledge

The principal challenge in writing any study notes is to get the level of detail balanced right. Too much detail and you burden students with more than they need and scare them without cause. Too little detail and you don’t give them enough in order for everything to hang together & make a complete picture. I hope that you will find that I’ve achieved the perfect balance. As with all assessments & exams, read the syllabus carefully to make sure that you know just what they require & to what depth of knowledge.


Key General Sources: BBKA Website: www.bbka.org.uk Assorted Information Leaflets www.bbka.org.uk/learn/general_information/useful_leaflets_to_download Basic Syllabus www.bbka.org.uk/learn/examinations__assessments/modules BeeBase (National Bee Unit) Website: www.nationalbeeunit.com Comprehensive top quality information on honeybee management, pests & diseases RBKA Members’ Website: http://rbkbblog.com Knowledge Base articles http://rbkbblog.com/knowledge-base/index/ Books in RBKA Library: http://rbkbblog.com/books/ Aston & Bucknall 2010 Keeping Healthy Honey Bees Dadant (Ed.) 1975 The Hive and the Honey Bee (Revised Edition).

This vast tome contains way too much information for the Basic. I’ve listed it because I’m finding it very useful for the BBKA modules, as they delve into far greater depths on aspects of beekeeping.

Davis 2014 The Honey Bee Around & About (2nd Edition) Davis 2014 The Honey Bee Inside Out (2nd Edition) Hooper 2010 Guide to Bees and Honey (5th Edition)

Contains far more detail than you need & is now very much out of date. Morse & Flottum (Eds.) 1997 Honey Bee Pests, Predators & Diseases Wedmore 1932 A Manual of Beekeeping

A remarkable book that’s still very useful & relevant today. Organised like a thesaurus, it explains simply & clearly all sorts of manipulations & other beekeeping practices.

Yates & Yates 1996 Beekeeping Study Notes for the BBKA Basic Certificate Handy bite size sections, but contains far too much detail that you simply don’t need to pass

the Basic. Also now well out of date. Yates & Yates 2002 Beekeeping Study Notes for the BBKA Certificate in

Beekeeping Husbandry Inevitably, there is a lot of useful information in this book. The General Husbandry Certificate

covers much the same ground as The Basic, at very much greater depth. Other Books (Not in RBKA Library): de Bruyn 2009 Practical Beekeeping (New Impression)

This book annoys me intensely, as it perpetuates the myth that skep hives were sulphured in order to extract the honey. They weren’t! It was only done to kill off pests & diseases. I started learning beekeeping as a kid from a very elderly gentleman, who had started beekeeping before: “Those American hives” (post-Langstroth’s discovery of Bee Space moveable frame hives) were widely introduced into the UK. Otherwise, Clive de Bruyn’s (pronounced “de Brain”) book is very informative.

Butler 1954 The World of the Honeybee (New Naturalist Series) Gordon 2007 Starting with Bees Gregory 2013 Healthy Bees are Happy Bees Seeley 1995 The Wisdom of the Hive: the social physiology of honey bee

colonies Seeley 2010 Honeybee Democracy Tautz 2008 The Buzz about Bees: biology of a superorganism Waring 2006 Teach Yourself Beekeeping

Much better written than Hooper. The book I started my beekeeping as an adult with. Winston 1987 The Biology of the Honey Bee

http://www.bbka.org.uk/

http://www.bbka.org.uk/learn/general_information/useful_leaflets_to_download

http://www.bbka.org.uk/learn/examinations__assessments/modules

http://www.nationalbeeunit.com/

http://rbkbblog.com/

http://rbkbblog.com/knowledge-base/index/

http://rbkbblog.com/books/


1. MANIPULATION AND EQUIPMENT - PRACTICAL

Demonstrated, Practiced & Tested on each week at Henfold Copse The Candidate will be aware of: 1.1 the care needed when handling a colony of honeybees;

Calm, deliberate, gentle movements

Keep hands at sides of boxes & not repeatedly going over the frames

Know why you’re manipulating a colony & get on with it, without sacrificing gentle handling or thoroughness

Unexpected vibrations upset bees, so don’t bump or bang the hive

Don’t puff smoke directly onto the bees, let it gently drift across where you want it

Don’t be a nuisance to neighbours or livestock (see sections 2.7 & 2.8) 1.2 the reactions of honeybees to smoke; Smoke makes them take honey or nectar on board in order to be able to abandon the hive & build a new brood nest somewhere else. The theory is that thus engorged, they cannot bend so easily & so cannot sting so easily. Personally, I suspect it’s got more to do with post-Sunday lunch lethargy syndrome. An alternative in hot weather is to use a cheap plastic water sprayer (more usually used for pot plants). Smoke can really bother them in hot weather & water sprayed in the air will calm flying bees. A small amount sprayed onto the frames will also relieve the colony of having to bring in water in order to cool the hive down. My test for using a water sprayer is if it’s uncomfortably hot in a full bee suit, it’s time to use a water sprayer. I usually light a smoker as well and use it to gently smoke them first. 1.3 the personal equipment needed to open a colony of honeybees and the importance of its cleanliness; Essential Personal Equipment:

Clean bee suit & veil

Disposable gloves & spare ones, so that you can change after inspecting any diseased colonies or when you get propolis all over them

Hive tool

Smoker, fuel & lighter or matches

Container for brace / burr comb

Bucket with washing soda & water solution in it and brush

Hive record cards & pen / pencil Desirable Personal Equipment:

Water sprayer (in hot weather)

Bee brush

Icing sugar & shaker

Queen cage or clip Occasionally Required Personal Equipment:

Queen marking pen

Sprung scissors to clip queen’s wing


Importance Of Cleanliness:

Beekeepers are big pest & disease vectors

It’s important not to spread pests & disease between different hives in an apiary or beyond that apiary

A bee suit or veil that is not clean may initiate an attack by a colony, if it retains any trace of alarm pheromone

Disposable gloves are now recommended as it’s impossible to get other types absolutely clean

The barrel of a smoker gets hot enough to kill any pathogens, but don’t forget to thoroughly scrub the bellows with washing soda solution

Don’t forget, our bees are producing ingredients that will be going into the human food chain! Cleanliness & good hygiene is required at all times

1.4 the reasons for opening a colony; Occasional Circumstances:

Because you notice dead bees in front of the hive & suspect poisoning or disease

On hefting the hive during the winter, you decide you need to feed it

To treat with oxalic acid during the winter broodless period

To check on / complete a management technique (e.g. uniting two colonies)

A notifiable pest or disease has been reported in your area & you need to do a thorough check of your hives for any signs of that pest or disease

To top up a feeder with sugar syrup or add other feed (fondant or pollen) Weekly Manipulations In The Active Season: SQuiSSH

1. Stores - Does the colony have enough to last them until the next inspection, without any income? 2. Queenright - Is the colony queenright & is she laying well / normally? Think about

the brood pattern. Is the amount of brood increasing or decreasing? 3. Swarming - Are there any signs of swarm preparation? 4. Space – Is there enough space:

a. For queen to lay in? b. For nectar to be processed into honey? c. For the whole colony, including all foragers, overnight?

5. Health - Is the colony healthy? Think about all possible pests & diseases 1.5 the need for stores;

Pollen = protein, minerals, trace elements & fats

Nectar = carbohydrates

Pollen & nectar or honey is consumed by workers & drones in the colony every day

Stores are not just for over-wintering, but also to see them through bad weather & periods of zero forage (e.g. the ‘June Gap’)

Pollen is essential for brood rearing; so they need a stockpile to ensure that they can produce an uninterrupted supply of brood food & royal jelly for the queen

1.6 the importance of record keeping.

Record of all medicines administered (legal requirement!)

Must be kept for 5 years minimum

To enable swarm control techniques to be carried out effectively

To help prevent the spread of diseases


To remind you to prepare & take equipment, feed etc. at the next manipulation

To avoid confusion, especially when you have more than one colony

To identify the best queens to breed from

To be able to review your year & plan for the next year

To highlight aspects of beekeeping to learn about

To progress & not just simply repeat your 1st year of beekeeping over & over again The Candidate will be able to: 1.7 open a colony of honeybees and keep the colony under control;

Check landing board & ground first – for any signs of disease or poisoning

Only smoke the colony lightly. They want to see that you don’t automatically try to ‘beat them back’ with smoke

Proceed calmly & gently. There is no hurry! This is NOT a timed assessment

Listen to your assessor & follow instructions!

Wash your hive tool in the washing soda when you come off the hive

Put a twist of grass in the smoker’s spout & lay it on its side. This is the one time when it’s o.k. to leave it for someone else to sort out. Your assessor will want to get on & finish your assessment

1.8 demonstrate lighting and the use of the smoker;

Remember to never light your smoker with your veil over your head!

Once it’s alight, put some grass inside the lid of the smoker to catch any sparks & to cool the smoke down

Smoke the hive entrance & underneath the OMF, then wait for a couple of minutes before going in. Give the smoke time to percolate through the hive & take effect

Only smoke the colony lightly. They want to see that you don’t automatically try to ‘beat them back’ with smoke

Don’t puff directly onto the open hive. Instead, let the smoke drift across the required area

If the bees well-up or cover the frame lugs, gently smoke them to send them back down into the hive

1.9 demonstrate the use of the hive tool;

Remember to keep it in your hand at all times

Don’t keep passing it from one hand to the other right over the top of the frames

Use it carefully to separate hive parts, including when lifting off the crown board & the queen excluder (QX). Make sure you don’t ping the queen off into the grass by just lifting the crownboard or QX

Gently separate the frames

If you come across a lot of brace comb & / or propolis, you can explain that you would normally use the hive tool to clean-up the frame / brood box etc. Don’t stop to do it in the assessment as it won’t be your usual hive & the assessor will want to move along


1.10 remove combs from the hive and identify worker, drone and queen cells or cups if present, and to comment on the state of the combs;

Worker cells are the vast majority & are the size of the shape embossed on the foundation that RBKA uses. Drone cells have an extended domed capping, as they are built on worker size foundation

Queen cells look quite different & hang parallel to the comb. They have a peanut shell / golf ball dimple looking exterior

Queen cups look like the caps on acorns and may or may not be the start of queen cells

Remember why we nowadays change comb at least every 3 years (see section 4.3)

If brood comb is dark, it’s older and darkened by old larval skins & detritus which the bees aren’t able to remove

If chewed around the edges by the bees, they’ve been creating passage ways so that they can more easily go from comb to comb rather than around the frames. This reduces the area that the queen can lay in or that stores can be put in. It may be a sign that there’s not correct bee space between some of the hive components

1.11 identify the female castes and the drone; Female castes:

Queen (may or may not be marked) - Longer abdomen with pointier bottom & longer legs than the workers

Workers – the vast majority of the bees in the hive

Drones (males) – fatter / chubbier than the workers, with larger compound eyes which meet on top of head; so the 3 ocelli (simple eyes) are further forward on top of the head than on the workers 1.12 identify brood at all stages;

Brood in all stages (BIAS) o Unsealed = Eggs & Larvae o Sealed = Capped Brood

If you can’t see eggs, you can explain where they probably are. Remember that the queen lays in an elliptical pattern on the frames; so that eggs will be next to the youngest larvae and also to where adults have newly emerged. Find the oldest plumpest larvae and work backwards over the younger larvae to the youngest and next to them should be eggs

Don’t stress about being able to see eggs or find the queen. Both skills will come to you in time, with patience & practice

Keep the frame over the hive at all times, so as not to drop the queen outside of the hive. Turn with the frame so that the best available light is coming over your shoulder, to give the best conditions for spotting eggs

Eggs are laid end on at the bottom of the cell, so you’re looking for something that’s about 1/3mm across if you look straight into the cells. Try looking at a slight angle with the light behind you

On day 2, the eggs lie down on their sides and so are much easier to see

Key words for larvae = ‘C’ shaped, pearly white, ribbed (segmented). Read up on the foulbroods and it will become clear why these features are important

Sealed brood should be capped with digestive biscuit coloured cappings (see section 1.13)


1.13 demonstrate the difference between drone, worker and honey cappings; Not so very careful with their language, after all. They mean identify!

Drone cappings on worker foundation are domed, as the drones need more room to metamorphose

Worker cappings should be slightly domed (convex), not sunken (concave)

All brood cappings should look a dry, digestive biscuit colour. If they don’t, start thinking about the foulbroods!

All brood cappings contain not just wax, but also pollen & propolis. This is: a) so that they are permeable, letting the brood breathe and b) the pupae know which way to orientate themselves so that they can eventually emerge headfirst as adults

Honey cappings are made just from wax. Depending on the forage, the colour can vary from brilliant white to a yellowy white; particularly if the colony is foraging on dandelions.

Honey is hygroscopic (absorbs water from the atmosphere) so the cappings have to be impermeable. Otherwise there’s no point in reducing the water content of nectar & turning it into honey so that it doesn’t ferment!

1.14 identify stored nectar, honey and pollen;

Nectar is uncapped and looks shiny in the cells. Water content is still over 20%, so it’s not yet honey

Honey has been capped over. See note on wax cappings in section 1.13

Pollen comes in a vast array of colours & shades. The majority are yellow/red/brown, making it easy to spot in the frames. It may look a bit shiny, as the bees add nectar &

gut flora to the pollen in order to breakdown the pollen grains before eating them 1.15 take a sample of worker bees in a match box or similar container; A demonstration of Mike Hill’s plastic bottle method will be done at Henfold, before you take the Basic & you can find this in the Knowledge Base section on the members’ website: http://rbkbblog.com/knowledge-base/index/

If you use a matchbox, make sure that you do it on a frame that does not have the queen on it

In order to give the best chance of detecting any disease present, you really want older bees. This is why we sample using Mike’s method when we do our clinics

You can check how many bees you have in the box by opening it part way whilst holding a Perspex sheet over the top

The bees must then be killed before submitting them for analysis. This is usually done by putting the box in a freezer overnight

The assessor will ask you to release the bees back into the colony after they have finished asking you about this syllabus point

1.16. state the number of worker bees required for an adult disease diagnosis sample;

30

Don’t worry, they won’t ask you to explain the statistical basis for this sample size. The syllabus clearly & simply says: ‘state’



1.17 demonstrate how to shake bees from a comb and how to look for signs of brood disease.

Double shake to clear all bees. It is essential to completely remove all bees so that you can see into all cells easily

1st shake = flying bees, 2nd shake = house bees & 3rd shake, if necessary = last few house bees

Hold horizontal with the light behind you and look for scales

NBU (National Bee Unit) now recommends twice yearly manipulations solely to check for brood disease (spring & autumn)

Remember the 3 key phrases for larvae: ‘C’ shaped, pearly white, ribbed

If the unsealed brood does not look like this, you’ve clearly got something wrong with your colony

If the sealed brood cappings look dark, sunken or waxy, start thinking about AFB!

If the brood cappings have been nibbled, leaving jagged irregular openings, the workers have been trying to remove brood. This hygienic behaviour may be due to pests (e.g. Wax moth or Varroa destructor) or disease (e.g. AFB or EFB). Some colonies fail to cap all brood cells; in which case the openings are regular & circular, not jagged edged. This seems to be a genetic trait of some colonies or it may be because there aren’t enough young wax making bees in the colony

1.18 name and explain the function of the principal parts of a modern beehive;

Roof

Crownboard (may contain porter bee escapes)

Supers with frames

Queen Excluder

Brood Box with frames (colony may be on double brood)

Open Mesh Floor (OMF)

Hive Stand The hive you use on the Basic may also include: Eke; Feeder; Reduced Entrance Block. Obviously, a WBC will also have lifts. You will not be put on a WBC for your Basic, unless you request this because you have WBC’s in your own apiary. 1.19 discuss the concept of bee space and its significance in the modern beehive; Identified to science by Rev. Langstroth in 1851, the concept of bee space made possible the easy use of moveable frame hives. Previously, moveable frame hives didn’t respect bee space & so used to get ‘gummed up’; making easy manipulation without damaging the combs impossible. Modern beehives utilise the concept of bee space & are constructed so that this space is left between all internal parts. Bees propolise any space less than 6mm (1/4 inch) & build brace or burr comb in any space larger than 9mm (3/8 inch). Hence, bee space is now considered to be 8mm (5/16 inch). All new hive boxes come with space of 10mm to allow for shrinkage (Gill Smith of Thornes, pers. comm.). Bees cannot enter a space of less than 6mm, so by using propolis they prevent pests hiding in crevices. A space wider than 9mm is harder to defend, so they build brace & burr comb to narrow any such space. Bees use double bee space in the brood box to enable them to work back to back on the combs.


1.20 assemble a brood frame and fit it with wired wax foundation; Download Details From Maisemore’s Or Thornes Websites:

Maisemore’s: www.bees-online.co.uk/downloads.asp

Thornes: www.thorne.co.uk/frame-assembly Notes:

11 pins, no more & no less!

Covered again in the Mock Basic

Ask your hive mentor if you want more practice at frame making 1.21 discuss spacing of the combs in the brood chamber and super for both foundation and drawn comb and methods used to achieve this spacing. The spacing is to produce bee space between all internal surfaces of the hive. You don’t need to memorise individual sizes for all frame types or adapters. Methods:

Metal or plastic ends for frame lugs

Self-spacing frames, e.g. Hoffman or Manley

Metal castellations for supers You can get wide ends for frame lugs & metal castellations with a variety of numbers of slots. This provides a means to spread out the super frames as the bees draw them out. Allowing for more honey to be stored per frame. Can produce attractive cut comb, but causes extra work when extracting by spinning the honey out.

http://www.bees-online.co.uk/downloads.asp

http://www.thorne.co.uk/frame-assembly


2. Natural History & Beekeeping – Oral Questions The Candidate will be: 2.1 able to give an elementary account of the development of queens, workers and drones in the honeybee colony; Queen

Egg laying machine

Produces queen substance (assorted pheromones) which causes the colony to be

cohesive, organised & settled

Can potentially last 5-6 years, but rarely more than 1-2 years these days Workers

Clean cells – days 1 to 3

Feed older larvae – days 4 to 6

Feed younger larvae – days 7 to 12

Wax production & comb building – days 13 to 18

Nectar processing (‘ripening’ into honey) – days 13 to 18

Thermoregulation (water evaporation to cool hive) – days 13 to 18

Pollen packing – days 13 to 18

Guarding (& orientation flights) – days 19 to 21

Foraging – days 21 to death (summer bees = c.6 weeks in total, winter bees = c.6 months)

All tasks closely follow development of the various glands. Whilst they cannot advance glandular development, they can regress it. For example, if there are not enough wax producers in a swarm to create a new brood nest some of the older bees will regress their wax glands to be able to create the wax needed

Nurse bees to roughly day 12. House bees until they start to forage, when they get referred to as Flying or Foraging bees

The progression of jobs above is from a handout from Celia Davis NDB for one of her workshops. Some books state that workers feed younger larvae first & then go on to feed older larvae. It doesn’t really matter for the Basic. What you need to remember is the list of jobs done in the hive. They are asking for an elementary description.

Almost no research has been done on this question of age polytheism. Professor Lindauer (a pupil of Nobel Laureate, Karl von Frisch) & some of his students once observed a single bee for 176 hours continuously, noting down exactly what she did. Perhaps it’s not surprising that no one has repeated this observational experiment!

Drones

Sole purpose is to mate

Accepted into any hive / colony &, therefore, are serious pest & disease vectors

Die on successfully mating

Survivors usually kicked out of the hive in the autumn

Published texts disagree as to whether or not they can feed themselves. Either way, they solicit food from the house bees


2.2 able to state the periods spent by the female castes and the drone in the four stages of their life (egg, larva, pupa and adult);

Beekeeping maths. It does need to be learnt!

Dade, Davis, Hooper, Snodgrass, Waring, Winston & the Yates all published slightly different tables of the lifecycles of honeybees. It’s important to pick one & learn it, but it’s also important to know why the number of days in each stage of each lifecycle can vary. Factors affecting this include: humidity in the hive, CO2 levels in the hive, the weather & the genetics of the mongrel honeybees you have in your hive

All are egg for 3 days, hatch to become larva, then have 4 larval moults before the cell is sealed, pro-pupa develops inside the fifth larval skin, then pupa moults to adult. So, egg = 3 days, larva until fifth larval moult, then pupa to emergence as adult (imago)

Days From Laying Of Egg:

Worker Queen Drone Hatching of egg 3 3 3 Cell sealed 8-9 8 10 Fifth larval moult to pupa 11 10 14 Pupal moult to adult 20 15 22½ Emerges from cell 21 16 24 Mature & Ready to Mate --- 20 37

Average Length Of Life As Adult:

Summer 36 days 3-4 years 22 days Winter 6 months

Both tables simplified from Hooper (p.31) 2.3 able to name the main local flora from which honeybees gather pollen and nectar; Aston & Bucknall 2003 Plants and Honey Bees: Their Relationships Howes 1979 Plants and Beekeeping (revised edition) Kirk 1994 A Colour Guide to Pollen Loads of the Honey Bee Mountain, Mary et al 2008 Garden Plants Valuable To Bees (reprint) Sawyer 1981 Pollen Identification For Beekeepers Not in RBKA Library: Kirk & Howes 2012 Plants for Bees You don’t need to remember the Latin names. I’ve just included them for the sake of clarity / identification. I’ve included a selection throughout the year and a mixture of wild & garden plants. The more beekeeping you do the more you will become aware of what your bees are foraging on. You just need to remember a few plants, which in total give you a year’s worth of forage. A Few Examples Of Local Flora That Produce Forage: Dec – Mar Christmas Rose Helleborus spp. Nectar

Winter Heliotrope Petasites fragrans Nectar & Pollen Feb - March Snowdrop Galanthus nivalis Pollen

Crocus Crocus spp. Pollen Gorse Ulex spp. Pollen


Goat Willow Salix caprea Pollen Hazel Corylus avellana Pollen

March - Apr - May Dandelion Taraxacum spp. Nectar & Pollen

Horse Chestnut Aesculus spp. Nectar & Pollen Hawthorn Crataegus monogyna Nectar & Pollen Oilseed Rape Brassica spp. Nectar & Pollen Top fruits (apples, pears etc.) Nectar & Pollen

June - July - Aug Bell heathers Erica spp. Nectar & Pollen

Blackberry Rubus fruiticosus Nectar & Pollen Clover Trifolium spp. Nectar & Pollen Raspberry Rubus idaeus Nectar & Pollen Viper’s Bugloss Echium vulgare Nectar & Pollen

July - Sept Rosebay Willowherb Epilobium angustifolium Nectar & Pollen Aug - Sept Ling heather Calluna vulgaris Nectar & Pollen

Michaelmas Daisy Aster spp. Nectar & Pollen Old Man’s Beard Clematis vitalba Nectar & Pollen

Sept - Oct - Nov Ivy Hedera helix Nectar & Pollen 2.4 able to give a simple definition of nectar and a simple description of how it is collected, brought back to the hive and is converted into honey; A Simple Definition Of Nectar:

“A sugary substance produced in the flowers of plants to attract pollinating insects and which is collected by bees to make honey.”

Chambers 21st Century Dictionary 2000 (reprint)

Collection:

Sucked up through the proboscis & carried back to the hive in the honey crop

Sucrase (an enzyme) is added to the nectar by the foraging bee. This starts the conversion of sucrose to fructose & glucose

The nectar is then passed to a receiver bee for ripening into honey Conversion Into Honey Is Two-Fold:

Chemical changes (e.g. disaccharide sugars to monosaccharides)

Physical change (evaporation of water to less than 20%, so that it doesn’t ferment)

2.5 able to give a simple description of the collection and use of pollen, water and propolis in the honeybee colony; Pollen:

Contains: proteins, minerals, trace elements & fats

Raked off the foraging bee’s body into its ‘pollen baskets’ & carried back to the hive

Packed into cells by house bees

Honey may be added as a preservative

Capped with wax, if part of winter stores (according to Yates)


Required to produce: queen’s food (royal jelly), brood food & as food for adult bees

Gut flora added by house bees when they want to start breaking down the pollen grains in order to use them

A colony uses 20-30Kg of pollen per year

An individual worker carries about 15mg of pollen / trip Water:

As with nectar, water is sucked through the proboscis & carried in the honey crop

Used for cooling the hive & controlling the humidity. It is spread around the cells & then evaporated by the house bees using their wing muscles

Ripening of the honey releases large volumes of water. Hence the need for good ventilation in the hive & the reduced need to collect water outside of the hive

Also used for the dilution of honey (to approx. 50/50) so that it can be consumed by the bees

Propolis:

Resinous substance secreted by many plants, particularly pine trees

Is NOT tree sap!

Bitten off by the mandibles

Carried back to the hive in the pollen baskets

Unloaded by a house bee

Average load per worker = c.100mg (0.1g)

Some races of honeybee are much more prone to collect & use propolis than others

Propensity to propolise the hive is often one of the factors chosen to select for or against when queen rearing

Uses: o to seal small crevices (less than 6 mm) o to reduce large openings. Name is derived from pro (before) & polis (city) as

many species of bee use it to reduce the entrances to their natural nest sites. Wax is used to reduce large spaces inside the hive to create ‘bee space’, but not at the entrance, as this would simply attract pests such as the wax moths

o to smooth the internal hive surfaces o to varnish brood cells o to strengthen comb (including where it attaches to the top of the frame or where

wild comb is attached to the roof of the cavity) o entombing pest intruders that are too large to evict from the hive, e.g. mice in

winter o to make a hive completely weather-tight

2.6 able to give an elementary description of the way in which the honeybee colony passes the winter. Preparation By Colony:

Collects a surplus of nectar & pollen to see it through the winter

Stores the nectar as honey, so that it doesn’t ferment

Adds honey to pollen and caps it with wax (according to Yates)

Drones usually evicted after the main flow

Large reduction in size of colony (down to about 10,000)

Production of winter bees with larger ‘fat bodies’ (stores of glycogen, fat & protein in the abdomen)


Winter bees live longer as they do less active work at the start of their lives (brood rearing, wax making, honey ripening, foraging etc.)

Over-Wintering:

Colony forms a cluster when outside temperature is about 14oC, which reduces the total surface area of the colony and, therefore, heat loss

The Yates quote 7.2oC (other sources range from 6-7oC) as the critical temperature at which bees become immobile

The queen is not necessarily in the middle of the cluster. She might cook if she was!

Colder bees on the outside of the cluster are replaced with warmer bees from inside the cluster

The cluster attempts to move around the brood box to stay close to the stores. If it becomes separated from the stores, there’s a risk of isolation starvation

A colony with low viral & pest loads, plus plenty of easily accessible stores, can survive temperatures of -35oC

Heat is generated by using their wing muscles

Panel asked at March 2013 RBKA winter meeting: “What is the minimum size of overwintering a colony?” Answer from Alan Byham (then our Regional Bee Inspector) was about 5 full frames in the autumn

Over-wintering bees only need to make cleansing flights every 6 weeks or so

Damp kills over-wintering bees far more readily than cold! 2.7 able to give an elementary description of how to set up an apiary; BBKA leaflet: Bees, Neighbours and Siting an Apiary www.bbka.org.uk/learn/general_information/useful_leaflets_to_download Choosing The Right Site To Start With

Is there going to be enough forage, throughout the year?

Water source o For the bees, that’s not going to be a nuisance to neighbours? (i.e. NOT their

paddling pools, swimming pools, ponds etc.!) o To clean equipment o To make up feed

Proximity to other people & animals / livestock o Do I need to put up a stock-proof fence?

Are any of the neighbours allergic to stings? They might not know if they are allergic!

Local climate / weather conditions o Is the site a frost pocket? o Risk of flooding? o Not underneath trees? Drips onto hive roofs will seriously annoy the bees! o Enough shade, but not too much? o Protected from prevailing winds?

Ground conditions o Muddy ground in wet weather? o Will hives be stable on this ground? o Do I need to put down paving slabs or other hard surface areas? o Do I need to supress weeds? o If there’s grass, will it still be easy to cut when hives are there?

Is the site easily accessible, year round?



Is there a hedge / fence to make bees fly up when they leave their hive? o If not, can one be installed?

Any other apiaries nearby? o What effect does this have on available forage? o & the spread of disease? Are the other beekeepers proficient?

Any footpaths or bridleways in the vicinity?

Are the hives going to be out of site? o Neighbours get very nervous when they see you in a full bee suit, having been

assured that the bees will be no trouble! o Hives can be painted to either stand out or to camouflage them

Where will spare equipment be stored? Layout & Available Space

Are the potential flight paths going to cause a nuisance to neighbours?

Is there going to be enough space around the hives to allow for easy manipulations? o Including for artificial swarms, splits etc.?

Is there going to be enough space to arrange the hives to prevent drifting? Health & Safety

Are the hives easily accessible with a barrow? Hive parts & full supers are heavy!

Risk of theft or vandalism?

Is the apiary isolated? o If so, how do you get an ambulance there? What’s the postcode? o Is there a mobile signal? How do you call for help?

BeeBase

Once there are bees in the apiary, you should register the site on BeeBase 2.8 able to describe what precautions should be taken to avoid the honeybees being a nuisance to neighbours and livestock; BBKA leaflet: Bees, Neighbours and Siting an Apiary www.bbka.org.uk/learn/general_information/useful_leaflets_to_download Apiary Set-Up

Make sure that all flight paths will cause bees to climb when leaving their hive & then fly away from neighbours (& their washing lines!) as far as possible

Have a water source away from any neighbours, which is always there. Bees get used to a source & remain faithful to it. Once they start using a neighbour’s swimming pool, it can be very hard to get them to stop. You can train them to a particular water source using thyme / thymol in the water

If an out apiary, mark each hive with your contact details

Consider painting your hives so that they don’t stand out & attract vandals or thieves Bees

Only keep docile colonies

Think ahead: what will you do with bad tempered colonies, in order to prevent them becoming a nuisance to neighbours? It won’t be enough to just kill the queen immediately, as there will still be her progeny for over 2 months in summer & even longer in winter (3 weeks to emergence, 3 weeks in the hive & c.3 weeks foraging =



c.9 weeks = c.2¼ months). You need a bolt hole to move the colony away to or be prepared to kill the whole colony

Husbandry

Always exhibit best handling techniques – calm, deliberate movements

Always employ husbandry best practice – particularly through regular monitoring for pests & diseases and use of IPM

Minimise swarms – also have bushes / trees in the apiary for swarms to collect on

Always know why you are going into a hive

Make manipulations short. Be quick, without sacrificing good handling or thoroughness

Only manipulate colonies in good weather

Be ready to feed, when necessary

Only feed / put wet supers back when all bees have stopped flying for the day

If feeding, feed all colonies in the apiary

Carry out regular inspections

Always wear a clean bee suit without sting pheromone clinging to it

Don’t manipulate hives whilst neighbours are out in their gardens A couple of jars of honey as a present when you do your summer extraction, will work wonders at smoothing over any nuisance you inadvertently cause with your bees. 2.9 able to describe the possible effects of honeybee stings on humans and able to recommend suitable first aid treatment; BBKA leaflet: Bee Stings www.bbka.org.uk/learn/general_information/useful_leaflets_to_download Riches 2003 Insect Bites & Stings: A Guide to Prevention and Treatment IBRA It’s essential to know the postcode of the apiary, in order to assist the ambulance service’s speedy arrival, should they be required. Henfold’s is on the inside of Portakabin 2’s doors & on the outside of the First Aid cabinet in the kitchen. Possible Effects Of Honeybee Stings:

Reddening of the skin

Itching

Localised swelling (takes about 12 hours to reach its maximum & 2 - 3 days to clear)

Anaphylaxis, symptoms may include: o Difficulty in breathing o Skin rash, rather than reddening o Heart palpitations o Vomiting o Faintness o Confusion

This will be followed by a drop in blood pressure, leading to unconsciousness. Death can result from circulatory collapse and/or respiratory obstruction. If possible, place the patient in the recovery position, loosen clothing around the neck, remove dentures & keep the person warm. Treat as a medical emergency & call immediately for professional help as soon as any signs of a general reaction rather than a localised reaction are spotted.



First Aid Treatment:

If in any doubt at all, or if there are any definite signs of anaphylaxis, seek medical advice immediately! Treat as a Medical Emergency!

Remain calm, particularly when a child or non-beekeeper has been stung. They may just require some re-assurance, not being as used to stings as some beekeepers

Scrape out the barb as quickly as possible, to minimise the amount of poison injected

Smoke site of the sting to disguise the sting pheromone & prevent further attacks

Move patient away from the hive and get them seated

Apply ice to reduce swelling, particularly if area affected has little room for swelling (e.g. if sting is on the nose)

Suggest to patient the use of: calamine lotion, a steroid cream or the oil from the marshmallow plant (Althaea officinalis)

Suggest taking antihistamine tablets (follow instructions on packaging!)

Advise that antihistamine creams are best avoided, as they can sensitise the skin & make future reactions worse. If used, antihistamine cream must only be applied to small areas of skin (follow instructions on packaging!)

Patient should not drive if antihistamines taken, as they can cause drowsiness

It is fine to use an EpiPen® if it has been prescribed for the patient. It does not make you liable or at risk of an assault charge! That’s a persistent urban legend amongst

some beekeepers. Source of legal advice: Vice-Chair, BMA Ethics Committee and the Professor of Medical Ethics & Law, Southampton University (pers. comms.)

2.10 able to give an elementary description of the annual cycle of work in the apiary; We are in the South East, so timings are very much earlier than in most other parts of the country and it varies greatly from year to year. The beekeeping year is generally considered to start once the main crop has been extracted and preparations for winter begin. It should go without saying that at all stages below, accurate detailed records must be kept for each colony. July – August

Extraction of main honey crop

Return wet supers to hives, if storing dry, or stack them ready for winter

Do Autumn health inspection just for pests & diseases

Take sample (30 bees) from each colony for RBKA’s Autumn clinic

Treat for Varroa whilst temperature still high enough for medication to be effective

Feed colonies to ensure they have enough stores to see them through winter

Re-queen with younger queens, if necessary September

Feed until they stop taking it down

Ensure that all hives are bee-tight & weather-proof, with good ventilation

Remember: it is damp NOT cold that kills bees. They can survive -35oC!

Fit mouseguards & woodpecker cages

Weight down roof, if necessary

Unite smaller colonies to create a larger stronger colony that’s more likely to get through the winter

October – November – December – January

Treat with oxalic acid in broodless period, if required


Check apiary every few weeks to ensure that all is well e.g. hives not blown over etc.

If bees keep flying late into the year, check to see if they are ‘burning through’ their stores at a faster than expected rate

Heft hives to check the amount of stores left

Make-up frames & equipment for next year

Read & study more beekeeping material

Clear snow from hive entrances? o The books differ in their opinions on this. Clive de Bruyn is dead against it;

stating that it will only encourage the bees to fly on sunny days that are still too cold. Some say it’s essential for ventilation, to enable the colonies to clear out the dead bees & for the bees to make cleansing flights.

January – February

On a fine dry clear day, check that colonies still have enough stores & that they can easily get to them. Just lift up the crownboard & look down to assess the stores, size & position of cluster etc. Feed with fondant, if necessary.

N.B. Don’t be tricked into thinking that it looked like they have been bringing in nectar & pollen, so they must be alright. If the nectar is from ivy, the honey will rapidly crystallise in the combs becoming less than useless to the colony. It can easily lead to isolation starvation if it prevents the colony from reaching its other stores. February – March

Remove mouseguards & woodpecker cages

Fit reduced entrances

Check stores & feed, if necessary

Feed pollen patties, if stimulus is required

Start training bees to permanent water source by placing thymol crystals in your preferred location

March

Clean all floors

On warm dry day do 1st inspection with particular emphasis on: health, amount of brood & stores

End of March – April

Start weekly inspections for swarm control: SQuiSSH 1. Stores - Does the colony have enough to last them until the next inspection, without any income? 2. Queenright - Is the colony queenright & is she laying well / normally? Think about the brood pattern. Is the amount of brood increasing or decreasing? 3. Swarming - Are there any signs of swarm preparation? 4. Space – Is there enough space:

a. For queen to lay in? b. For nectar to be processed into honey? c. For the whole colony, including all foragers, overnight?

5. Health - Is the colony healthy? Think about all possible pests & diseases

Start comb change, e.g. Bailey or moving old combs to the edge of brood box

Move colonies into clean brood boxes & sterilise those boxes used during the winter


Add supers, as required

Feed can now be sugar syrup instead of fondant, once the bees are flying regularly. Traditionally, the 1st dandelion blooms were the signal for this change in possible feed

April – May

Do Spring health inspection, just looking for pests & diseases

Take sample (30 bees) from each colony for RBKA’s Spring Clinic

Continue weekly inspections

Start queen rearing May – June


Spring crop extraction

May need to feed, if there’s a June Gap – sugar & pollen!

June is the month when you want colonies to have raised the maximum foraging force, ready for the main flow in June / July (in theory!)

Add supers as required July


Extract main crop, as soon as the main flow ends (July / August)

Prepare stocks (hives & colonies) for the heather 2.11 able to describe the preparation of sugar syrup and how and when to feed bees; Preparation:

Only use white sugar, as coloured sugar contains things that the bees cannot metabolise & so may cause dysentery

Don’t overheat the syrup, as this raises the HMF level (so called ‘bad sugar’)

With contact feeders, you don’t need to dissolve the sugar first. You can put the sugar in the feeder, top-up with water, fix the lid on tightly & then invert the feeder. Some syrup will drip out, until the pressure balances, so best to invert it over something in order to avoid spillage in the apiary. You don’t want to start robbing!

Sugar Syrup - Sugar : Water Concentration

Thin = 1lb : 1 pint = 28% sugar Medium = 1 Kg : 1 Litre = 50% sugar Thick = 2 lbs : 1 pint = 61.5% sugar

Some ‘traditional’ experts recommend sugar concentrations used as described below. However, it seems an increasing number of people recommend always feeding thick syrup. David Aston’s (then Chairman, BBKA) comment in answering a question at the RBKA winter meeting, September 2012 was that if you need to feed, then you need to get sugar into the colony & so use thick syrup always. How & When To Feed Bees:

To provide enough winter stores (rapid feeder, thick)

Emergency feed, during the active season (rapid feeder, thin & spray combs)

Emergency feed, in the off season (fondant on top of frames & possibly spray combs)


To administer medicines (rapid feeder, thin)

To stimulate the queen to lay (contact feeder, thin so as to mimic a flow)

To get a colony to draw out new combs (rapid feeder, thick as lots needed to produce new wax)

Not enough foragers in colony, e.g. after an artificial swarm or poisoning (rapid feeder, thick)

To anchor a swarm (artificial or natural) in a brood box or nuc

To feed a very small colony in an Apidea® or other mating hive when queen banking or queen rearing

Other Types Of Feed:

Wetted white granulated sugar on crownboard

Fondant in winter, when bees not flying regularly

Honey, either as extracted liquid or in frames of stores. Must be from own apiary & from disease free colonies!

Pollen patties, either substitutes or supplements Other Considerations; Particularly To Avoid Robbing & Becoming A Nuisance To Neighbours Because Of Excited Bees:

Only feed after bees have stopped flying for the day

Feed all colonies in an apiary at the same time

Reduce all entrances

Don’t spill feed in the apiary

You don’t want feed being stored in supers & then extracted with any crop Types Of Feeder: Contact: Disadvantages include: bees will often propolise mesh once feed has been taken; can lead to spillage in the apiary if assembled & inverted there; the last bit can suddenly flood out of the feeder & so lead to spillage in the apiary; eke required to support the hive roof. Rapid: Lots of different types, including: Miller, Ashforth, Rowse & Bro. Adam. Some advantages over a contact feeder: can be topped-up without disturbing the colony; no eke required, if the feeder is full size. Major disadvantage: heavy & difficult to lift off without spilling contents when inspecting the colony. Frame: A type of rapid feeder. Only contains a relatively small amount of sugar syrup, but close to brood so the colony make take it more readily than from a feeder placed under the roof. A good method if using thymol crystals to combat Varroa, as the feed & vapour are right in amongst the bees. Amount To Feed: Honey = <20% water + 80% sugar + trace elements & enzymes Therefore, if a colony requires an extra 20lbs of winter stores, you need to work out how much sugar to make into syrup: 20lbs x 80% = 20 x 0.8 = 16lbs sugar However, you can neither make bees take down syrup from a feeder nor insist on a precise amount. So most beekeepers simply keep feeding, until the bees stop taking the feed down.


2.12 aware of the need to add supers and the timing of the operation; Nectar varies greatly in its water content, due to plant species & the weather; but it averages around 70%. This must be reduced below 20% to prevent fermentation; which equates to approx. 2/3 reduction in volume. Therefore, a colony requires three times the space of capped honey in order to ripen (process) the nectar. To put it another way, each brood frame of winter stores requires the equivalent of 3 brood frames of processing space in the supers. Although very little research has been undertaken to study the amount of winter stores required by any honeybees, it is generally accepted that a Modified British Standard hive with a strong colony requires at least 35lbs of winter stores. 35lbs @ 5lbs / brood frame = 7 brood frames required Processing space, therefore = 7 x 3 = 21 brood frames = 2 brood boxes or 35lbs @ 3lbs / super frame = 12 super frames required Processing space, therefore = 12 x 3 = 36 super frames = 4 supers However, the calculations above suppose that the whole amount is processed at the same time, all in one go. Obviously, it isn’t. That is, unless you extract the entire crop & force the bees to make their winter stores solely from sugar syrup. Then they have to work fast before the weather turns and so the required processing space is consequently greater than that required in the spring / summer. This will also prematurely age the winter bees, making it less likely that they will survive long enough to raise enough brood in the spring for the colony to survive. Supering is the term given to the adding of supers to hives. Under Supering is the term given to adding new supers below the ones already on the hive. This reduces the travel staining of numerous bee footprints going across capped honey cells. Over or Top Supering not surprisingly are the terms given to adding new supers above those already on the hive. Need To Add Supers:

Room for stores

Room for nectar ripening (“hanging-up” or processing)

Room for whole colony to congregate overnight & thereby, lessen the possible swarming impulse

To prevent colony building brace comb to store forage products in the brood box / roof

Timing:

Better earlier rather than later in the spring

Important not to put on too many supers in July, so as to ensure all the honey is capped over

Some colonies can be reluctant to go up into the 1st super in the spring o Try leaving off the queen excluder until they have started using the super o Try putting a few drawn out frames in the centre of the super. Difficult if you

are fairly new to beekeeping, but it emphasises the value of clean drawn frames

Some beekeepers store at least a few super frames wet over the winter, as wet frames encourages the bees up in the spring


Swarm prevention. Lack of space & the resulting reduction in the circulation of queen pheromone is a major cause of swarming. The swarming instinct can often be reduced or at least delayed by adding supers

Unlike with brood frames, you can freely move super frames about. The bees will cap the middle frames more readily than outer ones, as it’s warmer in the middle of the hive boxes

Before adding more supers, move capped frames to the outside of the supers & uncapped ones into the centre. Likewise, any undrawn frames should be placed in the centre of the super. This way you’ll utilise the available space to maximum effect.

2.13 aware of the dangers of robbing and how robbing can be avoided; Another syllabus point that I raised with the Chair of the BBKA Education Committee way back in 2013. It’s badly worded, as it doesn’t mention either how to detect robbing or how to stop it once it’s started. Knowing the dangers & how to avoid it simply aren’t enough, in my opinion. You need to be able to explain the whole issue to your assessor. You need to be fully aware of why a colony is in such a weak state and therefore, vulnerable to robbing. If you find a colony is being robbed & you aren’t already treating it with special measures to combat some disease or pest crisis, then your first task is not to deal with the robbing, but to diagnose why the colony is so weak. You must not start remedial action to stop the robbing without knowing what the underlying problem is. Don’t make matters even worse by spreading pests & diseases. If you are already treating the colony, learn for the future to think about preventing robbing when dealing with a weakened colony. It is not only other honeybees that are robbers, the list also includes: wasps, hornets & ants. It is only nectar, honey & sugar syrup that get robbed. The other forage products are safe from pilfering. How To Detect Robbing:

Silent robbing is when there are no immediately obvious signs of robbing. The colony being robbed may even be robbing another colony itself. The main sign is the flight paths of the bees, direct from one hive to another

Conventional robbing is where you can see the robbing bees approaching the robbed hive in a zig-zag landing approach. There’s fighting with the guard bees & inside the hive

A worker flies with its rear legs pointing forwards when its honey crop is full & with its rear legs trailing when its honey crop is empty. Hence, bees leaving the hive with their rear legs pointing forwards is a bad sign. This is just one of the many reasons why you check what’s happening at the front of the hive when you start a manipulation

The Dangers:

Spread of pests & diseases

Possible destruction of the colony being robbed

No new income, because robbing colony ignores new sources of nectar & just robs out existing stores in the apiary

How To Avoid Robbing:

Treat all weak colonies speedily for causes of being weak


Think about possible robbing when splitting colonies or hiving swarms. Reduce entrances & be careful about feeding

Don’t spill sugar syrup in the apiary

Feed all colonies in the apiary at the same time, not just any weak ones

Feed after the bees have stopped flying for the day

Keep your hives bee-tight

Reduce all entrances whilst feeding

Don’t keep colonies open for too long when the bees are flying

Put wet supers back on hives only after bees have stopped flying for the day, when you extract your honey

If using extra IPM techniques on a weak colony, also think about measures to prevent robbing

Don’t feed newly made up nucs until all flying bees have returned to the original hive How To Stop Robbing:

Move the robbed colony, either to another apiary or several metres away in the same apiary. Some authors suggest that the robbed colony may be marked with pheromones & so may induce robbing by a new colony if moved. I can find no research to confirm this, but it may be worth smoking all over the outside of the hive &/or lightly brushing it with washing soda. Temporarily block the entrance so as to get the bees to re-set their mental maps, if you’ve moved them over 3 feet & less than 3 miles. This will not automatically stop the robbing colony from robbing. They will scout out another colony to rob. You need to make them think that they’ve exhausted the free supply of sugar syrup, nectar or honey. Put an otherwise empty hive on the original site of the colony being robbed with just one frame of nectar/honey inside. Once this frame has been emptied, the robbing colony should stop robbing

Swap the robbing & the robbed colony over. This simple technique works a treat. You don’t need to wait until after the bees have stopped flying for the day. It will even strengthen your weaker colony. As always, make sure that this won’t spread pests & diseases

2.14 able to describe a method used to clear honeybees from supers; Hooper 1997 Guide to Bees & Honey (5th edition) (chapter 11) Riches 1989 Honey Marketing Methods Include:

Brushing off the combs & putting frames into a different super with cover cloth

Clearer board with Porter Bee Escapes or some other one-way mechanism

Commercial outfits use leaf blowers with the supers standing on their sides

Fume board to force the bees down off the supers & through a clearer board 2.15 able to describe the process of extracting honey from combs and a method of straining and bottling of honey suitable for a small scale beekeeper, including hygiene; Mid-Bucks Beekeepers Study Notes for BBKA Module 2 - Honeybee Products & Forage http://blog.mbbka.org.uk/category/education/bbka-module-2/ Goes into far more detail than you need for the Basic on the legal aspects of extraction & labelling, but a useful resource if you want to delve further into this area of beekeeping. Warning: there are serious errors in the study notes.

http://blog.mbbka.org.uk/category/education/bbka-module-2/


Hooper 1997 Guide to Bees & Honey (5th edition) (chapter 11) Riches 1989 Honey Marketing Uncapping

Lots of methods: knives (heated or cold), flails, spiked rollers etc.

Use an uncapping fork to rake the cappings on uneven frames

Keep the cappings wax separate from other wax, as it’s pure wax & therefore suitable for making the best candles, cosmetics, for showing etc.

Drain cappings & then either wash them & use the water to make mead, or feed the cappings back to the bees. Put into a rapid feeder & remove the inner plastic cone over the feed hole. The bees will come up and clean up the cappings. You may need to turn the cappings to enable the bees to get at all of them. The dry cappings can then be removed & stored until wanted

Other wax cut from frames will need to be cleaned after washing for mead or feeding to the bees, before being used to make candles etc. Alternatively, it can be exchanged with one of the beekeeping suppliers for new foundation

Extraction & Straining

Hire an extractor from RBKA. Book it ahead with the RBKA Quartermaster

Small tangential extractor will do for a few supers of frames o Put frames in & gently spin o Lift out frames & turn them round & spin again o Lift out & turn frames back round, then finish spinning honey out o Be gentle, it’s easy to ‘blow’ frames o Remove frames & put in super to go back on the same hive they came off

Larger radial motorised extractor required when lots of frames to extract o Put frames in & gently spin o Slowly increase speed, so as not to ‘blow’ the frames o You don’t need to turn the frames o Remove frames & put in super to go back on the same hive they came off

Drain the honey, don’t let it reach the bottom of the cage inside the extractor o Drain honey through at least 2 filters (coarse & fine) into bucket o RBKA double strains the honey & then passes it through a muslin filter as well o Leave overnight / for 24 hours to let air bubbles come to the surface

Only put the supers & wet frames back on the hives once the bees have stopped flying for the day! Otherwise, you are likely to start robbing, be a nuisance to neighbours and to attract pests, such as wasps & hornets

Bottling

Wash all jars & lids. Don’t assume that they’re clean just because they’ve come from the manufacturer

Warm the jars; to help prevent air bubbles getting trapped in the honey

Fill jars to the exact weight stated on the labels you’ll be using

If you have enough honey, pour it from the small buckets into a settling tank with a honey gate (tap) on it. Tilt the tank & pour the honey slowly down the side of the tank to prevent adding air into the honey again. With small amounts of honey, you can just use a jug to fill the jars


Any honey from the top of buckets or tanks that has air bubbles in it is not fit for sale or as a present, so carefully bottle it separately & use it yourself. I use it for making mead & for cooking

Hygiene

Be aware that there are numerous food hygiene laws & regulations applicable to beekeepers. You don’t need to know them for the Basic, you do for BBKA Theory Module 2 – Honeybee Products & Forage

Bag up the supers when you take them off the hives, to prevent contamination

Set your extraction room up, so that you can be methodical

All surfaces must be washable

Wipe / wash 1st with cold water & then rinse with hot water. Counterintuitive it may be, but you’ll get in one heck of a sticky mess otherwise

Wear a clean apron over clean clothes

Wear a hairnet

Never stick your fingers in for a taste!

You should have two sinks nearby: 1 for washing your hands & 1 for washing equipment

Pets must be excluded from the area whilst extraction is done

Honey must be carefully filtered to remove all extraneous matter (wood from frames, bits of bee etc.); but not over-filtered so as to remove too much pollen

Honey must not be overheated. RBKA only ever cold extracts. We don’t use heated uncapping trays etc.

Only food grade materials must be used in extraction & storage equipment

Storage must be in cool conditions in air tight containers – remember honey is hygroscopic (absorbs water from the atmosphere) & will crystallise more readily above about 14oC

You should also read up about the legal requirements for labelling. Inexplicably, it’s no longer part of the Basic, but it is still something you need to know about in order to protect yourself from prosecution. 2.16 aware of the various web based resources relating to beekeeping such as BBKA and BeeBase. Hence, the links in this document. The National Bee Unit’s website, BeeBase has all sorts of information backed-up by the latest scientific research and qualified legal opinion from the government’s own law officers. These are the same people who advise Trading Standards & others who could potentially inspect your facilities & products. So, this is the very best source of information on what & how you need to do things. Personally, I’d avoid almost all other websites; including most particularly Dave Cushman’s. There’s an awful lot of misinformation & misconception from unqualified self-proclaimed experts out there.

BBKA: www.bbka.org.uk BeeBase: www.nationalbeeunit.com RBKA Members’ Website: http://rbkbblog.com NBU Advisory Leaflets, Training Manuals (Best Guidance Advice) and Fact Sheets: www.nationalbeeunit.com/index.cfm?pageId=167 BBKA Information Leaflets www.bbka.org.uk/learn/general_information/useful_leaflets_to_download Basic Syllabus www.bbka.org.uk/learn/examinations__assessments/modules

http://www.bbka.org.uk/

http://www.nationalbeeunit.com/

http://rbkbblog.com/

http://www.nationalbeeunit.com/index.cfm?pageId=167


http://www.bbka.org.uk/learn/examinations__assessments/modules


3. SWARMING, SWARM CONTROL AND EFFECTS – ORAL QUESTIONS The Candidate will be: 3.1 able to give an elementary description of swarming in a honeybee colony; Snelgrove 1981 Swarming: It’s Control & Prevention (13th Edition) The guide to managing the swarming instinct. A clear, straight forward & well presented guide to some husbandry best practice. The copy I borrowed from RBKA was falling apart. You won’t find a clearer explanation of artificial swarms. I’ve now bought my own copy (<£10 on Amazon) as this is another book that I’ll be returning to many times. Beekeeping maths again! You need to have learnt the number of days in the different lifecycles to fully understand any signs of swarming, swarm control method & to be able to explain that method successfully to the assessor. It is important to learn to recognise the three types of queen cell (emergency, supersedure & swarm) so that you know how to react when finding queen cells.

An emergency queen cell is drawn out & down from a normal worker cell. The bees have chosen an egg or under three days old larva and are trying to create a queen. There may be several of them. They are built in response to the sudden loss of a queen

Supersedure cells are typically built on the middle of brood frames and hang down vertically. They are planned & the queen lays an egg in each of them. Typically, there will only be a few of them. The old queen is retained in the colony at least until the first princess emerges and often until the new queen is laying well

Swarm cells look like supersedure cells, but are typically found hidden around the edges of brood frames; making them all too easy to miss. Typically, the old queen will go with the primary swarm as soon as the first queen cell is sealed

Hence, if you find sealed queen cells, try to find the queen. Her presence or absence may indicate whether you’ve got supersedure cells or swarm cells. A Very Brief History Of Swarm Theory:

1891 = Gerstung’s theory that swarms were the result of an overabundance of brood food due to a disproportionately large number of young housebees during the spring build up

1921 = Demuth’s theory that swarming was due to congestion in the brood box

1953 = Butler’s revision of Demuth’s theory that the congestion caused a poor distribution of queen substance & that this was the real reason for swarming

Current theory emphasises that it is a natural reproductive impulse (Think: colony = one superorganism, so swarming = reproduction) that can be heightened by lack of space and the resulting poor distribution of queen pheromones

Swarming, Elementary Description & Notes:

Swarming is the natural urge to reproduce. Honeybees, as a species, do not increase in number if each queen lays more. They need to ensure survival at the species level by creating new colonies to make up for those that die out. As it’s a natural reproductive instinct, you need to learn to work with the bees, rather than try to thwart them, because you will fail otherwise


Some colonies make lots of ‘play cups’ (the start of queen cells that look like the caps on acorns) without ever having the intention of either swarming or superseding. However, on finding ‘play cups’ you need to think about taking swarm control measures

On finding a queen cell, check to see if it has been polished. They use propolis, just as they do with all brood cells. If it already has an egg laid in it, it is said to be ‘charged’

The old queen & half the colony normally leaves as soon as the first queen cell is sealed. This is the prime swarm. However, particularly in periods of poor weather with sudden sunny spells, such as in the spring & summer of 2012, they can leave early

If the 1st princess to emerge swarms with half the remaining bees, this is a cast. She may be allowed to kill any un-emerged princesses & take over the colony. Equally, she may be prevented from killing her rivals & a cast may issue from the hive containing several princesses

Swarms usually settle as a cluster on a branch or bush close to where they’ve emerged from, whilst the scout bees agree on a new nest site. They then lead the swarm to its new home

Before emerging in a swarm, the bees gorge themselves on honey. This enables them to build comb quickly when they reach their new nest site. The longer they are out of their original hive & not re-settled into a new site, the more they will return to their original character. Do not expect all swarms to be docile, because many are not

Each time a colony swarms, approximately half the bees leave. It is not only foragers that go with the queen. They need younger bees as well, so that they can raise brood & make wax at their new site

3.2 able to give an elementary account of one method of swarm control; BBKA leaflet: Swarm Control For Beginners www.bbka.org.uk/learn/general_information/useful_leaflets_to_download RBKA Members’ Website: http://rbkbblog.com/knowledge-base/index/ Snelgrove 1981 Swarming: It’s Control & Prevention (13th Edition) The guide to managing the swarming instinct. A clear, straight forward & well presented guide to some husbandry best practice. The copy I borrowed from RBKA was falling apart. You won’t find a clearer explanation of artificial swarms. I’ve now bought my own copy (<£10 on Amazon) as this is another book that I’ll be returning to many times. Just learn one simple swarm control method to explain to your assessor. RBKA’s preferred method at the Basic level is taking out a nuc – see BBKA leaflet referenced above & RBKA members’ website. As you get more experienced, you can experiment with other methods. 3.3 able to describe how to take a honeybee swarm and how to hive it; BBKA leaflet: Collecting Swarms www.bbka.org.uk/learn/general_information/useful_leaflets_to_download They obviously vary in weight, but a primary swarm can weigh as much as 10lbs. Be safe! Don’t endanger yourself or anyone else. You can be working at height & with difficult awkwardly shaped equipment. If working alone, make sure that someone knows where you are & that you can call for help in need.





As with all movements of bees, you must consider pests & disease. The swarm may be diseased, so if possible hive it in an isolation apiary until you’ve had a chance to assess it. On leaving the hive, the bees in a swarm reset their mental maps of the area; so you can ignore the 3 feet or 3 miles rule when hiving a swarm. Main Methods Of Taking A Swarm:

Shaking/cutting off a branch or other collection site. You need the owner’s specific permission to cut any vegetation!

Smoking up into a skep or other container

Enticing into a bait hive, possibly with a chemical lure

Enticing with a frame of unsealed brood. Put the frame next to the swarm & they will cover it. Then shake the frame into a container & repeat the process as often as required. Finally use the frame to anchor the swarm in its new hive

Brushing into a skep or other container Equipment Required: Something to contain them - skep, nuc, hive or cardboard box; Large cloth; secateurs; smoker; fuel; lighter or matches; crate / box / stool / stepladder; torch; hive tool; scissors; string / tape; mobile (in case of emergency) Methods Of Hiving A Swarm:

Running them in

Shaking them in 3.4 able to describe the signs of a queenless colony and how to test if a colony is queenless; Possible Signs Of A Queenless Colony:

Less foraging going on compared to neighbouring colonies

Less & less pollen being brought in, as amount of brood decreases

Higher pitch colony noise than usually

Colony unusually aggressive (but this can be due to lack of forage or many other reasons)

Lack of eggs & then larvae (although they do sometimes restrict or even stop the queen from laying during a heavy flow & also just before swarming; when they slim her down as well)

Bees running about on the frames as you examine them

Emergency queen cells on brood frames

Unseasonal decline in number of workers

If queenless for several weeks, laying workers present Test: Take a frame of eggs & young larvae from another (disease free!) colony & place it in the middle of the brood box of the affected colony. If they start using this frame to build queen cells, then you know that they are probably queenless. However, this test can give a false result if the colony is in swarming mode.


3.5 able to describe the signs of laying workers and of a drone laying queen; Signs Of Laying Workers:

Only happens in a colony that has been queenless for some time (several weeks)

Small stunted drones in the colony

More than one egg per cell

Eggs on the sides of cells not in the bottom

Small patches of drone brood, not a regular elliptical queen laying pattern

Individual workers guarding small patches of cells where they have laid their eggs

Workers removing eggs from cells

No queen present! Signs Of A Drone Laying Queen:

Regular queen laying pattern, but of domed drone cells only

Surface of comb an uneven mess

Unexpected reduction in the amount of brood

Queen present! 3.6 able to describe a simple method of queen introduction; BBKA leaflet: Queen Introduction www.bbka.org.uk/learn/general_information/useful_leaflets_to_download Snelgrove 1943 The Introduction of Queen Bees (later reprint) Snelgrove 1949 Queen Rearing (later reprint) There are a number of different types of queen introduction cages (e.g. the Butler cage) but they basically all work the same way. One end is blocked with fondant & the other end provides the queen with protection, so that she can get away from the worker’s attentions. The cage allows the workers to feed the queen & to get used to her pheromones. By the time the workers have eaten through the fondant they should have become used to the new queen’s scent and so accept her. You should always introduce a new queen, or put an existing one back, in amongst the brood frames. This is where the workers expect to find her. If they find her in the wrong place, they may attack her. Insert the queen cage into the brood chamber; ideally amongst unsealed brood. If you’ve bought a queen, you must remove the attendants from the cage 1st. A queen must be alone in the introduction cage or fighting will ensue & the queen will be lost. It is generally easier to replace like with like: a mated queen with a mated queen, a princess with a princess or a queen cell with another queen cell. It is also generally easier to get a colony to accept a new queen in the spring or autumn, rather than in the height of the season or immediately after a flow ends, especially if they are in swarm mode. It is often best to introduce a new queen into a nuc first, until she starts laying well and then uniting the nuc back with the main colony. No method is 100% effective, so always have a back-up plan (e.g. have a spare queen ‘banked’ in a regular nuc or small mating nuc).



3.7 able to describe one method of uniting colonies and precautions to be taken; Newspaper Method:

3 feet or 3 mile rule! Either unite on current site of one of the colonies, with moved colony on top, or slowly over a week or so move the two colonies to where you want the united colony to be. Moved colony on top will be shut in for a couple of days & so will hopefully reset their mental maps of the area

Queenright colony on the bottom. So, you don’t have to find the queen again when you sort the hive out

Sheet of newspaper with a few slits on top of brood box, held down by queen excluder

Queenless colony on top of this This is a gentle way of uniting. It takes the bees a day or two to eat their way through the newspaper, by which time they’ve got used to each other’s smell. You can then remove the top brood box & sort the best brood frames into the brood box that’s staying on the hive. Don’t forget to sterilise everything that’s coming off the hive back to the bee shed or on to another hive. Reasons For Uniting Colonies:

Where a colony is not queenright & you don’t have a spare queen or queen cell

To make a strong colony to take best advantage of a flow. One strong colony collects far more forage than two weaker ones

To make a strong enough colony to overwinter

To reduce the number of colonies you have to manage (‘to make decrease’) Precautions To Be Taken:

All colonies must be disease free & have as low a pest count as possible

Only have one queen in one of the colonies, otherwise they will fight & you may end up with a large queenless united colony. Choose the best queen & bank or kill any others

Different colonies have different smells. The literature differs on why this is exactly; but it is to do with the materials the hive is made from & preserved with, the genetics of the mongrel bees in that colony, plus the forage being collected. The colonies either have to have time to get used to each other’s smell (newspaper method) or be distracted by being sprayed with sugar solution and then united directly into the same brood box. Some books state that two swarms can be directly united without being sprayed. Since you want to feed a swarm to encourage it to settle in its new hive anyway, I’d spray them just to be sure

Think about how far you’ve moved the colonies. Do you need to temporarily block the entrance to make them re-set their mental maps of the area? (3 feet or 3 miles rule)


4. DISEASE AND PESTS – ORAL QUESTIONS Essential Reading! - Download the Foulbroods, Small Hive Beetle & Tropilaelaps spp. booklets from the BeeBase website: www.nationalbeeunit.com/index.cfm?pageId=167 All hive tutors make sure each week that everyone knows what healthy brood looks like and can describe what they are seeing on the combs. That’s the key. Once you can recognise healthy brood, by definition you can also recognise when something doesn’t look quite right. No one expects you to be an expert on bee diseases. So long as you indicate that you will act sensibly when you find something, that’s fine. By acting sensibly, I mean that you tell the assessor that if in doubt you would shut the hive up, put a voluntary stop order on your apiary (not move anything in or out) and go away & read some books / check on BeeBase / ask for advice from a more experienced RBKA member / ask for advice from the Regional or Seasonal Bee Inspector (see section 4.9). For the Basic, you do not need to know the causative agents of diseases or their Latin names. You just need to know the usual symptoms of the foulbroods; how to recognise the notifiable pests; and demonstrate an understanding of the need to not spread pests & diseases within your own apiary or beyond. You do need to know your legal responsibilities: the notifiable pests & diseases, the need to record all treatments plus be aware of the labelling & hygiene regulations for extracting, bottling & distributing your hive products. The Candidate will be: 4.1 able to describe the appearance of healthy brood, sealed and unsealed;

Larvae = ‘C’ shaped, pearly white, ribbed (segmented)

Sealed brood = Dry, digestive biscuit coloured cappings. The cappings are made of wax & pollen (breathable & rough, to aid larvae to turn to get head resting on capping so that the adult emerges head first)

Drone brood = Big domed cappings, when built on worker size foundation

Worker brood = Slightly convex (domed) cappings

Stores = Cappings of wax, usually white, but may have a yellow hue if the bees are bringing in some pollens, e.g. dandelion

4.2 aware of the reasons for good apiary hygiene; BBKA leaflet: Apiary Hygiene www.bbka.org.uk/learn/general_information/useful_leaflets_to_download The principal reason for always having good apiary hygiene is to stop, or at least reduce, the spread of pests & diseases. The biggest vector for pests & disease is us beekeepers! There are low levels of many pathogens in all honeybee colonies. By stressing a colony or allowing it to become stressed, you increase the likelihood of those pathogens damaging the colony, of the colony becoming more susceptible to other pathogens, and of the pathogens spreading to other colonies. You can’t always prevent pests & diseases in your colonies. They will come into your apiary in a number of ways. For example, during the active season drones are allowed into any colony. Varroa prefer to breed in drone cells, due to the longer time it takes for drones to emerge compared to queens & workers. So, drones often have phoretic (piggy-backing)




varroa on them, even after flying around. Hence, your colonies with very low varroa count can suddenly get a big influx of varroa if drones from other colonies elsewhere are allowed in. It’s good to know whether or not any neighbouring beekeepers are proactive & good at apiary hygiene etc. (see section 2.7). Another very poor syllabus question, asking you to be aware of the reasons for good apiary hygiene & not what constitutes that. So, what does good apiary hygiene look like? A few key basic things:

Keep things hive specific. Don’t swap frames between colonies without very good reason or without checking for pests & diseases first

Don’t feed a colony honey, unless it came from that colony earlier

Keep all equipment clean

Put any scrapings from frames & hive parts into a sealed box straight away and either remove from apiary or put into a solar wax extractor

Rinse hive tool & gloves between inspecting each hive. Replace gloves if too sticky

Take all measures to prevent robbing (see section 2.13)

Hive swarms from unknown sources in an isolation apiary until you can check them out for pests & diseases

Change all combs, especially brood combs regularly

Burn all infected comb & frames asap

Regularly check for pests & diseases in all your colonies

Clean all equipment before putting it away in your bee shed & when taking it out again

Exhibit best practice in your beekeeping & be constantly vigilant against all pests & diseases

Another important reason for good apiary hygiene is that your honey crop is for human consumption. Use of illegal chemicals can contaminate beeswax & get into your honey. Your apiary is contributing to the human food chain. Good hygiene is not only about extraction & bottling (see section 2.15) it has to start right at the beginning, at the apiary. 4.3 aware of the reasons for regular brood comb replacement; NBU Factsheet 5 Replacing Old Brood Comb www.nationalbeeunit.com/index.cfm?pageId=167 The principal reason for regular replacement of brood comb is to reduce the viral load in the colony. Old combs will be contaminated with the causative agents of at least some diseases, such as: AFB, EFB, Nosema, & Chalkbrood. Old comb also gets holes made in it by the bees, for easier access to other frames. It will become uneven with drone cells being built in it. Some cells will become unfit for laying in and the queen will ignore these cells. Each time a brood cell is used, it acquires 5 more larval skin moults. A newly emerged bee will begin its house bee duties by cleaning cells, but not all detritus can be removed by the bees. All of which makes old comb have less room for the queen to lay in & less healthy for new brood than freshly drawn new comb. It's generally easier to see eggs in newer brood comb.



Wax moths are more attracted to brood combs than to super combs. They are attracted by the bee detritus in the cells & wax. So, by regularly replacing old brood comb you decrease the risk of attracting wax moths to your colony. 4.4 able to describe the signs of the bacterial diseases American Foul Brood (AFB) and European Foul Brood (EFB), the fungal disease Chalk Brood and the viral disease Sac brood; BeeBase: Chalkbrood www.nationalbeeunit.com/index.cfm?pageId=167 BeeBase: Sacbrood www.nationalbeeunit.com/index.cfm?pageId=167 AFB & EFB: Read the booklets that you’ve already downloaded from BeeBase (see start of section 4). No bullet points, as you really do need to read the information for yourself! Chalkbrood:

Mummified brood that looks like pellets of chalk in the honeycomb

It’s caused by a fungus (Ascosphaera apis)

Common across the UK, particularly in colder wetter seasons

Some textbooks suggest re-queening the colony. However, having a more prolific queen is not of itself going to remove the fungus from the hive. The theory is that a more active colony is less susceptible

It is best dealt with by replacing combs. With bad cases, it can be tackled by doing a shook swarm. Do not reuse the combs. Salvage the wax & sterilise the wooden frames. It’s yet another reason to employ best IPM practice

Use of Fumidil B® to combat Nosema spp. used to have a secondary effect on a colony, in that it prevented the chalkbrood fungus from sporulating (producing spores to reproduce). It’s probable that the removal of Fumidil B® from authorised use will lead to an increase in the incidence of chalkbrood

Open mesh floors have vastly improved ventilation in hives. One factor that may increase the chance of a colony getting chalkbrood is a high level of CO2 in the hive. So, if you’re using a solid floor for some reason (perhaps when hiving a swarm) think about possibly increasing the ventilation at the top of the hive

Sacbrood:

One of the first viruses affecting any insect to be identified to science

It normally affects capped brood

The larvae are unable to moult their final larval skin & end up drowning in fluid inside this sack

The house bees usually uncap affected cells and as the larval skin dries out it curves into a sort of slipper shape; hence its other name: ‘Chinese slippers’

The condition normally only affects small areas of brood, so long as the beekeeper isn’t careless enough to burst one of the fluid filled sacks. If this happens millions of spores are released

There are no licensed treatments for Sacbrood

If possible, shook swarm onto clean frames & destroy the old ones. Do not recover the wax, as you will likely burst some sacks in the process & so spread the disease. Don’t forget, as always, to scorch the brood box or best of all, sterilise the whole hive




This is a case where it’s particularly important to sterilise your hive tool between hives & not just at the end of your visit to that apiary

As with all diseases, refer to BeeBase for the latest info. & husbandry best practice guidance

4.5 able to describe methods for detecting and monitoring the presence of varroa (a mite) and describe its effect on the colony including awareness of the effect of associated viruses; Download NBU booklet Managing Varroa www.nationalbeeunit.com/index.cfm?pageId=167 Again, I’m not going to write bullet points as you must read the original text yourself! 4.6 aware of acarine (a mite) and nosema (a fungus) and their effect upon the colony; BeeBase: Acarine (Tracheal Mites) www.nationalbeeunit.com/index.cfm?pageId=167 BeeBase: Nosema www.nationalbeeunit.com/index.cfm?pageId=167 Acarine (Acarapis woodi):

Only diagnosable by microscopy

Sometimes checked for at RBKA clinics

Now exceedingly rare due to treatments for Varroa

Breeds in the breathing tubes (trachea) of bees

Shortens the lives of affected bees

Some books & websites confuse the symptoms with those of Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus (CBPV). There is absolutely no link between acarine & CBPV or Isle of Wight disease. This was proved by Professor Bailey way back in the 1950’s, but the misconception lives on

Nosema (Nosema apis & Nosema ceranae):

Only diagnosable by microscopy

This is what’s looked for at the RBKA clinics

Fumidil B® licence withdrawn in 2012; no licenced treatment now available

Signs may or may not include: diarrhoea, spotting on frames & hive boxes, failure to build-up in the spring, dead bees in front of the hive

Now classed as a fungus, formerly as a protozoa

Current husbandry advice on BeeBase is to shook swarm if possible, but otherwise change all combs by another method; and then sterilise all frames & hive parts

Wash hive tool & change gloves between hives when you know Nosema spp. Is present in the apiary

There are over 60 species of Nosema already identified with a large number of different strains. Most infect beetles, not bees or arachnids (which includes mites)

One cause of outbreaks is believed to be stress. So: minimise manipulations, handle colonies with calm deliberate movements & keep pest levels as low as possible

4.7 able to describe ways of controlling varroa using integrated pest management techniques; IPM techniques include:

Use open mesh floor so that Varroa drop out of hive when they fall off the bees during grooming. They cannot climb back, as they could with a solid floor





Icing sugar dusting - see my article on RBKA Members’ website http://rbkbblog.com/2013/04/26/in-defense-of-icing-sugar-and-ipm/

Drone trapping = super frame in brood box. Bees build drone cells below the frame, which Varroa enter just before they are sealed, then discard the sealed drone brood otherwise all you’ve done is breed yet more Varroa

Shook swarm. Sacrificing brood means getting rid of the Varroa that are breeding in the sealed brood cells. Move one frame with older larvae into the new clean brood box. The Varroa that are in their phoretic stage (riding on adult bees) will go into these brood cells to breed. At next manipulation, when this frame has been capped, remove & sacrifice this frame as well

So-called ‘soft’ chemical treatments, such as Vita Gold®; Vita Green®; & Hive Alive®

So-called ‘hard’ chemical treatments, such as Apistan®; & Oxalic Acid 4.8 aware of the current legislation regarding notifiable diseases and pests of honeybees; Latest info. always available on BeeBase. Download their booklets on the notifiable pests & diseases, so that you know what to look out for. Notifiable Diseases: 1. American Foulbrood (AFB) 2. European Foulbrood (EFB)

Notifiable Pests: 1. Tropilaelaps spp. 2. Small Hive Beetle (SHB)

The Asian hornet is not a notifiable pest, as it is already widespread in mainland Europe. You are not required to know about it for the Basic. However, you should familiarise yourself with the information on BeeBase, particularly how to identify it & who to report sightings to. 4.9 aware of whom to contact to verify disease and advise on treatment;

RBKA = Master Beekeepers & lots of others working their way through the BBKA modules, plus Spring & Winter clinics to check for Nosema & Acarine

Seasonal or Regional Bee Inspector (contact details on BeeBase & RBKA members’ website)

National Bee Unit & BeeBase 4.10 able to describe how comb can be stored to prevent wax moth damage; BBKA leaflet: Wax Moth in the Apiary www.bbka.org.uk/learn/general_information/useful_leaflets_to_download BeeBase: Wax Moth www.nationalbeeunit.com/index.cfm?pageId=167 You don’t want your frames going mouldy, so you need to create a ventilated stack. Put a hive stand on solid ground, then an open mesh floor with the entrance closed, followed by boxes of brood & / or super frames, finally put a roof on top of the stack. Make sure that the roof has ventilation holes / slots & that nothing can access the stack through these. This won’t kill off any wax moths (at any life stage) in the boxes, unless you get several sequential days of below zero temperatures. To kill off wax moth (at all life stages) that may be in the boxes, you need to use either acetic acid or sulphur. NB: Both chemicals are extremely dangerous to human health! Acid handling safety equipment must be used at all times – gloves, masks, goggles etc. and is available from most beekeeping suppliers.

http://rbkbblog.com/2013/04/26/in-defense-of-icing-sugar-and-ipm/




Acetic acid will destroy metals & concrete! It will burn the skin off your hands! Build your stack on top of a solid floor with the entrance closed, having removed all frame runners & covered all remaining metal (nail heads, ventilation mesh in roof etc.) with Vaseline®. Place a pad of beer mat type material on the floor & add 140ml (1/4 pint) of 80% acetic acid solution (as sold by beekeeping suppliers); place a box of frames on top & another absorbent pad with another 140ml of acetic acid; repeat as needed and place a crownboard & roof on the top. Tape around all possible joints, entrance block, roof vent’s etc. so as to keep the fumes inside the stack. Leave for at least a week. Ventilate well & stack as described above with an open mesh floor. Make quite sure that all hive parts are well ventilated & metal parts cleaned before reuse. Any trace of acetic acid will kill your bees & burn holes in your skin! Some wire in the foundation in the frames & the frame nails will be exposed to acetic acid fumes. This can cause the frames to ‘blow’ when they are spun to extract the honey or to fall apart during a manipulation in hot weather. Sulphur strips & burners are a cheap & easy way to sterilise your boxes & frames of wax. The fumes are extremely & irreversibly damaging to human lungs. Wear protective gear! Create a stack of boxes on a solid floor, metal is not attacked by the fumes so doesn’t have to be removed or covered. The stack can only be a maximum of 5 boxes high; otherwise, the sulphur fumes won’t be strong enough to kill. On top of the last box place an empty brood box as an eke. The burner goes inside this with a couple of sulphur strips; which are lit at arms-length. The fumes sink down through the stack. Tape up the stack, as with acetic acid treatment and leave for at least a week. Ventilate well & stack as described above with an open mesh floor. Most descriptions in books tell you to repeat the treatments every month; however, if stacked correctly with no way for wax moths to enter the stack, there’s no need to do so. Both chemical methods will also prevent any pollen in the frames from going mouldy. Both methods are also effective against Nosema & Chalkbrood. They are not proven to be effective against either AFB or EFB spores. Frames can also be sterilised by freezing for 24 hours before stacking in boxes. However, few people have enough freezer space to do this for all their combs. 4.11 able to describe how mice and other pests can be excluded from the hives in winter.

Mouseguards

Woodpecker cages

Reduced entrances

Bee-tight hives

Strong healthy colonies won’t tolerate intruders & will be able to entomb in propolis those pests they cannot evict from their hive

Newly mated wasp & hornet queens often overwinter in hive roofs. To prevent problems the following year, check all hive roofs during the winter & kill any queens you find. This can be done when administering oxalic acid, if done.

Reigate Bee Keepers Association (RBKA) BBKA Basic ... · Aston & Bucknall 2010 Keeping Healthy...

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Transcript of Reigate Bee Keepers Association (RBKA) BBKA Basic ... · Aston & Bucknall 2010 Keeping Healthy...