As reported on the BBC News website.
The Government has made an agreement with landowners including Network Rail and the Highways Agency to restore bee-friendly habitat throughout England.
Click here to read the story.
Author: PBKA Webmaster
Who Needs Manuka?
Hywel Thomas of Boulston has an account, on his Goodwood Honey website, of how his honey was used to treat a wound on a horse’s fore leg. Warning, the pictures show the wound before treatment.
Of course local honey is not just about treating wounds, as he says, it tastes good too!
Visit our Local Honey page to find where to buy Pembrokeshire honey.
Varroa Alert and Group Purchase of MAQS
Please read to the bottom of this email to find out how you can get MAQS to treat your hive.
This email arrived in my inbox this morning from the NBU.
“We have received reports from our Appointed Bee Inspectors that many colonies are showing signs of high Varroa infestations and consequently bee deformities.
If you have not already done so, it may be worthwhile to treat your colony with a registered varroacide. When administering a treatment, please use a registered veterinary product and ensure that the label is followed and not deviated from. Beekeepers may find a list of registered products in our advisory leaflet, ‘Managing Varroa‘
After colonies have been treated, beekeepers should then reduce colony entrances and assess whether feeding needs to be carried out. Lift the roof off of the colony and heft the hive from each side of the brood box. If the colony has sufficient stores, then it should be difficult to lift. Each colony should have between 20-25 kg of stores for the winter.
If feeding needs to be carried out use either inverted sugar syrup or a 2:1 solution, i.e. 1 kg of granulated white sugar: 650 ml water, or 2 lb of sugar to 1 pint of water.
Please note that if any of your colonies are showing signs of both Varroa damage and lack of food, it may be useful to feed and treat simultaneously. This should not be done if there is a honey flow on, only in emergency cases.”
Pembrokeshire BKA members wishing to take prat in a group purchase of MAQS should follow this link. Password required, if you have forgotton the password you can find it on your 2014 printed programme, if you cannot find that then follow this link.
Honey Show and Bee Exhibition
On Saturday September 20th at Picton Community Centre Haverfordwest Pembrokeshire Beekeepers’ Association are holding their annual honey show followed by a public Bee Exhibition.
From 1.00 pm until 4.00 pm the display will be open for the public to sample and buy honey, view the range of exhibits, try their hand at making rolled candles and see live honeybees from behind the safety of a sheet of glass.
Beekeepers will be on hand to talk to and to answer questions about our craft.
Entrance is free and light refreshments will be available throughout the afternoon.
Come and join us! Association Members have been sent a schedule and it can also be viewed and downloaded by clicking here.
Honey Fraud
MSN Food has an item about the top ten food frauds – one of them is HONEY (click to see item).
The item reads:
“Perhaps surprisingly, there’s a huge international network of honey launderers (sorry!). Honey is one of the most common food frauds of all, and a 2013 study found that there was more honey labelled as the expensive Manuka type in British shops than the total annual production of the variety, much of it cheaper, common-or-garden honey, mislabelled as Manuka.
Also, in 2013, German food company ALW was busted for the largest food fraud in US history, an $80 million scam to import cheap Chinese honey into America mislabelled as the produce of other countries. In a separate development, police in China’s Chongqing Hechuan district discovered a production site for fake honey last year and confiscated about 500 kilograms. “The artificial honey contained zero per cent real honey,” said a report, and was instead a mixture of water, sugar, alum powder and colouring.”
The message is clear – buy local honey from a beekeeper! If you are in Pembrokeshire you can find some here.
Facebook Page Rebadged
The bee-eyed among you may have noticed that our Facebook page name has changed to “Pembrokeshire Beekeeping Centre”.
The Facebook page
Concentrates on providing our followers, many of whom are not beekeepers, with photographs, news and events taking place at the Pembrokeshire Beekeeping Centre at Scolton Manor. It will also get feeds of general interest (like this one) from our main website.
The main website
Provides the primary information about Pembrokeshire Beekeepers’ Association and contains our main information library for beekeepers and members, contact information and calendar of events.
However you keep up with Pembrokeshire Beekeepers Association and the Pembrokeshire Beekeeping Centre we hope you enjoy what you find.
