todays news

[Feckless Drone]

[QUOTE=gavin;29547]Behind a paywall for those of us not in academic institutions .

Sorry, gave the game away!
I'm sure an email to g.goulson@sussex.ac.uk with a request for a pdf would get a copy.

[greengumbo]

Behind a paywall for those of us not in academic institutions .

I see from the abstract that one thing he's calling for is 'enforcing effective quarantine measures on bee movements'. Amen to that!

Moraybeedinosaurs have it up on their website from the original online release data a month ago:

http://www.moraybeedinosaurs.co.uk/n...%20flowers.pdf

I actually think this is a fairly unbiased and reasonable review paper. The press seemed to go big on it -NEONICS BAD FOR BEEs - but actually its a lot more nuanced than those headlines suggest.

Guardian had pics of honeybees not bumblers in their recent story about it.....and didn't mention honeybees in the article.

Bloomin' arts and humanities trained journos

[brothermoo]

Yesterday's news... 3hour intermediate exam and im now glad that the time for books and study is over and the actual beekeeping is beginning. Roll on the good weather!!

[mbc]

I think the black bee movement are too closely following eachother and deciding on that basis that the demand is there, and that is what everyone wants, but as I told people last year, I managed to obtain a supply of very nice A.m.m., because, as is so obvious, everyone wants it. However when there were orders for 1200 Buckfast and carnica, and only 70 A.m.m., and I suffered the embarrassment of having to cancel bees from a great source because not enough people wanted them. I had been assured demand was huge.

This post has been sitting in the back of my mind bugging me as it just doesn't seem right as its obvious there is a quite big ( in British beekeeping terms) groundswell of interest in native bees, then it occurred to me, these beekeepers interested in native bees are also those interested in sustainability and breeding their own stock, therefore the lack of interest in buying in masses of queens, of however good a provenance, from outside.

[gavin]

Just a note to say that I've elevated the posts on Swiss small hive beetle worries to their own thread here:

http://www.sbai.org.uk/sbai_forum/sh...in-Switzerland

[greengumbo]

Snow on the ground again today

Bees were motoring along nicely guzzling down light syrup and pollen patties.

I am guessing the first round of CSI pollen collections by Magnus are going to yield very little pollen this weekend. I have duck-tapes my traps onto the hives but in the open position for now. No sign of bees in this weather.

[Jon]

I have not put mine on yet. No point until Saturday I think.

[Jimbo]

Put my traps on yesterday in the open position
Lots of flying activity and nice bright yellow pollen coming in
Going to close the traps today but the weather is not looking so good so not expecting a large amount of pollen for this collection period
Last year I kept the excess pollen in a freezer and used some to make my own pollen patties The rest of the excess pollen I sent to beesinthezoo to feed his beetles?


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[Calluna4u]

Beautiful weather today...................loads of pollen, especially willow and elm, and bees very active.

So.........the lure of the hive tool and the queen paint proved too strong so went out for about an hour and a quarter and got into some hives.

Very different story to that related by several on the various forums. (Suspect some high peeing contests been going on.)

Not a lot of brood. A few patches of sealed brood about the size of the palm of my hand in most, and a reasonable area of eggs surrounding it. Heavy with stores and abundant pollen. Less bees than I would have liked to see.

Opened 24 colonies (most of them the Amm type) and found the following;-

0 Drone layers
0 Queenless
1 Virgin queen (freshly emerged emergency QC)
2 2012 queens, yellow
6 2013 queens, red
13 2014 queens, marked green today
2 dead (just dwindled)

All hives probably have too much food in the core area and the brood is concentrated in the front four inches or so of the combs.
Supering at least 4 weeks away and swarming will be at least 6 weeks. No drone brood whatsoever, not even eggs. Suspect the VQ will transform into a loss as there was not one drone seen for her to mate with.

[Pete L]

Not a lot of brood. A few patches of sealed brood about the size of the palm of my hand in most, and a reasonable area of eggs surrounding it. Heavy with stores and abundant pollen. Less bees than I would have liked to see.

Nice weather here in the south as well, also plenty of willow in flower, few fields of OSR in flower, dandelions, wild garlic, and many other useful flowers.
Plenty of bees and brood, including drone brood and young drones already emerged in many colonies, but this is a very different climate than Scotland, it is even very different here within just a few miles from out over the moors and higher elevations, about three weeks earlier in this valley, and we move colonies out over the hills for what is like a second spring with regards forage, flowers finish here, and are just starting to flower out over.

Galloway always looked like a good area for bees to me, when we have been touring around in the camper van years ago.