Dorchester and Weymouth Bee Keepers Association

For several years we have warned of the threat of the Asian Hornet and so far little has come of it. A bit like the boy who cried wolf - but it is not.

Two years ago we had Asian Hornets on Portland. Due to prompt action we eliminated them before they could get a hold. It is that same prompt action we need now.

The Asian Hornet - or Yellow Legged Hornet or Yellow Legged Asian Hornet - will be at that stage in its life cycle where the fertilised queen (gyne) is establishing a primary nest and laying eggs. This is when she is at her most vulnerable. She is a single mother who has to look after her young and also go out to work and collect food.

This is the time when we should be setting monitoring stations and monitoring traps. If we can catch and kill one Yellow Legged Hornet then that will potentially save us from up to 350 fertilised queens being produced for next year.

So I urge you to get your traps and bait stations out there. Place sweet, carbohydrate lures in there and monitor them every day. For bait use any combination of beer, wine, fruit juice with some sugar. If you catch an Yellow Legged Hornet then pop it in the freezer. That way it is killed, preserved and in a suitable state for DEFRA to examine the DNA. Contact the local Asian Hornet Coordinator or report it on the App.

Why is it important for DEFRA to be informed? Well they may be able to identify the origins of hornet. Supposing we get two queens found in Dorset. If they are not related then it was just chance that gave us two. However if they were related then the chances are we have many more in the county that over wintered here.

And Also

I have removed all the entries on the For Sale page. Some of them were considerably out of date and I suspect may not have been available any longer. If you wish to have and entry on the page then just email me with details and photos and it will be restored.

Tomorrow Sunday we are off to the Apiary at Stinsford for the last of the beginners sessions. It may be the last but I am sure by now that they are in full agreement with the trainers - there is still lots to learn.

Just to give you two examples which I have found out in the past month from apiary visits:

First - We had a hive which was queenless. It was going nowhere. There was no brood, no eggs and not many workers. However I watched the entrance as workers were bringing back pollen. How often have we told beginners "Pollen being brought in therefore the queen is laying." Clearly this is not the case.

Secondly - We were examining a hive and spotted the queen. We got a cage for her but I dropped her. I proudly announced to the beginners - "Not to worry I was working over the hive so she will have gone straight back in." How wrong I was. A week later there is no sign of her but there are loads of queen cells. Well we live and learn - and in beekeeping we are always learning.

And as to learning more - there is an on-line lecture at the Colliton Club this Tuesday the 15th at 6:30. The talk is on swarming and with the recent hot weather this seems to have started very early this year. The talk will be followed by a general chat - as happens at most of our socials.

Hope to see you on the 15th.

It has been a busy week. Last Saturday we moved a hive from Wyke to the apiary. It could not have gone better. I closed the hive up with sticky tape the night before the move and made certain that it was all secure using two ratchet traps.

On the Saturday morning there was a frost on top of the hive - no risk the bees would want to fly. We put two lengths of timber under the ratchet straps and carried the hive to the van in the same way as they used to carry sedan chairs.

Once we go to the Apiary we took the straps off then opened the entrance and the sun was shining on the hive and within minutes they were flying.

On Wednesday a group of us went to the apiary to do a big clean up. It was a misty day but I kept warm as I scorched all the empty hive boxes. I was careful to scorch all the corners and joins where there may be eggs of the wax moth.

As the mornbing went on the sun burnt through the mist and fog and by the afternoon we were able to do a full inspection of the hives.

One hive was in a WBC and that is not the easiest for beginners to manipulate so we moved that to a National Hive. There was brood present so we can assume it is queen right.

One hive was not very full and there was no sign of a queen or brood in any stages. It is likely that this colony is doomed. Without a queen there is no hope - unless there is very young brood. The bees were foraging and were taking back pollen. Had we missed a queen or are workers with pollen not necessarily a sign of a laying Queen. Time will tell.

The final hive we looked into was the one we had moved in from Wyke. That was very busy and had a lot of brood. We did a complete box change. The brood box at the bottom had the brood in. Above that was a super and that had no brood in it so we can assume the queen was in the bottom brood box. We put a queen excluder between the brood box and the super.

Above that was a brood box which only contained stores. We put that above a crown board so the bees will probably empty the stores and carry them down to below the crown board. That assumes the bees have read the same manual as we have!

There was one frame of drone comb. We removed that. If there is varroa in the hive then they are most likely to be in the capped drone cells. They prefer drone cells as there is more space in the bigger cells. The removal of the drone comb will kill the drones but it may well remove the varroa from the hive.

And if all that has made you think of keeping bees then do not forget the beginners course starting on the 11th March

And if you are already a beekeeper then do not forget our For Sale page where I have added a poly hive.