The Tiverton Branch display has won the Stevenson Trophy at the 2022 Devon County Show.
The Stevenson Trophy
Sue Francombe led the team and writes: “Team Tiverton, with their hive mind, put together a display on ‘Beekeeping on our area’ – the starting point was our rural, hilly landscape and some of the bee related things we do. Displayed at the Devon County Show, and will also be at the Mid Devon Show and Honiton Show. Many thanks to Hilary for helping to bring it together (and write poetry) and to Lesley, Tracy, Malcolm, Clive, Chris, Katy, Ian, Norm for their contributions and others who helped with bouncing ideas around.”
The Tiverton Branch display
This display can also be seen at the Mid Devon Show on 23 July and the Honiton Show on 4 August.
Liz Westcott from the Torbay branch of Devon Beekeepers gave a talk via Zoom to the Tiverton branch on Wednesday 17 March. Liz kindly provided her notes as well as instructions for making Creamed Honey and some honey recipes. These can be found below.
September is the prime time for worker Asian Hornets to be predating on honeybee colonies and hives as well as other native pollinating insects. Tiverton Beekeepers will be joining the UK-wide event to monitorfor Asian Hornets.
This is a UK wide event to monitor for Asian Hornets. September is the prime time for worker Asian Hornets to be predating on honeybee colonies and hives as well as other native pollinating insects.
The hornets are looking for a protein rich meal to feed their larvae and bee wing muscles provide this in abundance so look out for hornets hawking near hive entrances.
To monitor for such incursions set your bait station near your hives approximately 1 to 2 metres above the ground. You can use the wick and saucer methods if you stay to observe for a reasonable length of time. Otherwise use the NBU “green bottle” trap (see BBKA or AHAT sites for details on how to make). Please remember to look at and empty the traps ideally daily or every two days at least to be able to release any native insects that may have inadvertently become ensnared – reduction of ‘by-catch’ is a must in the fight to avert insect decline as well as being ethically just.
The attractant
If you wish to use the recommended home brew recipes from the Spring monitoring then these should be able to do the job but Suterra is much better.
To obtain a Suterra sample
Wednesday 2 September 2020 I will be at Uplowman Village Hall car park,
session A 10:00 until 12:00 midday;
session B 17:00 to 19:00.
Procedure
Book a session by emailing me (ahat@tivertonbeekeepers.uk) with your name, address including post code, telephone number and which session you wish to attend – Covid-19 contact and trace compliant. No booking, no Suterra. Please provide your own watertight container for the 50ml sample.
On arrival – Please wear mask and gloves and maintain 2m+ social distancing. I will wear mask and gloves also. Place your opened container on the ground and retreat 2 m +. At this point I will approach your container and decant the sample into your container and then move away. You will then be able to retrieve your container with sample. You will also receive an A5 poster for local display and an ID card.
Insect verification
To obtain a clear photograph it may be easier to kill the suspect insect. Remember it is an offence to trap and then release an invasive species. Therefore, to humanely kill the insect wrap your trap in a tightly sealed plastic bag and place in a freezer for 24 hours – the bag will contain any leakage of Suterra onto foodstuffs already in the freezer.
Please email a clear close up image of the suspect insect to me. I will ID the insect (sending the image to the team verifiers if in doubt) and promptly email you back with the result. We will advise and guide you through the procedures should it be a positive Asian Hornet sighting.
The February edition of the
Buzzette alerted members that monitoring across the SW region would take place
during the last 2 weeks of April 2020.
The agreed starting date for the SW region is Monday 13 April until Tuesday
30 April 2020.
The rationale for the spring
monitoring is that fertilised (foundress) Queen Asian Hornets will be coming
out of hibernation around this time when average daily temperatures are at 13oC
or higher. They will be hungry and
looking for a high carbohydrate feed during the primary nest building phase
just prior to egg laying. Hence, they
will be feeding from flowers which have a good nectar quality and replenishment
cycle. Spring flowering Camelias have
been most favoured on Jersey over other varieties but not exclusively. Tree sap is also a good source of foundress
Asian Hornet nutrition notably oak, beech, maple and willow. Therefore, spring monitoring is to be
conducted near forage sources not near beehives.
The Coronavirus rules are clear
– stay at home, maintain social distancing.
Asian Hornet spring monitoring
can be conducted in our gardens with the results communicated electronically –
Coronavirus rules upheld.
Monitoring is not trapping. The ‘green bottle’ trap advocated on the BBKA
/ NBU sites is an indiscriminate killer of all flying insects. The ignoring of the amount of ‘by catch’
(non-target insects) cannot continue to go on unchallenged. With insect declines becoming more acute (40%
worldwide over the last 10 years with 33% endangered; 75% loss in Germany over
26 year period), there is no justification for trapping.
Hence for this exercise two
types of monitoring station are recommended.
The wick model or the saucer model.
The wick model
The wick model
is easily made from a plastic container such as a 250ml butter tub and a rolled
piece of J-cloth. Taking the clean tub
make a horizontal slit in the centre of the lid approximately 5cm (2 inches)
long. Fold a piece of J-cloth cut to a
length of 10 to 12 cm (5-6 inches) a number of times just thick enough to go
through the slit. Pull the cloth through
the lid until approximately 2 cm is sticking out above the lid surface. The wick is placed inside the tub, a small
amount of attractant poured in and the lid firmly pressed on. The tub is then placed approximately half a
metre to a meter above the surface of the ground, an up turned bucket will
suffice, near a Camelia bush or similar or tree sap source. For rainy days or windy conditions, a plastic
sheet can be bent over the tub to keep the attractant wick functioning.
The saucer model
The
saucer model is simplicity itself; use a clean plant pot saucer and put
3 or 4 scrunched up sheets of kitchen paper in it. Pour attractant solution in to wet all the
paper without leaving a puddle of liquid in the saucer. Weight the paper down with a number of stones
as these will stop the paper being blown away as well as provide landing zones
for the insects to settle while they feed.
Place the saucer on an upturned bucket or similar to raise off the
ground near your monitoring plant area.
The Attractant
The BBKA and AHAT had identified
and recommended that a commercially produced product “Suterra” (now re-branded
as Trappit) be used. The branch had
bought a supply for distribution to members in April although it is expensive
£30+ for 5 litres. This distribution
cannot now take place and so members will have to resort to a homemade recipe
similar to that used in France.
The recipe for the attractant
is approximately 50% by volume of cheap lager or sweet white wine and 50% by
volume of sweet fruit syrup. In France,
cassis is used but blackcurrant juice / squash is a suitable alternative. Other recipes are:
350ml of beer + 2 tablespoon
of sugar or honey
200ml of water + 2 tablespoon
of sugar or honey + a dash of vinegar (no more than 30ml)
350ml sweet white wine (or
white wine sweetened with sugar) + 20 to 30 ml of mint or blackberry syrup
Monitoring
Asian Hornets do not fly at
night and observations suggest that their flying time is most prevalent between
10:00 until 14:00 hours. Using a
technique used by the Big Wasp Survey (University of Gloucester) and the Big
Butterfly Count (Butterfly Conservation Society), pick 3 x 30minute periods
during 10:00 to 14:00. Sit near the
monitoring station (approximately 1 metre away) positioned so as not to cast a
shadow over the station. Record insects
for that 30 minute period. Asian Hornets
are docile when feeding and so a photo can safely be taken or a specimen can be
obtained by coaxing into a tube. Once in
the tube, seal it and put it in a freezer for 24 hours to kill the Hornet.
Nb.It is an offence to contain / trap
and then release an Asian hornet so once caught it is to be killed.
Remove the station at the end
monitoring time and do not leave out overnight.
Reposition in exactly the same spot for your next monitoring session
unless a more fruitful position is found.
This activity can be done every day, every other day or every 3 days
whichever fits your lifestyle, it is important that it is done routinely so
that the foundress comes to identify the food source as a permanent feature.
The location of your
monitoring station needs to be accurate and the details able to be used by
others for data collection purposes. A
mobile phone app “What Three Words” has been used extensively by rescue
organisations and the police to pinpoint locations. It is free to download (Apple and Android
versions) and the unique code word generated identifies the precise square
metre. Please use this app as our
default location identifier.
I think I’ve spotted an Asian
Hornet
Usually an email to the
coordinator and a visit would be arranged and more monitoring would take place
together with photographic evidence being obtained. This can no longer take place.
Currently, send the
coordinator a photo of the insect that is causing concern. Verification of the photo will be promptly
done by electronic conferencing between other committee members to arrive at a
consensus identification. The reply
email will inform the member if it is an Asian Hornet. At that point the member’s monitoring data
will need to be sent to the Non-Native Species Directorate and the NBU – The
Asian Hornet App (Android and Apple versions free) will help do this. The same data is to be also sent to the
coordinator (ahat@tivertonbeekeepers.uk)
Once this information has
been received and verified, the branch and the beekeeper will be advised as to
the way forward especially during this pandemic.
The chances of spotting a
foundress during this monitoring session are minimal. With Jersey having a nest density of 189
during 2019 the likelihood of hornet presence being detected is reasonably high
– 2.6 nests per Km2. If the
same density is applied to the Tiverton branch area (basically Mid Devon) then
there would be 0.33 nests per Km2. The situation of one queen or nest being
detected in the Tiverton branch area becomes 1 to 50Km2. Thus, although the chance of finding an Asian
Hornet in the present circumstances is extremely low by being part of a bigger
survey of the SW area the chances of detection are increased. When the Asian Hornet habitat includes
Southern England then monitoring will become ever more important and a routine
activity for DBKA members.
All monitoring data,
including attractant recipe used and insects observed, is to be sent to the
branch AHAT Coordinator so that a database can start to be compiled to help
inform future policies and protocols as well as help individual members with
their beekeeping .
Any correspondence regarding
the spring monitoring or Asian Hornets to be sent to ahat@tivertonbeekeepers.uk .
Gavin
Nuttall-Owen
AHAT Coordinator
Beekeepers from our own Tiverton Branch and from Exeter Branch joined together to provide and steward a Honey Bees Marquee at the Killerton Apple Festival over the weekend of the 12th & 13th October. Our show display was centre stage with displays about both branches at the sides. Exeter provide an observation hive so all we needed was good weather. Unfortunately the sun didn’t shine and it was wet and windy at times. However that didn’t deter us nor the general public. We had two busy days and, as usual, people were fascinated to see and hear about the honey bee.
Thanks to all our members and those from Exeter who made the weekend a success.
Tony Lindsell
The Honey Bees Marquee at Killerton Apple Festival 2019
Our Bee
Health Day all came together on the day with even the weather being kind to us.
Those of us helping to organise the day got there at 8am and opened the hall to
get things ready and the apiary team set up the beehives to be inspected in a
neighbouring field. After months of preparation everything was ready for Simon
Jones and his team to take us through the day’s events.
The day
began with an introductory session where we met the other regional bee inspectors
for our area and then had a short talk covering the general aspects of bee
health. It was nice to put faces to the names that crop up in articles from
time to time and it also made them seem less scary to approach somehow! If I
ever do need to call them out in the future I will feel much more at ease.
We were
then split into rotational groups. Our first talk was on varroa and it was
great to have a thorough refresher on the ‘little mites’ and handle all the
possible treatments on offer.
Then it
was off to see the bees and have a chat about apiary hygiene. We were split
again into smaller groups dependent on experience. One of the useful tips I picked up was that
you can wash your bee suit with the head part tucked into the main suit without
having to detach it each time and wash it by hand – something I tried out when
I got home – what a timesaver! Unfortunately we didn’t have much disease to
look at live in our hives but apparently other groups had more interesting
combs to go through!
Then for
me the most educational part was in the contained disease room where we had the
challenge of spotting the different types of disease in the combs. As I luckily
haven’t had much disease apart from chalk brood in my hives it was good to see
sac brood and AFB and EFB and all sorts of other nasties some of which were all
present at once on the same combs. We did have pictures to reference things
against but it was still quite difficult and even the bee inspectors had to
retest a couple of larvae for Foul Brood with their special kits! It made me
realise the importance of carrying out at least two inspections a year where
you are simply looking for disease within the hive as if you spot any problem
early enough you may be able to treat or rectify without it spreading too
quickly through the rest of your hives.
We then
had an update on the Asian hornet and Small Hive beetle. Did you know that the
Asian hornet is not officially a notifiable pest to the NBU because it comes
under the non native species banner but the Tropilaelaps mite is?
Finally all
the groups got together for a question and answer session before we went home.
I would
like to say a “big thank you” to all those who made this day happen … our bee
inspectors, our apiary team and committee, all the branch secretaries who
advertised the event to our members and all those who participated in the day
(we had well over 60 attendees).
However another
special thank you goes to all those who made the cakes that fortified us
throughout the day. I have never seen such a variety or so many in one place
not even at the bakery or village fete! The trouble was that in the breaks it
was just too tempting and I tucked into as many as I could manage!
I would
definitely recommend going to the next Bee Health Day to all those who couldn’t
make it next year.
