BeeLines - February '26

We are pleased to start with a thank you to our daughter Cerys for her presentation, “Bees and beekeeping in Llŷn & Eifionydd in times gone by”. It may have been below zero outside our mid-January meeting in Y Ffor Village Hall but it was a happy and informative meeting inside. As beekeepers we are absorbed mostly with the practicalities of our craft, but what a pleasant reflection to learn about the lineage of local beekeeping back to its importance in Medieval Times and its continuity through time, place and individuals directly to our area, ourselves and our Llŷn & Eifionydd Beekeepers’ Association. Thanks Cerys for sharing your research into this fascinating history.

If you keep bees, the very useful winter flowering heather is now in full bloom and, given sunshine, the clusters of flowers are literally humming with bees.

Snow drops and the first crocus flowers are heralding the spring to come, and prompting beekeepers to prepare that spare brood box and, preferably a nucleus box (or two!) as well. We mentioned this preparation in the January BeeLines, along with making a plan for swarm control (particularly if new to this procedure) and, possibly, making a bait hive. We also mentioned our intention to consider swarm control in some detail. For these notes we are going to focus on the very basics of a hive inspection and the key preparations and observations to make even before a hive is opened.

As we embark on our 41st year of keeping bees we had better state that the following notes pertain to our own experience - bear in mind that the same information from another two beekeepers may give at least three differing suggestions! Starting at the very beginning. It seems best to approach a hive, or hives, with a certain stillness; and avoid attracting their attention by not going in front of a hive. Bees do not have ears but they are very sensitive to vibration and movement, so place any equipment a little way behind the hives and do any preparatory tasks, such as lighting your smoker, sedately! Before any intervention, before the hive is even touched, it is good practice, and can be useful, to spend a few minutes leaning over the hive, or kneeling by its side, to observe the bees toing-and-froing at the entrance; and here we assume a warm - ‘shirt sleeves’ - day that is suitable for opening a hive. Are the bees busy? Is abundant pollen going in? In the spring with the yellow pollen from the common goat willow (‘pussy willow’ flowers), it is a sure sign of a laying queen and lots of larvae ‘mouths’ being fed. Listless activity can be an indication of a problem eg. a queenless colony. Studying a hive without intervention is a valued skill. The topic will only be briefly mentioned in these notes, but there is a large book written on the subject, The Observant Beekeeper - by Paul Honigmann. If your hive has a ‘varroa or debris tray’ - this is another valuable source of colony information without the hive being opened. In a lecture Steve Riley, author of the book The Honey Bee Solution to Varroa, has called the varroa tray ‘the beekeeper’s laboratory‘. The collection of debris on the tray can inform you, for example of the approximate size and position of the colony; how much honey is is being uncapped (shown by the wax flakes off the cappings); if new comb is being constructed (the bees accidentally drop tiny flakes of transparent new wax), etc. There is a new book in the Association library devoted to this subject, Bottom-Up Beekeeping: : Learning from Debris on the Hive Floor by Ray Baxter.

To smoke or not to smoke a hive is not going to be interrogated in these notes. We rarely smoke small nucleus colonies, but we generally smoke full size hives. Our reasoning is as follows. We tried not using smoke and, mostly, it worked fine. The problem arose when it did not work - i.e. the occasional colony that reacted boisterously (or worse) soon after the first frame or two were lifted. Smoking (if you did have your smoker lit and ready) then seemed, in our experience, not to work too well. You found excessive smoke was being used to drive the bees ‘down’ and the ‘chain reaction’ of the bees was difficult or impossible to control, and the experience was not pleasant. Therefore we smoke as follows. The smoker should be well-lit and smoking well; we use well rotted wood, and sometimes the coarse wood bits conveniently found in piles by the roadside from commercial wood chipping (thanks Keith for this idea). Whatever the fuel, it should be well dried. Once the smoker is going well, we prefer to ‘puff and energise’ the smoker away from the hive and only offer small clouds of ‘cool’ smoke to the hive entrance. It may be noted that a busy hive entrance may momentarily suck smoke into the hive - usually followed by it being blown out! (an illustration of the hive ventilation system at work). The gentlest of ‘two or three puffs’ will encourage smoke to by-pass the entrance bees and enter the hive. We then (ideally) wait 2 minutes - this allows time for the natural ‘fire alarm’ (or whatever evolutionary response ensues) to ripple through the colony and the reactive response to take place. This response is clearly seen by bees directing themselves to areas of open honey cells where many bees congregate to fill their tummies with honey - this, it seems, detracts bees from being aggressive and less able to sting with a belly full of honey; that is the theory. Whatever may be the detail of this behaviour it does work quite well. Now is the first time that the hive is touched; the roof being removed and placed conveniently behind the hive. If it is the more usual ‘flat roof’ it can be placed upside down and be a convenient base to place any supers from the hive. Lifting the crown board is next. A calm hive may require only a little more smoke - possibly, a little puff to clear bees off frame parts you wish to handle.

Next time; ‘into the hive’. A first spring inspection to ascertain information on two key essentials for a strong colony…food and brood.

A little bee tale. On 17th January we emptied a tub of honey; after washing the tub (well!) It was put on a wooden seat outside our front door to dry in the morning sunshine. When collected a little while, at around midday, it was being visited by a bee! It was 8°C and was a clear example of the amazing olfactory (smell) ability of honey bees. The following day, would you believe, the same bee - it had to be the same bee, surely - was there exactly where the previous day’s tub had been; she was hovering, looking for the tub. It was 11am and the temperature was 4.3°C! This was the ambient temperature recorded at our temperature monitored hive; it was a still day and the radiant sunshine by our house front felt pleasantly warm. Memory and capacity to fly at cool temperatures - as well as a highly developed sense of smell - were three amazing abilities being demonstrated by one of our local dark bees.

We have already mentioned the Association library containing a wealth of interesting bee related books. A new addition to the library that we noticed and borrowed at a recent meeting - thank you Peter for bringing a selection of library books to meetings - was titled, Local Bees Are Best; by Bruce Henderson Smith. The author, as well as being totally convinced of the benefit of keeping locally adapted bees, provides clear and very easy to read information on ‘simple queen rearing’. An interesting and well written book.

As we are at the very beginning of February it was time to weigh our hives. Here is a brief summary of the weight changes. From ten hives, nine had lost weight and one had gained a small amount. The maximum hive loss was -1.9kg; and the one gain was +0.09kg. The average weight change over the ten hives was a loss of -0.92kg. After weighing we added a very thin ‘cake’ of DIY candy directly across the top of brood frames - on most hives this meant gently ‘pushing’ a circle of bees to one side - lovely to see live bees in all hives! The weight of each candy was less than 0.2kg (half a pound), and, as they varied, their weights were recorded to be subtracted from the weight changes next month. I accidentally trapped one lovely bee between my fingers and recorded our first sting of the year!

If you have comments, information, a bee story or tips you would like to share with members please let us know and we will include them in BeeLines