WPBKA – Apiary Visit (Saturday 19.05.12)

Once again, this is the beekeepers wife speaking. Apparently I must have done a good job of the last post I wrote, as I have been invited to write another one!

I accompanied the beekeeper to the Wakefield and Pontefract Beekeeping Association Apiary meeting at one of the members’ homes last weekend. The Beekeeper attended this meeting last summer and you can read about this here.

When everyone had arrived at the house we all suited up and began the long adventurous walk to the apiary, through the large garden, orchard and along a public footpath and through some trees. And as anyone who lives in the north of England will know its been raining a lot in the past few weeks so the ground was a bit wet underfoot and some areas were a little muddy. The day itself was dry, but it was dull and very cold, not what you’d expect in May, and more importantly not the ideal weather for inspecting bees as all of the flying bees who would normally be out foraging were at home so the hive was very busy inside.

The Regional Bee Inspector was leading the meeting and he was combining this visit with one of his inspections so was making notes about what he saw in the hives. He was looking at the health of the bees and for signs of disease and also at their strength, which can be seen in how many frames of stores and frames of brood, and if there’s pollen present etc.

The first hive that was inspected was a British National Hive which had a very strong colony of bees in it, and so had 2 brood boxes; which were full of bees. This could have been a problem as when a hive gets too full the bees often swarm. This hive had already had a nucleus of bees removed from it, and it was still very strong, so it was decided that the best course of action would be to split the hive, in a move similar to the one that we describe here.

Whilst we were looking in this hive, a gentleman was showing us how to see the semen in a drone bee. I’m not entirely sure why he decided to show us this, but it was an interesting process involving killing the bee by squashing him, which then made his phallus pop out and the semen was just there. This process can be used to collect semen to artificially inseminate a Queen bee and is called either full or partial “eversion”. This is explained in much more detail in this website.

This illustration comes from the same website and shows the back end of the bee and his endophallus and its horns or cornua.

The second hive that was inspected was a very weak colony in a Dartington Long Deep Hive. There were hardly any bees in this hive and they were showing signs of a disease called Sacbrood.

Although it is not a good condition for Bees to have, Sacbrood is not a notifiable disease and is a relatively common virus that does not usually mean the loss of a whole colony. Sacbrood affects both the larvae of worker and drones but not adult bees. Dead brood is often seen in amongst healthy brood and in a strong colony the adult bees will remove the dead larvae. The dead larvae have a dark, scaly appearance and are sometimes known as “Chinese Slippers” due to their shape.

Sacbrood can be spread in a number of ways including:

• Beekeepers using contaminated equipment in different hives.
• Nurse Bees who carry the virus around the hive.
• Robbing Bees who will attack a weak colony and transfer the virus between different apiaries.
• Swarming Bees who will carry the virus to their new brood.

Sacbrood is discussed in much more detail – with a picture of it on this website.

There were a number of courses of action that could be taken to help this colony, including killing the old Queen, and adding a new one, a process aptly called “Re-Queening”. There was also a chemical treatment discussed and the option of moving the bees to a different hive that was smaller and much better suited to this size of colony. Unfortunately most of the people at the meeting were all seasoned Beekeepers, the discussion got much too technical for me at this point, so I’ll leave it at that. I did however get the impression that lots of the people there were not fans of this hive design. Its frames are a different size which makes it difficult to swap frames or split the hive unless you have others like it. It is possible though to split the hive using a dummy board, making two completely separate colonies in the one unit.

And finally a nucleus hive was inspected; this was very brief as a number of people were saying they were in desperate need of a warm cup of tea by this point.

We all walked back to the house and had sandwiches, cake and other snacks which were very welcome and very tasty. And perhaps the best bit of the day – we won a bottle of Wells Waggledance Ale in the raffle.

Wakefield and Pontefract Beekeepers: Summer Apiary Visit

Yesterday was the third Summer apiary meeting, but only the first I have managed to attend due to work commitments. It started at 3pm, but I arrived a little early. It was held at Judy's house; she is a member of WPBKA. As we waited for everyone to arrive, I was chatting to a few other members. One thing I seem to be asked regularly is "how are your bees?". Unfortunately they don't exist yet, which is a shame for a Beekeeper! Hopefully, the next time I am asked that question I will have a better answer! Fingers crossed.

When everyone arrived, we suited up and headed off for the apiary, which was a bit of an adventure. We walked to the back of the garden, through an orchard and past the vegetable plot and into dense trees. After that we made our way through a patch of ferns, then up a path to the concealed apiary which was in a clearing in another patch of woodland. It must have looked strange to the group of kids that were playing in the area, as 20 ish fully suited Beekeepers walked past.

When we got to the apiary we all gathered around the first hive which is one I've not seen before called a Dartington Long Deep Hive but this one is unoccupied at the moment. This, to me, seemed like a cross between a Top Bar Hive and a British National Hive; to access the brood you lift the lid and then all the frames are in one long row like a TBH but they are made from frames with wax foundation like a British National. Due to the length of the hive it is possible to split it into 2 hives when the Bees are wanting to swarm. The supers in this hive are half the size of standard supers, therefore half the weight, which is why Judy is trying this design.


The next hive was a British National Hive that had a frame of wireless foundation in one of the brood frames to encourage the Bees to make queen cells. The method they were using was a little complex for me at the moment and I won't try to fully explain it but will mention the basics. To start with you use half a sheet of wireless foundation put into a full size brood frame; when the Bees have made the foundation into cells and the queen has filled it with eggs the next step was to move it into a nuc hive without the queen. This will make the Bees left on the frame make queen cells by feeding the young larva royal jelly. Then the queen cells can be cut from the frame and placed in to queen-less hives to save them. That's basically how the method was done. This method would be easier described with photos so if I try this in the future I'll take some. Unfortunately reading the description I've just written makes it sound more complex than it actually was!


The third hive we looked at was again a British National and again involved a process that I will make sound complex when I try to explain! When the hive was opened up there were queen cells found at different stages of development; one was capped and the others weren't. The queen was also found in this hive along with a large amount of Bees. Due to all these factors it was decided that there could be a possibility the hive was ready to swarm. To try to stop the hive swarming a nucleus hive was taken out of this hive. The frame with the capped queen cell and also the frame with the uncapped cells were removed and put into the nucleus hive. The capped queen cell was removed; this is done to stop the Bees creating a mini swarm or cast swarm. The uncapped queen cells were left; they are left because you know that by the time the queen cell has been capped and the queen has developed, then finally hatched there will be no more eggs left so the queen will stay and hopefully start laying. Also placed in the nucleus hive were a couple of frames of food. With this nucleus hive removed from the main hive there is now more room in the main hive so their urge to swarm will be lessened. Also if there is a problem with the original queen then there is a spare in the nucleus hive.


After the apiary visit we returned to the house and had refreshments. Judy had made lots of sandwiches and other snacks including home made cakes. It was good to sit and relax with cake and a cup of tea after all the complex hive manipulation that had been going on! I got talking to a few of the more experienced Beekeepers and a couple of people who were still on their first hive. All in all it was a good day and I was surprised that it lasted 3 hours as it seemed to pass so quickly. I look forward to trying some of the techniques seen at the apiary. I will include my own pictures where possible to try to make things make more sense!