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FORTHCOMING EVENTS
Friday 27th March. DECH. “Bees Abroad” by David Evans.
Saturday 2nd May. Disease check at Winterbourne (10.00) and
Highbury (14.00)
Saturday 2nd May. Plots to Plenty at the Black Country Living
Museum in conjunction with Winterbourne.
Saturday/Sunday 5/6th September. Martineau Gardens Birmingham’s Biggest Honey Show and Competition.
Sunday 13th September. Community Food Fair at Winterbourne
Saturday 10th October. Toy, Steam and Hobbies Day at
Winterbourne
A
re you a beekeeper who has a hive at either Highgbury and/or
Winterbourne apiaries who hasn’t renewed your subscription?
If you are, do you realise that if a notifiable disease breaks out
none of the hives at the apiary would be covered by insurance!
Think about it!
Y
ou may remember that
in the last issue I
mentioned that I once
collected a swarm from The
Dingle street nameplate in
Selly Oak, but couldn’t find
the photo. Well, looking for
something else I found it,
so here it is. Perhaps the
existing name should be
changed to The Dangle?
A
Despite its price, Fortnum & Mason are confident the individually
numbered jars will sell out and may even one day become a
collectors’ item. “I’m certain our customers will love it,” said the
retailer’s chief executive, Ewan Venters.
The Duchess of Cornwall, who celebrates the 10th anniversary of her
marriage to the Prince of Wales next week, has never sold Ray Mill,
her house in Wiltshire, which she still regards as very much her
home.
Medical Detection Dogs trains dogs to alert their owners, who live
with potentially life-threatening health conditions, when they are
about to experience a seizure or other health episode, using their
sense of smell. (Recent article from the Daily Telegraph)
M
ember Stephen Browning reports that Warwickshire Trading
Standards have been targeting butchers, one of which was
selling honey labelled Pure Arden Forest Honey. The analysis was
Description - Sweet, aromatic polyfloral honey
Number of pollen grains counted 500
Number of pollen types identified 17
Other components - crystalline substances, yeast, spores, bee hairs,
starch grains, honeydew indicators.
Frequent pollens- brassica napus/rape 27%
Single pollens - anthriscus type, borage, phacelia, mattihola spp,
Stonecrop, vicia spp, sweet chestnut, St John’s wort, lime, currant,
pome fruit, bramble, sweet woodruff, horse chestnut, maple and
white clover. The website for Arden Forest Honey states the bees
forage on dandelion,willow, apple and cherry blossom in spring, and
borage, clover, wild flowers and lime from the remaining forest
through the summer.
G
arden centres are being urged to withdraw products which
contain a type of pesticide linked to bee declines.
In its latest product guide,
magazine said that nine of
the UK's leading garden centres, including B&Q and Homebase, were
selling Provado Ultimate Bug Killer, which contains a neonicotinoid
chemical known as thiacloprid.
Environmental campaigners say there is growing evidence the
chemical is harmful to bees. Jane Turner, co-researcher on the
product guide to garden centres, said: "Gardeners will be
shocked to discover that by using these insecticides they are
unwittingly introducing dodgy chemicals into their gardens.”
Dr Julian Little, a spokesman for Bayer CropScience, the makers of
the product, said: "The reality is that the active ingredient of Provado,
thiacloprid, is extremely safe to bees when used according to the
label instructions, and users of it can be assured that they can
control the destructive pests that would otherwise spoil their
gardens in a way that will have no effects on bees." (Heard all this
before)
Right Royal Duel! If you like your honey to have a flavour of
royalty about it, you are about to be spoilt for choice. The Prince
of Wales, who sells Highgrove Honey made on his Duchy Home Farm,
has a new rival in the premium honey market - none other than the
Duchess of Cornwall. The Duchess has launched a partnership with
Fortnum & Mason to sell honey produced by bees that live in her
private garden in Wiltshire, a short drive from the Prince of Wales’s
home at Highgrove.
Luckily for the Prince, the Duchess’s own honey is limited to just 250
jars, selling for £20 each (no weight given on the Fortnum & Mason
website), with 100 per cent of proceeds being donated to the
Medical Detection Dogs charity, of which the Duchess is patron. But
that isn’t likely to prevent a little friendly rivalry between the Prince
and the Duchess over whose honey tastes better. Fortnum & Mason
describe the Duchess’s honey as being made from “delicately
perfumed nectar with subtle hints of chamomile, making it the ideal
accompaniment to ice cream on hot summer days, or for sweetening
tea”. The Highgrove farm shop in Tetbury, Glos, (again no weight
ember Ray Bowers is interested in buying a nuc, so if you have
specified on the Highgrove Farm Shop website) sells runny honey for
one please let me know and I will advise accordingly and a
£5.50, described as “a mixed floral type produced from hives sited
member of the public, Elmena Saunders, wishes to buy honey. If
on Duchy Home Farm where the bees forage on clover, wild berries,
you can help please email her on elmenasaunders@yahoo.co.uk
dandelion and orchard fruits”.
And if that isn’t enough honey for any sweet-toothed royalist, Duchy
rench car crash with a sting in the tail. More than a million honeybees
Originals, the organic food brand started by the Prince of Wales on
were killed, drowned in their own honey, after a van carrying 72 hives
the Duchy of Cornwall estate, makes Scottish Heather Honey,
gathered from beehives on the Balmoral estate, which sells for £4.99. crashed in southern France - but hundreds of thousands of the insects
survived and angrily turned on rescue workers called to the scene.
The Duchess of Cornwall Honey is on sale today in the Fortnum &
"In the shock of the crash, the hives were prized opened," said
Mason stores in Piccadilly, Heathrow Terminal 5, St Pancras InternaDominique Miras, the beekeeper driving the van. As the honey was still in
tional station and online.
M
F
President:- Sharif Khan. Secretary:- Jan Willetts, 0121 249 1965
Editor:- John Gale. email:- factota@tiscali.co.uk
snailmail:- 65, Oakfield Road, Selly Park,
Birmingham. B29 7HL. 0121 471 1267.
liquid state, tens of thousands of the insects became trapped in the sticky
substance and drowned, or were crushed. "They were stuck together in a
kind of puree," said Mr Miras. He and the driver of the other car involved
escaped relatively unscathed.
H
ey up!
Whose this?
Well it’s Alan the
Asian Hornet
(Vespa velutina)
he recent spell of warm weather (it was when I wrote this)
hoping to visit
enabled me to have a proper look at my bees who were flying well,
you soon! My
both in the garden and at Martineau Gardens. One of my hives in the
special trap is up
garden is a full sized poly National made by Paynes, but has wooden
in my garden
supers. The supplied entrance block is also made of a plastic material
apiary already
and has 4 - 9mm holes to provide a restricted entrance. However, it
but no sightings
also acts as a pollen trap as evidenced by the amount of pollen on
yet. But they are
the landing board and on the ground. As a result I’ve substituted a
across the
wooden alternative as the I slot in the plastic version is to my mind
channel
as
this
Daily
Telegraph
article
reports.
As
it’s name suggests
too wide. Incidentally, there is to be a new rule for both WG and HP
it
is
an
invasive
species
from
Asia
and
was
first
spotted
in Bordeaux,
apiaries that entrance blocks should be in position all year, to prevent
France, in 2005 and is now spreading rapidly. It is a highly effective
robbing and giving the bees a smaller entrance to patrol. After all, a
predator of insects, including honey bees, and can cause significant
wild colony will only inhabit a space having a small entrance.
losses to bee colonies. Although it is not yet present in the UK, it is
considered likely to arrive soon, possibly across the Channel from
France or accidentally imported in pot plants, cut flowers, fruit or
timber. It is active between April and November. Oueens can be up to
3cm in length and workers around 2.5cm. It has a dark brown or black
velvety body bordered with a fine yellow band, a black head and an
orange-yellow face. The Asian hornet is a day-flying species which,
unlike the European hornet, ceases activity at dusk. It nests in tall trees
in urban and rural areas, and nests can also be found in sheds, garages,
under decking or in holes in the wall or ground. An Asian hornet's sting
is thought to be no more painful than that of a British hornet to
humans but the article then goes on to state that six people have
already died from anaphylactic shock after being stung by the
obert’s contribution for this month. Colonies will be building up
insects which originally come from China but have spread across the
fast in this unseasonally warm weather, and swarm time
world.
approaches. I always think the most important thing when it comes
Next month the Department for Environment's National Bee Unit is
to swarm control is to make sure queens have plenty of room to lay.
to meet in Suffolk for an emergency seminar to tackle the predators,
If the broodbox is half full of stores, make sure you’ve got supers on,
which can devour up to 50 honey bees a day. UK beekeepers have
so the bees can move them out of the way. If they’re in a single
been sent email alerts by Defra asking them to be on the look-out
National, do they need more space? Experience suggests that it’s
for the menaces. Members of the public are being urged not to aplikely, so add a super, below the excluder. I don’t like ‘brood and a
proach nests, which are usually found high in trees or on the sides
half’ as this method is known, as it makes inspections awkward, but
of buildings. Being stung a number of times can cause a heart attack
it’s far better than losing half your bees one sunny afternoon.
or multiple organ failure, even for those who are not allergic to the
If they make swarm preparations despite having ample space, they
predators. One victim was a 54-year-old man who died after he dismay need requeening. The first bees I had were like that. They
turbed a nest and was attacked by a swarm in the Loire Valley.
swarmed. I gave them space, and they still swarmed. I couldn’t stop
Carolyne Liston, chairwoman of the Norfolk Beekeepers' Association,
them; in the end I got some more bees. I’ve never come across
anything like it since. No doubt they could have been kept in the hive said Asian hornets are thought to have arrived in France in a consignment of pottery imported from China in 2005. "They are a very,
with a bit more experience, but it would have been extra work, and
very aggressive predator," she warned. "They wait by the entrance
who needs it? Right now, they’ll be on the dandelion; after this,
and grab foraging bees as they come back into the hive. "They can
there’s more diversity of honey plants available, and from our point
absolutely decimate bee colonies. "We are concerned they are goof view, what they’re on starts to become important. Right now,
ing to come into Britain on someone's caravan who has been travelthey’re going full blast, raising as much brood as they can in order to
expand the colony. Everything they bring in is used for brood rearing. ling in France." The Animal Health and Veterinary Laboratories
If bees ever store dandelion honey at all, it’ll be seriously rare. A little Agency is on standby to kill the hornets using special chemicals.
later in the season, once colonies have finished expanding, they start Experts say the UK's recent hot summers provide the perfect climate for the creatures to thrive.
storing honey again, and the bramble nectar they bring in then is the
April is on course to be one of the hottest in a century in the south
major constituent of the honey I get. Someone else might have
of England and temperatures reached 25C in Kent last Wednesday.
something completely different. Meanwhile, colonies don’t always
The Met Office said more hot air from Spain will arrive this week,
have much in the way of stores at this time of year, and in this case
warming up the chilly conditions experienced by many areas over
they’ll be vulnerable to starvation if we get a long spell of bad
the weekend.
weather. The other possibility is starved brood, where the colony
A Defra spokesperson said: "There have been no confirmed sightsurvives, but brood doesn’t. The answer is a gallon of syrup on any
ings of Asian hornets in the UK. We are aware of the potential imcolony which is short of stores. A contact feeder is ideal for this, as
they won’t need a lot. Or alternatively, my favourite solution of a bag pacts they could have on honey bees and have plans in place to
of damp sugar on the top bars. It saves a bit of effort, and works well. remove them if they are identified. This includes comprehensive
monitoring and teams ready to destroy any confirmed nests."
Has anyone ever tried trapping rodents around beehives? I’ve used
poison for years, but I’ve two worries about this. First, it breeds
resistant rats. Second, the poisons they use are persistent. I don’t
our branch, yes your branch has been contacted to provide
want foxes or birds of prey killed by dead or dying animals. The
displays at the following venues, so a little help would be
problem with traps is that I have both mice and rats. To be precise, I
appreciated.
have house mice, wood mice, and field voles, with a minority of rats.
17th May. Woodgate Country Park 10 - 3
The latter do the most damage, as you might expect, and as we can’t
get the Council rat man out after the cuts, they’ve become a menace. 25 - 29th May. Birmingham Botanical Gardens approx. 10 - 3 (we will
only do as many days as we have help. Poor weather last year
Rat traps will kill them, but what usually happens is that mice steal
resulted in a low attendance but who knows what it will be like this
the bait, leaving a trap which will still work if a rat steps on the
year?.
trigger, but this is unlikely. Mouse traps will get the smaller rodents,
but usually end up disappearing attached to rat limbs. I’m trying to
21st June. Dads Lane Allotments
find a way of using both types of trap together, and catching
5th July. Party in the Park at Warley Woods 1 - 6
everything which comes along.
10-12th July. Kings Norton Village and Canal Festival 10 - 4.
T
R
Y