Ayr and District Beekeepers Association Newsletter.
Contact Details:
President: Tony Riome. 01292 443 440
Vice President: Joyce Duncan. 01290 550 132
Secretary/Treasurer: Lindsay Baillie. 01292 570 659
Librarian: Suzanne Clark. 01290 700 370
Editor: Suzanne Clark.
Telephone 01290 700 370
Email: bees5@btinternet.com.
August 2011.
This spring was very mixed with a pleasant March and April and very wet May
and June. Fortunately July delivered a fine spell of warm weather which resulted
in a good crop of honey for most beekeepers. The bees worked very hard to make
up for lost time and quickly brought in a large amount of nectar which resulted in
things becoming hectic for a time with honey to be harvested, spun off and jarred
within a short space of time in order for those who wished to display and/or sell
their honey at the Flower Show being ready in time.
The Association hives earlier in the year at OSR.
Several beginners have acquired nucleus hives from the Association, and we wish
them well in their endeavours as beekeepers.
The association apiary in full swing.
beginners Wilma and Jim Steele with Joyce
Duncan, Vice-President ADBKA.
Ayr
Flower
Show
Congratulations to all those who won recognition for your efforts at this year’s
show. Our stand was justly praised by many visitors and the biggest
disappointment was being just pipped at the post for the Golden Rose Award after
all the hard work which went into that project. Thinking caps are already poised to
do better next year. Despite the fact we came second, a huge round of applause
should be given to all those who took part in the design and implementing of this
project.
Earth, Wind, Fire and Water.
Honey, pale and interesting, to dark and sultry.
A visitor to the Flower Show was less than impressed by the support the show
received from the media. Here is the letter he wrote to The Herald Newspaper.
“We enjoyed a real breath of fresh Ayr”
“Many thousands enjoyed the Ayr Flower Show over the weekend, with wonderful exhibits and
the customary congenial atmosphere. What a pity our national broadcasters could not follow
The Herald’s example and at least give the event a mention. The BBC flagship gardening
programmes from the Beechgrove Garden did not seem to be aware that this prestigious event
was taking place, and STV was no better.”
C. Stevenson, Ayr.
The Herald 9.08.2011.
 Keep the Apiary tidy: Do not throw brace comb on the ground.
 Take care when handling bees: Do not spill nectar or honey in the apiary;
avoid crushing bees.
 Take care in feeding: Reduce entrance, feed when bees are not active.
 Do not feed pollen or honey, it may contain disease.
Beware second-hand frames: Disinfect.
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Check swarms for disease.
Renew old frames: Those with distorted, misshapen, excessive drone
holes/gaps.
 Know the signs of disease: Beware of moving disease from one colony to
another.

Practical Beekeeping by Clive de Bruyn.
Cereal 2011: Project seeks better understanding of OSR
pollinators.
NEW ‘Operator Pollinator’ research is seeking to address the role of pollinating
insects in oilseed rape crops and the potential to enhance crop pollination.
Outlining the project at Cereals, Gary Jobling, oilseed rape manager with Syngenta,
which is sponsoring the project, said while oilseed rape was recognised as being selffertile, studies had shown insect pollination could increase seed yield and quality.
Prof Richard Pywell of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology is coordinating the
project in conjunction with entomologist Mike Edwards, the Wildlife Farming
Company and beet conservationists Hymettus.
Further research
Geoff Coates of Syngenta, said further research was required to provide a greater
understanding of insect pollination in oilseed rape crops and how this process might
be enhanced using wild pollinators, managed pollinators - honey bees - or a
combination of the two.
Speaking at Cereals, Mr Coates said solitary bees, of which there are more than 200
species in the UK, might prove especially beneficial as pollinators.
The initial stages of the new project have assessed the activity of natural pollinators in
commercial UK oilseed rape crops during flowering this spring, and will aim to
provide an indication of the role of bees and pollinating insects in seed production and
quality.
Farmers Guardian, June 2011.
HONEY CONTAINING GM POLLEN NEEDS APPROVAL BEFORE SALE IN THE EU
Under EU rules all genetically-modified crops or food made with GM
ingredients need to be approved before they can be sold in the EU.
February’s non-binding opinion by Yves Bot, an advocate general at the EU’s
Court of Justice, spells out that even ”a minute quantity of pollen” from a
GM crop would mean that ”honey must be the subject of an authorisation to
be placed on the market”. Advocate generals’ opinions are not binding on
the court, but they are often followed in judgments.
From a Bloomberg article, published in February written by Anthony Aarons and Stephanie
Bodoni -
Beekeepers with hives close to fields of Monsanto Co. genetically modified
maize can’t sell their honey in the European Union without regulatory
approval, an adviser to the EU’s highest court said. The unintentional
presence in honey “even of a minute quantity of pollen” from the maize is
sufficient reason to restrict its sale, Advocate General Yves Bot of the
European Court of Justice said in a non-binding opinion today.
“Food containing material from a genetically modified plant, whether that
material is included intentionally or not, must always be regarded as food
produced from modified plants”, said Bot. The Luxembourg-based EU
tribunal follows such advice most of the time. Rulings normally follow within
six months of an opinion. EU rules require prior authorization before
genetically modified goods can be put on the market. The bloc’s 27 nations
are split over the safety of food produced from genetically modified crops.
This is slowing EU permission to grow them and has prompted complaints by
the U.S. and other trade partners.
Beekeepers “have a real problem,” said Achim Willand, the lawyer for the
group of producers that brought the case.
“It’s incomprehensible that the cultivation of such crops on unprotected
fields is allowed,” Willand, of German law firm Gassner, Groth, Siederer &
Coll, said in telephone interview. Since the beekeepers aren’t allowed to sell
their honey, their only option is to “seek damages and ask that safeguards
are put in place” against the pollen from GM crops, he said.
Catch the Buzz June 2011
Catch the Buzz June 2011
Remember how the Varroa mite operates? It breeds in bee brood, producing many more
offspring than the bee. It could be that the apparently strongest and most populous hives are at
greater risk, since having produced more bees they will have also produced more varroa. Varroa
could be present in their thousands at this time of year, and the numbers can double every four
weeks. Since the queen will be laying fewer eggs from now on, there could be more than one
mite mother per cell.
Monitor hives regularly by maintaining on a varroa floor with a sampling tray underneath.
Research suggests that colony collapse is likely before the end of the season if average daily mite
drop for a normal colony exceeds the following winter/spring= 0.5mites; May=6mites,
June=10mites, July=16mites August = 33mites, September=20mites. Unless mite numbers fall
below these numbers, colonies must be treated this month.
.
Examples of treatments available in the UK: “Apistan” a synthetic pyrethroid. It is spread
within the bee colony by contact with the bees. Two plastic strips are hung between brood
combs. It can be used in Autumn or early spring for 6 -8 weeks.
“Apiguard” (thymol) a slow release gel which works by evaporation, contact or ingestion.
Two 50g pack treatment with 10 – 15 day interval. Used in Spring or late Summer after honey
harvest for 4 – 6 weeks.
Also remember to star closing down entrances from now on to prevent robbing by other bees,
wasps and mice.
Please check BeeBase for further information, also the DEFRA website.
Waggle Dance
Honey bees have sophisticated communication systems which they use to coordinate
colony activities. The best known is the “waggle dance”. Foragers who have located
profitable flower patches make waggle dances back in the hive. These communicate
the direction and distance of the flower patch to nestmate bees who follow the dance.
In 1973 Karl von Frisch received a Nobel Prize for discovering the waggle dance. The
waggle dance is one of the few scientific discoveries awarded a Nobel Prize that can
be seen with the naked eye. The honey bee is the only animal that “tells you where it
has been”. This can be used in many ways by scientists. It can be used, for example,
to investigate how flying insects measure distance. It can also be used to learn where
honey bees are collecting food, and to study their foraging patterns and they vary with
time.
Submitted by Joyce Duncan.
Beekeeping with Double Deeps by Ian Jamieson
Why choose “double deeps” rather than “single deep” or “deep and a half”?
With single deep, you have insufficient comb space for a normally productive
queen with the consequence that she runs out of comb to lay in, the bees
become overcrowded and queen pheromone dispersion is restricted with the
result that the swarming impulse is triggered before the colony has built up to
the large force needed for excess honey production. ( By excess honey
production, I mean producing more honey than they require to survive the
winter -- honey which the beekeeper can take without endangering the colony’s
survival and without needing to feed a less nutritious substitute ). The upside
for some beekeepers is that the bees are forced to put all their honey in the
supers, which the beekeeper takes and replaces by feeding sugar syrup, which
gives the bees double the work and a poor substitute.
With deep and a half, the bees have more room, the queen has more comb
available and swarming is delayed. The colony is able to increase in size and
honey production is improved. However there is one major drawback: you have
two sizes of frame within the brood-nest. This is an inconvenience on at least
two occasions. In the latter half of the season, the queen reduces her egg-laying
and the shallow box begins to be filled with honey, and the queen moves down
into the deep box. If the boxes are not reversed before the end of the season, the
bees move upwards as they consume their winter stores and in the spring the
queen ends up in the super. In the spring the colony is often quite small and the
queen is sometimes slow to cross the gap and move down to the deep box below,
thus hampering the build of the colony. However if the boxes are reversed in the
autumn, the bees move the honey upwards from the super into the deep box, so
that as the winter progresses the bees move upwards into the stored honey and
in the spring the colony is up in the deep box. The empty shallow box can then
be put back above the deep.
The second disadvantage is that with brood in two boxes, queen cells are usually
built on the bottom of the frames in the upper box.
While this does not matter if you do not wish to increase the number of
stocks, it is a drawback if you wish to create a second colony by splitting the
boxes using the Horsely board or making a nucleus hive. Shallow frames cannot
be put into a normal nucleus box which is designed for deep frames -- the bees
would build brace comb onto the bottom of the frame which would give you
further problems
Using two deep boxes avoids many of these problems. You have greater
flexibility and can adapt your beekeeping to your needs. If you are beginning
with a new colony, start with a single deep brood box and let the bees build up
until the box is well filled with bees and brood -- i.e. brood in seven frames and
the bees across the full box.
As an alternative to putting the queen excluder on
with a super above at this stage, you can now add the second deep box. The
purpose is to give the bees extra space to avoid overcrowding and give them
comb for depositing nectar. Too much space, too early in the season is bad for
the bees which have to maintain a brood nest temperature of 95 degrees F,
hotter than our warmest summer has ever been! ( Something, incidentally,
which should be borne in mind when opening hives for inspections early in the
season ).
The idea therefore is simply to increase the number of deep frames
from eleven to sixteen -- a similar comb area to deep and a half. Dummy frames
are used to achieve this. A dummy frame is the same shape as an ordinary deep
frame but can be any width and if wide, is normally hollow with thin plywood
sides
Before you go to your apiary prepare a deep box with eight frames and make
dummies to fill the remaining space. Then make dummies also for the deep with
the bees in it. On a warm sunny day when the bees are flying well, take your
deep with five frames ( assuming there are eleven frames in your hive ) and
dummies for both boxes. Remove the roof and set it to the side upside down. Sit
your new brood box across the upturned roof with its dummies at each side and
the middle empty. Gently smoke the bees as you lift off the crown board and lay
it upside down in front of the hive after checking that the queen is not on it. If
you have a landing board sit the crown board against it so that the bees on the
crown board can walk back up into the hive. Put a cover cloth over the bees to
keep them down and to conserve the brood nest heat. Remove three frames
from the sides of the box and place them in new brood box. Put a cover cloth
over them. Return to the hive and fill the space on either side with dummies
after centering the brood frames. Remove the cover cloth and place the new
deep on top. Put in the remaining five frames, with the combs from the original
deep in the centre. Take off the cover cloth and replace the crown board and
roof.
What are the advantages and disadvantages of this system?
The main disadvantage that people see in this system is that they claim you
have two boxes to look through instead of the one for a single brood box system.
If you do need to catch the queen then this is true but for most operations this is
unnecessary. As mentioned above queen cells are normally at the bottom or on
the face of the frames in the upper box -- that, remember, is the warmest part of
the hive and consequently where the bees will build their queen cells. So it is
seldom necessary to disturb the bottom box at all -- which is good for your bees.
The other possible disadvantage is, if you require to lift the hive to move it
elsewhere. If you were to do migratory beekeeping, then it would be advisable
to reduce to a single deep beforehand.
The advantages of this system are that all frames are the same size and frames
can be moved from bottom box to top box or vice versa. This is useful if you
have bad frames which you wish to replace. Moving a badly drawn or an old
comb into the bottom box means it can be replaced the following spring when
the bees are in the top box. Incidentally, in the spring, at the first inspection,
when the brood is in the top box, you can reverse the boxes so that the queen
can then move upwards after she fills the bottom box. When queen cells appear,
new colonies can be easily raised by splitting and using the Horsley board or by
making up nucs. The extra brood comb enables the colony to become much
larger and produces more honey in a good year, it also delays swarming. If you
have a more prolific queen you can increase the size of the brood nest by
removing dummies or using narrower dummies and adding more deep frames.
The bees generally store more honey in the brood boxes, which greedy
beekeepers see as a disadvantage, but which is much better for the wellbeing of
the bees and reduces the need to feed the bees at the end of the season.
Requiring bees to process sugar syrup and reduce its water content to 18
percent at the end of the year when it is often cold and damp gives them
additional stress which should be avoided if possible. Stress is a major factor in
triggering problems with disease and varroa. Keeping strong, healthy colonies
is vital if colonies are to survive. Bees have more than enough to cope with -varroa, diseases, pesticides, fungicides, herbicides, loss of habitat, poor weather
and too often, beekeeper interference!
There is one caveat regarding the use of two deep boxes which
has recently come to my attention, and it is this:The use of the double brood system assumes that you have good queens. If
you have a poor queen, e.g. a scrub queen raised in an emergency in a weak
hive or a nucleus hive with insufficient nurse bees, then the chances are that
you will never get a strong enough hive because the queen will not lay
enough eggs. As a consequence the queen will only fill some of the central
frames and the small colony which results will have plenty of room in the
brood boxes to store all the honey they make and very little, if any, will go into
a super. In other words, there will be no honey for the beekeeper.
.
Ian Jamieson.
Queen Rearing
with Swarm
Control
The following method is a follow on from the double brood system of colony management. It is
a system which was devised by R. W. Wilson and is really not suitable for a single brood system,
as will become clear.
For this method you require an empty brood box and special crown board which
can have either a single central hole covered on both sides with wire gauze and a
single entrance cut in the top edge (if you wish to raise only one new queen) or two
holes, one in each half, covered with gauze and two entrances, one on each side (if
you wish to raise two queens). If you wish to raise two queens, you also require a
division board which is bee tight and keeps the two colonies above the board,
apart.
You also require some frames of drawn comb or foundation for filling out the boxes. The
system, unlike many beekeeping operations, does not require to “first find the queen”.
It is as follow:On a warm day in early spring, when the first drones are flying – this is important, because you
need drones to be already flying before you think about queen rearing – lift off the roof and lay
to the side, upside down. Using a little smoke remove the crown board, check the queen is not
on it and lay it down in front of the hive. Sit your empty deep box on a board to the side. Go
through the top deep box and look for two good frames of food – shake off the bees and place
them in the empty brood box, then look for two frames with sealed hatching brood and again
shake off the bees and place them in between the two frames of sealed stores, then find two
frames with eggs and young larvae and place them in the centre between the frames of sealed
brood after shaking off the bees. Close together the frames in the top deep and fill out the box
with frames of drawn comb or foundation.
It is likely that at this time of year you will not need to go into the bottom deep box as the queen
is probably working in the top deep, but if she has already moved down into the lower deep and
you require to go down into it to get the frames with eggs and larvae, then simply lift it aside
onto the upturned roof. If you have had to do so, now replace it on top of the lower deep and
put a queen excluder on top, then place the new brood box on top with its frames closed up
together and filled out with combs. Replace the crown board and roof and leave for two hours.
This is enough time for the nurse bees to come up through the excluder to cover the brood in the
new box.
After two hours return and remove the roof and lay it to the side, lift the new brood box off the
queen excluder and set it to the side on a board. Lift the queen excluder and lift the brood boxes
off the floor and set them to the side on the upturned roof. Check that the queen is not on the
floor before placing the new brood box on the floor, followed by the special crown board, with
the door(s) on the top side open, and put the original deep brood boxes on top in the same order
that they had when on the floor, then crown board and roof.
Return ten or twelve days later, by which time queen cells will have been raised in the new box
and reverse the positions of the brood boxes i.e. put the double deeps with the queen back on the
floor, (check that the queen is not on the special board) then add a queen excluder and super.
On top, put the special board with door(s) open, then the new brood box with the queen cells.
If you wish to raise only one queen above, then you would only have
one door in the special board. If on the other hand you are intending to
raise two queens then you now split the combs into two halves so that
each set has at least one queen cell.
Now insert the division board to keep the two sets apart – each with its own door. The division
board must prevent any contact between them or the hatching queens will fight when they
emerge. It must be tight to the “floor”, the sides of the box and the crown board. Finally put
the crown board and roof.
If raising one queen, she can be used to re-queen the hive after the old queen has been removed.
If two queens are raised then one can be used for re-queening this hive and the other for increase
for re-queening another hive. It is also possible to use the surplus queen cells, before they hatch,
in queen-less hives or for nucleus hives.
A common failing in beekeeping books is that they give you a method with explaining why
certain operations are done. The reason why the above various manoeuvres are carried out is as
follows:
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The nucleus hive which we are creating needs food, in the case of bad weather, to
survive until it is able to fend for itself.
The nucleus hive needs hatching brood to provide a supply of young bees which will be
the nurse bees required for feeding the larvae and more importantly the larvae in the
queen cells and it requires eggs on which to raise queen cells.
All the bees were shaken off these frames to ensure that the queen was not accidentally
put into the nucleus hive – otherwise it would not raise queen cells.
The nucleus hive was put above the queen excluder to keep the queen out and to ensure
the brood was well covered with bees before being separated from the brood nest.
Putting it on the floor and the brood boxes up on top of the special board means that the
bees in the new box are separated completely from the queen and will start to raise queen
cells.
All the bees flying from the top box, on their return to the hive will enter the bottom box
thus ensuring a plentiful supply of nectar and pollen to feed the brood and queen larvae.
The bees in the upper boxes will soon replace their lost foragers and the replacements
will start to fly from the upper entrance(s).

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When the boxes are subsequently reversed these bees will then feed the nucleus or
nuclei, when the new box with the queen cells is moved up.
The wire gauze over the holes* in the special board helps the warmth from the colony
below to keep the nucleus colony warm. It keeps the bees separate but may also
conserve colony odour which helps when subsequently uniting the colonies after
removing the old queen.
Requeening with a new queen almost invariably prevents swarming in the current year, and so
there is much less need to disturb the colony. It can concentrate on honey production for the
remainder of the season.
The reason this system is really only applicable to a double deep system is that a single brood
box would be unable to supply six frames at this time of the year for a nucleus – it would leave
it with only five frames, several of which may even be empty which would weaken it too much.
The above is based on using a National hive which is square so cutting entrances on opposite
sides of the special board will always be OK, but if you are working with a Smith hive, which is
rectangular, you will have to make sure that you cut them on the sides and not the back and
front. Likewise the centre line runs from front to back for the cut outs and the division board.
*If you are making two nuclei, then the hole in the special board should be around 5 ̋ ( 5ins.) by
3 ̋ (3ins.) and 1½ ̋ (one and a half ins.) from the centre line where the division board will be
(lengthwise parallel to the centre line). The nuclei would be kept together on either side of the
thin division board to help to keep each other warm. If you are making a single nucleus then the
hole will be along the centre line and can be a bit larger as the colony will be twice the size –
say 8” (8ins.) by 4” (4ins.)
This is a board which I have used for many
years to raise a single queen – the cut out is a bit larger but that is all to the good
as it increases the warmth arising from below. If you are making a board for two
queens then the holes must be a bit smaller to keep the board rigid. It would also
require a door in the opposite side.
When making the door, don’t cut the edging, which should be ¾”x½ ̋ to length
until you have cut out the 4½ ̋ (four and a half inch) piece for the door to allow for
the wood lost making the saw cuts. One end is cut square and the other at
45degrees. Round off the square end of the door and drill a hole in the door the
same diameter as the shoulder section of a brass slot-headed screw and use a
counter sink so that the screw head is flush with the surface of the door. Attach a
small screw to the end of the door, to aid opening the door.
Ian Jamieson.
Taste Sensations.
Goat’s Cheese and Honey.
“The Italians stuff courgette flowers, and often goat’s cheese is baked and served with honey. A
combination of the two ideas is to stuff a courgette flower with a Spanish goat’s cheese which is
salty, nutty and intense, and deep fry it in a very light tempura batter then drizzle that with
honey. That’s delicious, a great combination”
One of Restauranteur Simon Mullins’s favourites. The Observer magazine August 2011.
I went inside our shed,
And found a bee, stone dead
What a shame it had to die
No more to buzz and fly.
No more making honey
That ends up in a tummy
Or flying around some ears
Having fun with human fears
Gone from the hive for hours
After visiting the flowers
It must have caused a buzz
Like missing family does.
Lots of words in “bee” were said
But I bet no “bzzzz” ever lead
To the fact the bee just flew inside
Our shed and simply.......went and died.
Copyright © Thomas Sweeten
“No More Buzz and Fly “ heard by East Ayrshire children as part of an introduction to poetry
item.
Submitted by Kirsti Sweeten BSc.
Reasons for Uniting
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The United colony will have a better chance of survival that the
component parts.
To combine small colonies into one colony (queen-rearing nuc)
To unite a queen-right colony to one that is queenless.
To sort out a colony with laying workers (not a drone-laying
queen).
To add a swarm to a full colony.
To combine several swarms together.
To reduce the number of colonies taken into winter.
To create a strong foraging force for a particular flow.
To combine mating nuclei at the end on the season.
Uniting is more likely to succeed :
 During a flow (you can create an artificial flow by feeding).
 If three or more lots of bees are united at one time.
 If the queen is given special protection.
 If something is used to disguise the individuals’ scent.
 If the bees are confused (dust with flour, talc or scented sugar
water).
 At the end of the year.
Practical Beekeeping. Clive de Bruyn.