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General Q&A, Bee chat and only Bee chat please
 #1598  by AdamD
 31 Dec 2018, 09:44
Patrick, After identifying AFB in the early '70's and the resultant destruction of pretty much everything by burning and burying, there is nothing left of my Fathers beekeeping apart from a small hammer I remember using for making up frames when I was a child and smoker which I found when clearing out his garage a few years ago. It's strange how we are attracted to 'sentimental' things; I am not sure whether the rusty smoker will last much longer though.
 #1599  by AdamD
 31 Dec 2018, 09:55
Jim Norfolk wrote:
30 Dec 2018, 18:31
Weighed my hives. Strangely the total hive weight has not changed in the last month. The bees are there and there is plenty of wax debris evident on the varroa boards so I know they are busy. I have noticed this pause in weight loss in previous years. Some possible reasons weight might not go down: 1, the wood of the hives is taking up water; 2, the bees are not actually using much of their stores to keep warm as the brood box is highly insulated; 3, they are rearing brood which could involve the import of water and brood adds weight; 4, they were still finding food in the mild weather. Any other ideas?
Jim, I suspect all of the above! I am not sure whether WBC's will take up too much water if well-painted however I would assume that the insulation value of a thin piece of cedar as used in a National will reduce when very wet - and it could potentially absorb a measurable amount of water. During my inspections yesterday - 11.5 degrees - there was a little pollen on some returning bees and presumably there is a little nectar too although I am not sure from where - and bees will be diluting stores with brought in water too. The picture below is bees drinking in a January a few years ago.
 #1600  by Steve (The Drone)
 31 Dec 2018, 10:10
Patrick, Adam - I began beekeeping when I ‘inherited’ hives from an old beekeeper in the village. Along with the hives came a square veil mounted on a bowler hat, painted white. It remains hung up in my bee-shed to this day.
 #1601  by Patrick
 31 Dec 2018, 12:11
I think it’s maybe something as we get older and the pace of change ever quickens, that sometimes the everyday items have more poignancy than the items we tend to inherit simply based on their monetary value.

The bees remain the constant and we are always thinking ahead with them but based on experience from the past.

What a gutter re the AFB - did your Dad have the heart to restock?
 #1603  by AdamD
 01 Jan 2019, 11:48
Patrick, no he didn't re-stock. All that was left after the bees etc were destroyed were the scorched lifts of a WBC which hung around for a while until they rotted.

We are fortunate that in the UK, AFB is very rare - We should thank the 'zero tolerance' we have of the disease. In NZ for example, it appears that AFB is far too common there and hive density is also very high compared to the UK so the chances of transmission is much greater.

There is a high level of EFB in East Anglia and in the past I have had emails from the National Bee Unit telling me it's been within 3 km from me, which is a bit scary, so I am always mindful to check for this, the 'second major brood disease'.

For any new beekeepers who are not aware of the National Bee Unit and Beebase and the disease maps, the link is here:- http://www.nationalbeeunit.com/maps/map.cfm
Last edited by AdamD on 01 Jan 2019, 11:51, edited 1 time in total.Reason: typo
 #1608  by Patrick
 02 Jan 2019, 00:00
Hi Adam, your poor Dad and entirely understandable his heart probably went out of beekeeping as a result.

We have EFB around me as well, at a far too prevalent level. Each year I get several NBU alerts of "EFB within 3 km of one of your apiaries" warnings. Fortunately we also have a generally very responsible local beekeeping community who are not only willing to let it be known they have had an outbreak, for the sake of their neighbours, but also most adopt the colony destruction route.

Beebase tells me I have 181 other apiaries (note not just hives, but separate complete apiaries) registered on the system within a 10km radius of my bees. I am pretty sure if you included unregistered hives then the total must be in excess of 300. That sort of density scatter of apiaries is quite astonishing on a number of levels when you think about it.

I always wonder about known and unknown hive density on potential honey yields but bearing in mind bees capacity for foraging over a dozen square miles or more around their home base, the reality is probably much more a function of the relative abundance of forage availability immediately adjacent or close to their particular home, so effort vs reward.

A commercial beekeeper called Bob Smith of Western Australia apparently reported in 1954 a crop of 762lb of honey per hive averaged across no less than 460 colonies in a single isolated apiary in the forest of Karri trees, which is absolutely astonishing.

It also underlines for someone living in a predominantly livestock area dominated by large areas of intensive grassland, the impoverished floral landscapes many of us now keep bees in. It puts into context what we thought of as a pretty good season for most of us around here last year!
 #1610  by Jim Norfolk
 02 Jan 2019, 13:12
Patrick since you have brought up colony density I thought out of curiosity, I would look up what has been published. Jaffe et al (2010) estimated total honeybee colonies across Europe and elswhere. They found that the higher the average temperature the more colonies the area supported. Colony desities were about the same in nature reserves and agricultural landscapes. From their graph, for Uk temperatures the colony density would be 3 to 4 per square km. The two UK sites came in at 2.8 and 4.

A 10 km radius is an area of 314.2 km2( Pi x radius squared). So your estimate of 300 colonies is about 1 per km2. That suggests there could be quite a lot of feral colonies hiding somewhere.
 #1612  by Patrick
 02 Jan 2019, 16:47
Hi Jim

How sensible to work in km2. For some unknown reason I think in square miles whilst Beebase works in Km (of course it does).

Its an interesting extrapolation. Beebase quotes a figure of 181 apiaries within 10km, which gives an apiary density of Beebase registered beekeepers of 181 / 314 = 0.57 apiaries per square km which I think is pretty amazing. My 300 apiaries is a purely speculative guess based on the number of apiaries i know of locally owned by people not currently members of the BBKA (so probably not too fussed about registering on Beebase either, its about 2:1). Maybe its an underestimate?

Jaffe et al (with which i was not familiar, so thanks for the heads up) is apparently using colony density rather than apiary density, so it would be interesting to know how many colonies that 181 apiaries represents - my nearest one averages a dozen colonies, my immediate neighbour a field away has three hives, others may only be singles. Presumably NBU can easily determine that total but I am not sure i can - anyone else know?

Lets guess a conservative average of 3 colony apiaries so x 181 =543 colonies / 314km = 1.73 colonies /km2. If 300 apiaries averaging the same number it would be 900 / 314 so 2.86 per km2, which is about what Jaffe suggests. It sounds a high density to me, but is actually still only 0.03 colonies per hectare so put that way perhaps doesn't sound so bad after all.

Interesting stuff.
 #1672  by Patrick
 11 Jan 2019, 14:58
Walked round bees at lunchtime, most hives with bees on the wing and several seen bringing in small orangey-yellow pollen loads, I suspect of snowdrop pollen. I am very close to a nursery who specialise in snowdrops, so we have plenty locally, which is a bonus.

We also have a small field of commercial cobnuts (hazel) next door covered in long catkins but the bees seem particularly lassez faire towards them even though the pollen is abundant. Hazel is naturally wind pollinated, so I wonder if the pollen is just not that appealing for some reason or is it that they just prefer something else if it is available?

Anyone know and do bees work hazel around you?
 #1673  by Chrisbarlow
 11 Jan 2019, 15:14
One of my apiaries backs onto a hedge with hazel planted in it. There were plenty of nuts on it last year but I can't say I've ever noticed bees working them. I'll pay more attention next time I'm down there.
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