Dear Beekeeper and association member,
We all know that this season has been a particularly busy one for swarms – it certainly has been in the area I live in south Wales and across the board from the reports I get.
Please can I ask those of you who are swarm collectors to make yourselves aware of the areas in the county and adjacent counties where you may be collecting swarms from where bee disease is present and to ensure that where you collect swarms in those areas they are hived solely onto new fresh foundation to reduce the risk of disease transmission through the storage of honey they bring with them, into drawn combs.
If you are in a disease area and you put out ‘bait hives’ same thing again – please do not put out boxes with old combs or drawn combs in them as you are substantially increasing your risk of picking up foulbrood from incoming swarms.
Foundation should be used with some form of commercially available attractant and, if the bait hive is big enough the bees will occupy it, sometimes they will occupy a box with foundation without an attractant.
You can check the locations of outbreaks of foulbrood here which is freely available information on BeeBase :
Please remember when you view the above pages to look at both 2025 and previous years to see the area’s most at risk – the 2024 areas are just as important from a swarm point of view as 2025, we are early in the season and many of those areas identified in 2024 wont yet have received follow-up visits yet.
Where possible try to isolate incoming swarms you have hived in a separate isolation apiary and wait for two brood cycles, examining the brood closely and if you have any concerns please contact your local bee inspector who can be contacted by searching on your postcode on
your postcode on beebase: Contact Us » APHA – National Bee Unit – BeeBase if you are unsure as to what the National Bee Unit does this short film is quite useful from Beebase: About Us » APHA – National Bee Unit – BeeBase
Please try to log into your Beebase account and make sure that your apiary locations are up to date if they change – if they are up to date and we find any Statutory Notifiable Disease in your area you will be informed soonest. Having your email address on file means the notifications will come to you swiftly.
Bee Inspectors are all practicing – established Beekeepers and Beefarmers – we are here to help and there is no such thing as a daft question.
For those of you who are located within South Wales you may well have had a visit from me in the past and myself and the team of inspectors across Wales are currently booking up to see people in the radius surrounding where the latest outbreaks of European Foulbrood and American foulbrood has been discovered.
Our work is always done protecting the confidentiality of apiary site locations and beekeepers.
Many thanks again and happy beekeeping.
Kind regards.
Dan
Daniel Baxter
Regional Bee Inspector – Wales | Arolygydd Gwenyn Rhanbarthol – Cymru
National Bee Unit | Uned Gwenyn Cenedlaethol – Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA) | Asiantaeth Iechyd Anifeiliaid a Phlanhigion
Mobile: 07771038646 Email: daniel.baxter@apha.gov.uk
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Pembrokeshire Beekeepers' Association 