Beelines - March 2026

Have we got any Trend Setters in the Association? If so, are you keeping up with ‘Hot honey’?

“Hot honey is currently a massive, surging food trend—often called a “swicy” (sweet/spicy) craze….” AI informs me. Mainly used as swicy dressing on pizzas, toasties, etc (you learn a little something every day). There is plenty available if you wish to try some - [mix some of your own - maybe a few shakes of Tabasco into your kitchen honey pot!] Or buy: Black Bee Hot Honey (£10.48 for 227g from Field & Flower); Welsh Hot Fire Honey (£9.99 for 145g from Black Mountain Honey) or Hot Honey (£5.50 for 240g from Snowdonia Cheese Co.) or possibly Tesco Hot Honey (£2 for 250g; the ingredients include 41% honey, plus sugar, vinegar and a range of (hot!) spices).

£2 for just over half a pound of ‘honey’; really! This leads to a Radio 4 programme first broadcast on 30th March, called the ‘The Honey Trap’. The programme is packed full of very interesting information about the world trade in honey and the ‘dark arts’ that flow through it. The reporter is Sheila Dillon who “investigates the scale of global honey fraud”. Loads of information; for example - I paraphrase - 70% of imported honey to the UK is from China, where some(?) is mass produced by feeding copious amounts of sugar to hives, extracted before ‘ripe’ and dehumidified; bulking out with corn syrup or other sugars, etc… This is a very brief introduction to a fascinating listen and is available on BBC Sounds; highly recommended: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002qh1k

LLEBKA member Emyr Parry informed us of an article in the Guardian that describes an amazing ‘bee-event’. It is a welcome read to learn of an area in SW Belgium where there is a protected zone for their native honey bee - Apis mellifera melifera (Amm). Notwithstanding local variations, this is, of course, our local honey bee. The area has become famous with enthusiasts for Amm with a ‘Black Bee Fest’. At this summer event, lasting 2 weeks, hundreds of virgin queens are mated to be distributed to beekeepers who return with the mated queens to their homes in other areas of Belgium. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/feb/23/dark-bee-species-belgian-beekeepers-honeybees-aoe

We followed this story to learn about the organisation behind this event - the organization with its inspired name, Mellifica. This is fuller information to this fascinating story with details of the setting-up of the protected zone [echoes of our VCA!]. “Thus, since December 16, 2004, this bee is the only one whose rearing is permitted within the municipality. This decision is entirely innovative, unprecedented in Belgium”: https://www.mellifica.be/a/la-zone-de-protection-de-chimay/

Continuing our mini-series on the basics of early season hive inspections (that can lead to swarm control). This time; ‘into the hive’; a first spring inspection to ascertain information on two key essentials for a strong colony…food and brood. In the February BeeLines we left the inspection as the crown board was very carefully lifted and, along with a possible gentle waft of smoke, the brood frames and bees were sighted. We are assuming a warm ‘shirt sleeves day’ towards the end of March/beginning of April. As we look down onto the brood frames, we are assuming that there is a spacer board (some call it a ‘dummy board’) in front of the first frame.. This has to be removed prior to reaching the first brood frame. We believe a spacer board is very useful - essential to our own beekeeping. To explain: a National brood box can usually hold 12 frames when new. However with use, each joint between frames will soon receive a thin coat of propolis - it is what bees do to all parts that contact each other. If this adds only 0.5mm to each contact that equates to 6.5mm and results in 12 frames being a tight fit; too tight! And this leads to a very difficult levering and probable jarring to remove the first frame. The answer is to have 11 frames in your brood box, plus a spacer board that fits easily in the ‘12th gap’. You can buy a spacer/dummy board, but a thin strip of wood glued and pinned to a piece of plywood works well. The size is the same as a brood frame, except thinner. See the photo for dimensions.

Gentle easing apart and lifting should enable the spacer board to be removed. The really important point about the spacer board is that there should be a ‘gap’ between it and the end wood of the brood box. It is this gap that enables the board to be eased back into that space. (To maintain that small gap we always place the hive tool behind the spacer board and gently lever and press all the brood frames snugly together as the last procedure of a hive inspection - we are getting ahead of ourselves!).The first frame can now be easily removed by easing it back into the space previously occupied by the board; likewise the second frame can be loosened. Early in the season the first, maybe the second frame could be free of bees. If this is the case these frames can be stood upright by the leg of a hive stand, etc. Removing one or two frames makes it so much easier - with the extra space - to manipulate further frames. As soon as a frame has bees on it, be cautious about removing it from the box - the queen might just be amongst the bees! She probably is not, but occasionally she is. If any frames with bees are removed it is wise and recommended practice to carefully place the frame, with its bees, into a nuc box with its lid re-placed. A nuc box to accompany a hive inspection is a must for us - as the season progresses it is, also, at hand if an impromptu ‘split’ of the colony is thought necessary. The entrance to the nuc box should be closed, preferably with some bee proof mesh to allow for ventilation. At this early part of the season we would hope to see sealed honey on at least some of the first three frames, i.e. honey stored from last year. As a minimum we would wish to see one fullish frame of honey before the brood nest is reached. (Colonies are normally symmetrical, and so a frame of honey on one side of the brood will be repeated on the other). If there are less than two frames of honey in the brood box it would be wise to place a thin slice of fondant on top of the brood frames i.e. in the bee-space under the crown board. By the end of March/beginning of April you would expect signs of brood rearing from the third frame onwards; i.e. open cells with nectar, pollen, eggs, larvae and sealed cells with pupae. Identifying these different parts of the brood nest is best done with instructed observation ‘by the hive’ aided by some excellent photographs in LLEBKA library books e.g. BBKA Guide to Beekeeping or The Haynes Bee Manual. There are loads of photos online but without clear labelling these may be confusing.

If you plan to practice swarm control the routine of seven day hive inspections can be started before the ‘swarming season’ begins. And when does the swarming season start? It likely starts when the first spell of hot weather arrives in late April, or more usually into May. Signs at hives include a ‘full’ brood box of bees and brood’ i.e. when the brood box is opened it has bees on every frame, and when the first drones are seen flying from the hive. With good reason it is said the flowering of the white ‘May blossom’ on the hawthorn bush, signals the beginning of the swarming season. Let’s assume it is a glorious warm to hot day near the beginning of May. (These notes are being written on 26th February and, at the moment, it is difficult to think that the rain will ever stop!) You have been keeping an eye on your hive(s), the bees are busy taking in lots of pollen and you know the colony has been expanding well. You open the hive and it is flourishing, bursting with bees. If you wish to practice ‘swarm-control’ and/or colony increase, now is the time for a decision. Do you choose to do a ‘pre-emptive’ split or continue with seven day inspections and then split the colony when queen cells are found? With a pre-emptive split, you split the colony - remember a strong colony - before queen cells are started. For beginners with one or two colonies the pre-emptive split has a lot to offer. This will be the focus in the next BeeLines.

Hive weight changes over February (weighed on 1st March): considering the number of dull, wet days the changes were moderate. Maximum change -1.19 kg; minimum change +0.1 kg. What is happening inside the hives remains to be seen, but it was good to see live bees at all ten hives weighed.