Bee Health

June gap -starvation risk

apiarymanager Feeding Bees and Starvation

Just to remind all beekeepers, that the June gap has arrived and large growing colonies and nucs etc. with little or no available forage, can quickly suffer from a shortage of stores.

So be sure to check that your bees have enough food, especially if you have taken off any spring honey. Note that if you add extra frames of sealed stores you should keep them in the brood boxes, so as to avoid getting them mixed up in the honey supers. Also, if you have to feed directly, use a light syrup (i.e. 1:1 sugar/water ratio) with any honey supers taken off during the feeding process.

Asian Hornet Co-ordinator

apiarymanager Hornets

Hello, I am Peter Kirkup, your Asian Hornet Co-ordinator, I work for Natural Resources Wales and part of this work involves investigating reports of alien species including the Asian Hornet.

In an effort to raise awareness I am interested to hear from anyone willing to be a verifier. A verifier will simply be asked to visit a potential sighting close to them, confirm which species is present and photograph it and send a text back to me if it is an Asian hornet. If you happen to see the nest take a picture if you can safely. DO NOT disturb the nest, you or others might get severely stung. The ‘what3words‘ is a great app for precise locations. Please make yourself familiar with the Asian Hornet appearance. Confirmed sightings can be reported here.

Confirmed Asian Hornet sightings this year to the end of May are 13 individuals captured and one nest destroyed. All have been in Kent or East Sussex but one hornet was found in London. If you browse you tube there is a video showing European hornet and an Asian hornet side by side. There is an Asian hornet app available but it does not work for everyone.

We must all be vigilant, thank you for reading this far.

Peter Kirkup

Tel: 07770 883720

 

World Bee Day 2024

apiarymanager Bee Health, Education & Training, Environment, Events, National Bee Unit, PBKA, Stories of Interest

Bees are so important to the health of our planet that they have their own special day.

World Bee Day takes place on 20 May each year, and its aim is to spread awareness of the significance of bees.

Bee campaigners also ask people everywhere to do more to help and protect the special insects.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) is urging everyone including governments, private companies, researchers and consumers to take action to help save the popular pollinators.

See BBC link for further details!🐝

Starvation Warning!!🐝

apiarymanager Feeding Bees and Starvation, PBKA

In most areas of the UK our Bee Inspectors carrying out inspections over the last few days are seeing bee colonies which are extremely short of food stores within hives. Sadly, we have also attended apiaries where colonies have already died as a result of starvation.

After such a prolonged wet and cold Spring beekeepers should monitor their colony food levels closely, particularly if apiaries have not been visited for some time. Despite the forecast suggesting that temperatures will increase during this week colonies will still need to be checked for food levels.

Feed can be prepared from refined white sugar and water mixed at a 2:1 ratio or one of the proprietary ready mixed syrups available from beekeeping equipment suppliers.

More information about mixing up sugar can be found in the Best Practice Guidelines found on BeeBase.

https://www.nationalbeeunit.com/assets/PDFs/3_Resources_for_beekeepers/Best_practice_guidelines/BPG_7a_Feeding_Bees_-_sugar.pdf

If you have any questions then please contact your local Inspector:

https://www.nationalbeeunit.com/contact-us/ National Bee Unit