NORTHERN LIGHTSTHE NEWSLETTER OF THE NORTH DEVON BRANCH

OF THE DEVON BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION

September 2007 www.northdevonbees.org

Editorial

Those of you who still possess a sharp eye and a keen in-

tellect (I believe that there are still one or two of you out

there) will have noticed that the August Edition of the

Northern Lights did not pop through your letterbox as

usual. Apologies for this, but continuing printing diffi-

culties, lack of copy and change of Editor meant that it

was decided to miss out this month.

However, we are back with a bang in September. Yours

truly is also back (not with a bang,

but more like a whimper) as Barry

has decided to step down from the

role – our thanks for his efforts over

the past few months. I am only act-

ing in a “caretaker” role however,

until some more deserving and more

competent individual is bribed,

blackmailed or threatened into tak-

ing my place.

Finally, may I thank all the contribu-

tors to this month’s newsletter - a

great effort and it has made my job a

lot easier.

Annus Horribilis ?

Well, probably not that bad, but the unseasonably dry

weather earlier in the spring, followed by the wettest

summer in living memory has played havoc with the bees

- well my bees anyway. Of my 5 colonies, one is queen-

less, one has a drone laying queen and 2 others have re-

queened (could have been my fault in not spotting swarm

preparations).

I do not think that I am alone though, as I have heard sto-

ries from throughout the West Country of missing

queens, frequent swarms and poor or non-existent har-

vests.

What is interesting though is that my fifth colony has

sailed through the season virtually unaffected. It has not

tried to swarm or replace last year's queen, and actually

has some honey to harvest.

Unlike my other colonies however, it is in a commercial

hive, not a national. It has always been a strong colony,

but then so have two or three of the others.

Obviously no real conclusions can be drawn from one

hive, but it prompts me to consider starting up a second

commercial hive next year, just to see what transpires.

Maybe bigger really is better ......Kevin Tricker

Chairman’s Chat

Hello Everyone

The Honey Show at St John's is on 27th and 28th October

so now is the time to think about what to enter. If you

haven't entered before, it's simple, fun and first timers of-

ten surprise themselves by winning. There's a very wide

range of classes to suit every North Devon beekeeper,

novice or veteran, so please have a good look at the

Schedule. Let's support the many members behind the

scenes beavering away to make this

year's Honey Show an enormous suc-

cess. Whatever you decide to enter,

be assured you will be welcomed

with open arms.

This year's AGM will be held at

Horestone Apiary at 12noon on Sun-

day 11th November, where the warm

welcome will be partly due to the ex-

cellent pot bellied stove installed in

the Meeting Room. I hope lots of

you will turn up to support the

Branch and that some of you will

consider putting your names forward for election onto the

Branch Committee. New people with fresh perspectives

are needed if we are to develop and improve - you could

be one of those people. Please consider this carefully

and phone me if you would like more information.

Chris Tozer 01237 471928

Basic Bee Assessment

Congratulations to all the follow-ing members who successfullypassed their Basic Bee Assess-ment Examination :Glenis Beardsley, Martin Fowler,Harry Hall, Alison Homa, SueMadgwick, Ruth Neal and LizWilson.

Quick Diary

Sunday 23rd September

Family day at Horestone Apiary, 2.00pm

Sunday 7th October

Eggesford Countryside & Wildlife Show

Saturday & Sunday 20th and 21st October

Eggesford Cider and Apple Show

Branch stalls will be there.

Saturday 27th October

BuckFast Bee Day at Buckfast Abbey

Saturday & Sunday 27th and 28th October

North Devon Honey Show, St John’s Garden Centre,

Barnstaple.

Sunday 11th November, 12 noon

NDBKA AGM at Horestone, followed by refreshments.

Sunday 2nd December

Xmas lunch.at The Royal and Fortescue Hotel,

Barnstaple. (see separate advert on page 5.)

Horestone Apiary

We are now seeing the effects of the strange weather pat-

terns we have had this year. Most people you talk to

have little or no honey due to foragers being unable to

leave the hive during incessant and heavy rain. We were

fortunate to have managed more than ninety pounds of

Oil Seed Rape honey in the late spring.

Attendances have been fairly static for the last few

months. Work on the fabric has been suspended until we

settle the bees down for the winter.

Nuclei production has surpassed all expectations and

there are still quite a few to be collected by their new

owners.

The generosity of our members never ceases to amaze

me. This month alone we have been gifted a light petrol

strimmer and a good four stroke engined grass cutter

from one member - a second cutter and a heavy weight

grass strimmer from another.

We need apiary members of long standing to talk to the

reporter who is intending to do a long and detailed write

up on the apiary. As many people as possible should be

there, so a full article is written.

We are now getting towards the Apple Fair and the St

Johns Honey Show (See dates on page 1). Let us show

the people of Barnstable that we are proud of our country

craft and our bees. We need photographs, hand crafts

beeswax, cakes, fudge and honey.

Tony - Apiary Manager

The new “Horestone Hacienda” under construction

Obituary - Douglas Bailey

To walk into our association hut on a Tuesday afternoon

and see neat piles of freshly gathered garden produce laid

out on the table, there for the taking, you knew that Doug

Bailey had arrived at the apiary. There he would be sit-

ting in the far, dark corner of the hut in his shining white,

always spotless bee suit.

A beekeeper of many decades

standing he had a deep knowl-

edge of the art based on long

experience. He would listen

quietely and politely, with a

slight smile on his face, to the

bookish theorising of less expe-

rienced members. The rare

contributions he made to our

discussions were always laced with a dry country wit.

His apiary at Burrington reflected the man. His meticu-

lously managed hives, his caravan ingeniously adapted

for extracting and bottling his usually bumper crops of

honey (much sort after in the village) were a joy to see.

All this was done with the quiet modesty of a true Devo-

nian gentleman of the old school.

Tragedy struck with the death of his son three years ago.

Bravely born it wounded him mortally.

The thoughts of those who knew him and his brave and

lovely wife Hilda were with them during that time.

Now we remember Douglas Bailey the Man. A Man

amongst Men.

Michael Duncan

An Unusual Happening

I called in Peter Auger the other day wanting a second

opinion on a frame of bees that looked rather raggedy.

We found no disease. We opened up a lot of worker

cells however and saw that many were infested with var-

roa. Quite a few of the pupae were totally wingless yet

we found no bees on the frames with deformed or frayed

wings.

There was one small Queen cell in the middle of one of

the frames and this was the interesting bit......I opened up

the cell and found a Queen pupa. It was only a few days

from maturity with developed head and thorax and a

creamy abdomen starting to turn brown.

I was holding it between my thumb and index finger

when two bees landed on it and started to sting it in a

frenzied manner At least twenty stings went in in a mat-

ter of seconds. I put the pupa on the tin roof of the hive

next to me and another bee flew down and did the same

thing.

I've not seen this behaviour before.

Michael Duncan

August “100s” Lottery Club

Winners of the August draw of the North Devon Bee-

keepers “100s” Lottery Club are as follows :

1st Ian Farrell

2nd Dave James

Webwatch

Not for those of a nervous disposition !!

Mr Chang of Taiwan treats MS sufferers with 200

stings per week in his luxurious facility. He terms it

bee acupuncture, and the narrator has clearly not read H

Riches' book..........

This video needs a reasonable broadband connection.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p245IE6_qf8

Book Review:

"Natural Beekeeping: Organic Approachesto Modern Apiculture" by R Conrad.

This is a new paperback

from Chelsea Green, a

small US publisher dedi-

cated to "cultural change

and ecological steward-

ship". List price is £22.50

but my personal library

got one for about £14.20

inc. delivery.

First, the style is easy to

read and the author very

clearly writes from practi-

cal experience. His cov-

erage of varroa is quite

good, noting near the start the uneasy current situation in

the USA whereby although the EPA is working to move

away from organophosphate usage in all agriculture, to

control this mite in apiculture the conventional (non-

natural) way is to use a "rotation between Apistan and

CheckMite, altering their use from season to season ..."

In other words, fluvalinate (pyrethrin related) and

coumaphos (an organophosphate) are commonly used in

rotation.

Conrad notes the debasement of the term 'organic' as used

by many in the USA, and his general laudable approach

is to try to avoid or minimise use of chemicals, generally

to do what we would term "working with the bees", to

avoid aggressive treatments and encourage resistance

traits and so on. A lot of the book serves as yet another

(quite good) general book on beekeeping practice, albeit

with a "natural" bias.

It is worth reminding oneself when reading this that the

author lives in Vermont, but he does discuss climate, the

AHB and so on in context. There is very practical ad-

vice on bee handling, hive construction, feeding, over-

wintering, swarm reduction (not 'control', through

"reversing" the hive viz. re-stacking the boxes) etc. He

covers genetics and mite resistance, hygienic behaviour

and practical nucleus colony raising - with nice refer-

ences to Steiner and the need for a gentler, holistic ap-

proach (with apiculture as part of agriculture).

Perhaps for many beekeepers the best parts of this book

are the chapters on parasitic mites and other pests.

There is a good review of the more "natural" as well as

the aggressive bio-chemical approaches (inc. sugar, traps,

special smokes and so on). Although FGMO fogging is

not included, small-cell usage is discussed, also the in-

triguing use of methyl palmitate as a drone trap attractant.

This chemical is a known pheromone occurring within

the colony, and is also approved for use as an animal feed

additive and as an anti-foaming agent in certain wood-

derived product manufacture, also in cosmetics. (I have

used it myself in cutting fluid for certain metal-working

processes, too).

Horticultural Society’s visit

Under a long standing arrangement, Sunday the 12th Au-

gust saw a visit of the Barnstable & District Horticultural

Society to our Horestone Apiary. There were over two

dozen visitors including children and some dozen branch

members. Members and visitors from both groups pro-

vided a wonderful selection of food for all and visitors

were clearly very pleased with the reception they got.

The visitors were shown around the apiary by dragooned

member hosts, with typically five or six in each group to

make movement manageable. The weather was unex-

pectedly kind, and it was clear that our visitors learned a

great deal from their informal tours. To many of us it

was surprising to be asked some of the questions we got

during the visit, and the informal interaction and the abil-

ity to see all the hardware we take for granted was really

well received by our visitors. Hardly a veil or bee suit

was used all afternoon, and to our knowledge only two

people got stung - once each.

After the tour there was an excellent questions and an-

swer session followed by the food – That seemed initially

enough for a small army – it quickly disappeared.

Nick Oliver gave a vote of thanks for the society. It was

a grand Sunday afternoon, and all those who helped de-

serve a pat on the back.

And now - on to the serious business !!

The last chapter or two consider the general problems of

our modern approaches to food production, agriculture in

general and apicultural practices. There is understand-

ably little of substance on CCD, but there is musing on

possible factors and decent references to ongoing work.

Much of thus is in the same vein as Winston's "From

where I sit" essays, but none the worse for that.

If you are a beginner, this is not a one-stop source of all

that you need, but makes a superb complement to one of

the more standard books (de Bruyn, Hooper, Waring,

Blackiston etc .). I was sceptical about this book at first,

but the more I read and re-read it the more I like it. Al-

though it has a glossary (yep !), it is not written by an

academic but a very practical apiculturist who has done

his homework and is aware of much of the research and

studies underway around the world. Don't be put off by

its provenance or its slightly ragged chapter organisation;

most all of us can learn some from this, and there is good

food for thought here.

Tony

DJ

Up the Pole with Bees.

Usual thing. - a call from a member of the public.

“...Been given your number by the council. Got some

bees stinging the kids in the road next to my garage”

“Many stung ?” I asked.

“Not enough, the little bu*****. Deserve all they get,

giv’um a rec and all they do is kick their bloody ball

against my garage doors.”

“Where are the bees ?”

“In a pole next to the garage.”

“What, a telegraph pole ?”

“No a pole from a film set - 20,00 leagues

under the sea or something.”

“Big ?”

“About 10 feet high, with noses.”

“Noses ?? ........... I'll come and have a

look.”

On arrival, I was greeted by an elderly

gentleman (EG) with no fear whatsoever

of bees, in fact he appeared to be the cen-

tre of reasonable swarm issuing from the

top of a large green pole. Not being

quite so reckless with regard to my own

safety, I donned my suit to have a look.

“How long have they been there ?”

“In the pole ?”

“Yes.”

“About three or four years, could be longer, I don’t

know.”

I could not understand why there were so many bees in

the air whilst it was becoming obvious that they were

not going anywhere. Closer examination of the pole

with the aid of a ladder revealed “bogies” issuing from

the nasal passages of the four noses.

“Where are they going in-and-out ?” I ask because in

the thick mist of bees flying and crawling nothing of-

fered itself as an entrance.

“Up the nose ’oles,” came the re-

ply.

Another trip up the ladder to have a

closer look. The bogies turned out

to be bits of wood dripping with

bees.

“They can’t be going in and out of

the noses - they’re blocked with bits

of wood !”

“There’s a little hole near the top -

at the back.”

“But you said they were going in

and out of the noses.”

“They were, but I stuck bits of twig up’em.”

“Why ?”

“I thought it would be a good idea.”

A reply to which there was no good answer.

“If I unblock a few holes,” I said, “they should all go in

again!”

“Can’t you take the bloody things away”?.

“No, but I can get them poisoned.”

“Don’t kill’em.”

“If they go alive, the pole will have to go with them”

“That’s OK. I only got the damn thing because an old

friend who worked in the films couldn’t keep it when ‘e

moved and I said I would look after it, but he died and I

don’t want it, glad to see the back of it.”

After explaining that you can’t just throw a 10 foot

totem pole full of bees in the back of a

car, I arranged to return in the evening,

make it bee tight and remove it

Hardly finished lunch when the phone

rang and the same elderly gentleman came

on the line,

“You the bee man again ?”

“Yes”

“Those bloody bees ’ave all come out of

the ’ole you made in the pole and are

’anging in a tree.”

“The sycamore tree by the pole ?”

“Yes, right at the bloody top, you can

’ardly see’em.”

“I’ll come over and have a look.”

On arrival back at the pole, no (EG), just

the pole with a few bees going in and out

of a nostril. Standing well back, I could

not see or hear any bee activity in the sycamore tree or

any other close tree. Examined the area best I could,

but no bees.

About to get in the car when I heard a plaintive distant

cry from beyond the garage. Through the gate next to

the garage, I caught sight of the EG ambling up as fast

as he could. Fearing for his health, I walked down to-

wards him. When he saw that I was indeed heading for

him, he stopped and immediately vanished. When I got

to him, he was sitting down getting his breath back.

“Came out of the bloody tree and

went down the field.”

Not wishing to appear too insensi-

tive I ask him if he wanted a hand

up before enquiring about the bees.

“Didn’t know the little bu*****

could fly that fast !”

“Are you sure your all right, let me

help you up.”

“I kept my eye on’em but I ’ad to

run to keep up.”

Sensing a swarm, my regard for his

health quickly diminished.

“Where are they now ?”

“In the ’edge down the field.”

“Very far ?”

“I’ll show you.”

Not wishing him to go to any further trouble by going

back down to the bottom of the field -

“You stay here and tell me if I’m getting warm.”

After a few shouts of; “left”, “left”, “a bit more” and

“in there somewhere”, I found the swarm.

After close examination, it became quite clear that this

was a “catch me if you can” swarm, firstly in the top of

a forty foot tree that no one was going to climb and then

into the centre of a very thick hedge that no beast would

ever contemplate attempting getting through.

To save time the EG, who had by now regained his feet,

let me raid his garage for tools etc so that I could get to

the bees.

The bees had attached themselves to a near horizontal

trunk of a small tree about 6 inches diameter and about

12 inches from the ground. The bees were wrapped

full circle around the trunk of the tree and the bottom of

the swarm almost touched the ground.

There was no way of getting a skep or box under the

swarm. Even if it had been possible you would have

needed a bulldozer to shake the trunk. The only an-

swer was to place a box such that the bees could crawl

from the trunk up into the dark of the box.

Having set it all up, some bees were already walking up.

“That’s it. I’ll come late this evening and take them

away”

“They’ll go in the box will they ?”

“Oh yes, they’ll go right up inside and I will take the

box out of the hedge and put it on a board so that they

are locked in.

“That is clever !”

“When I come back tonight, you’ll be able to see.”

Because it was warm, I said that I would leave it ’till

quite late, about 8.

“Toot your horn when you come and I’ll walk down

with you and have a look.”

Beautiful evening, tooted the horn and as if by magic

the EG appeared as from nowhere.

“Be in, will they ?”

“Oh yes.”

Walked down to the box, ‘just as I had left it and the

bees were just as I had left them, not one in the box.

“That’s a bit of a bu****, i’nt it,” he said

“Have to use a bit of smoke.”

“What, put a match to’em d’u mean ?”

“Not quite as drastic as that. I’ve got a bit of kit that

makes smoke - bees don’t like smoke and I should be

able to drive them in.”

After sitting half in and half out of a hedge for best part

of an hour, I managed with gentle puffs of smoke to

herd the bees into the box.

“Bu**** that for a game of soldiers,” said the EG who

had gone away but come back because my car was still

there. “Between the two of us we’ve done a good day’s

work - that honey you make must be bloody good.”

“It is.”

As a result of my efforts I now have a totem pole with a

residual colony of bees, and a swarm that is doing very

well, to say nothing of the brownie points earned from

the EG. For ease of access for the bees I was going to

pick one of the noses and make the nostril ‘bee entrant’

size, but instead I operated on the lips below one of the

noses and made a mouth.

Jim Slade

Branch Christmas Lunch

Wendy D-J has made tentative arrangements for the

above on Sunday 2nd December 2007 at The Royal and

Fortescue Hotel in central Barnstaple.

Two Courses + Coffee and all for £12 per head

This is a fine venue, easy to find and with good local

parking. The price is very reasonable, the carvery first

course has a choice of four including one vegetarian and

one fish, and there is a choice of desserts, including of

course Christmas pudding. For those interested, there is

accommodation available, too, at discounted rates. To

secure the booking and to assist both Wendy and the Ho-

tel, all members are urged to indicate now, at this earliest

opportunity, their interest in this Christmas Lunch.

A £5 per head deposit is requested to secure the booking,

with the balance payable at the end of November.

Wendy is on 01271 867 397 or mailto:

wendydj@btopenworld.com

BBKA Module 1 - Study Group

Chris Utting and Beryl Smailes are organising a discus-

sion/study group to look at the BBKA Module One

'Honey Bee Management' with a view to taking the writ-

ten 90 minute examination in March 2008.

The syllabus includes hive types, frame spacing, wax

foundation,starting up, apiary and colony selection, api-

ary hygiene, bee temperament, the year's work, forage,

drifting, feeding, honey, pollen, swarming and collection,

nucs, uniting, seasonal management, moving, clearing,

uniting, wintering, stings and first aid.

Full details of the syllabus will be found on the BBKA

website.

We already have two candidates and will welcome a few

more. There is no charge apart from occasional ex-

penses. The plan is to meet in suitable houses (or even

hire a room), every couple of weeks starting at the begin-

ning of October.

If you would like to join us or would like to the discuss

the idea, please phone Chris on 01237 474 500 or Beryl

on 01271 329 643.

The Garden at Horestone.

A group of the ladies are attempting to re-vamp the gar-

den and increase the range of bee friendly shrubs,

perennials and annuals with the emphasis on extending

the foraging season at both ends.

If any members would like to help us in the garden,

we'd be delighted. We also would be pleased to re-

ceive any useful bee plants that you may have in excess

when dividing up plants in your own borders.

The re-vamp also includes plans for some seats for that

most important activity of sitting in the garden and

watching the bees forage.

Bee PlantsMost of us don't have large areas of land to plant up

with forage crops for our bees but one of the great plea-

sures of beekeeping is watching them foraging in our

gardens Even a modest garden can help extend the for-

aging season with well chosen plants.

One of my favourites is Phacelia tanacetifolia, member

of a karge family of mainly annuals including P cam-

panularia ( Californian bluebell ) introduced to Europe

from N. America at the end of the 19th century.

Seed is most readily available for use as a green manure

crop when it is allowed to grow to 40-50cms and dug in

before flowering. What a

waste! The beauty of the

abundantly produced

bluish mauve flowers and

the lavishness of nectar

production should earn it a

place in any garden bor-

der. It looks good too as

an edging around the veg-

etable patch where it will

entice all the pollinating

insects to visit.

In recent years, it has been a wonderful sight to see,

field corners and edge strips brightly coloured by

phacelia and sunflowers grown for the benefit of

wildlife. We are unlikely to get a pure honey crop from

Phacelia here but in California it is described as light

green and of fine flavour. Pollen is pale blue looking

rather darker in the bee's pollen baskets.

Phacelia is an amiable plant growing in most soils in a

sunny postion that can be planted in spring and autumn

with a flowering season from each sowing lasting 4-6

weeks. ( May/June sowing will flower in August and

Sept/Oct sowing in April )

We hope to have a lot of it this coming spring at Hore-

stone.

Another Swarming Saga

Edited by Kevin Tricker, Old Barn, Forton, Somerset TA20 2NA.Phone: (01460) 66988 Email: newsletter@northdevonbees.org.All contributions welcome, copy by 23rd of month for publication in following month’s newsletter.Articles in this newsletter remain the property of the author and may not be reproduced in part or in fullwithout express permission.

Phacelia Tanacetifolia

Julie

The “Snatch”The swarm is just visible in the top

right hand corner of the picture

Avid readers will

remember the refer-

ence in the last is-

sue of Northern

Lights to the use of

a JCB to collect a

swarm from a tall

tree in Barton Town

Farm, Challacombe

Well, here are

the pictures to

prove it. Star-

ring Dave James

on high and Jim

Woollacott at

the controls.

No self-respectingswarm-catcher shouldbe without one.

Introduction to Beekeeping Course

Chris Tozer and Sue Tait are offering a one day course

"An Introduction to Beekeeping" at the Cookworthy For-

est Centre near Holsworthy on Tuesday 13th November.

If you know of anyone who would be interested, please

ask them to contact Kathy Lewington on 01409 240009

or email fieldforest-training@hotmail.co.uk

One-Liner

“Every saint has a bee in his halo”

E V Lucas