A Warm Winter and a Cold Spring

The season is off to a slow start. With the blurry transition from Winter to Spring we're getting a few days of tshirt weather and a few nearly freezing nights. Actually the National Bee Unit recently sent out an advisory email warning of high varroa levels and low food stores but mine seem to have plenty of food left. Varroa levels are high this year because of the mild Winter. Beekeepers tend to treat the bees for varroa in Winter when there's no brood for the mites to hide in the comb with leaving the mites vulnerable but as last Winter was warm (as Winter goes) many hives had brood so the Varroa weren't exposed to the treatment -that or it simply wasn't cold enough for long enough for beekeepers to use Oxalic acid. Food stores are low in some colonies because spring was so cold and bees haven't been able to forage. Warm winter, cold spring. Bad combination.

Firing up the smoker

I treated the bees for mites with Oxalic acid in February this year, it's likely there may have been some brood in the hives so I may need to do a different varroa treatment at some point. This week when we had a warm day I decided to give the bees a quick inspection. Apart from the colony that died out two other colonies had shrunk considerably so I moved them into nucleus hives so they have less space to try and keep warm. This has left me with a lot of spare frames of stored syrup which I'm not entirely sure what to do with. I suspect they'll probably be fine to keep for a long time in case I need to feed a colony up though -although it'd be bad practice to move them between apiaries.

Isolation Starvation

This is a photo of the colony that died. The very last remains of the cluster are over on the right of the comb where they died, over on the left of the frame you can see capped food stores which would've kept them alive if they'ed been able to reach. In the middle you can also see some capped brood they'ed been raising before it got too cold. They also had whole frames of food stores left in the hive towards the ends. For now I've blocked the entrance to the hive and left it sat in place. With the entrance open the other colonies would rob it out. The previous two Winters I've put candy boards on the hives but this year decided not to as a bit of an experiment -I don't think many beekeepers in the UK use Candy boards really. Think I'll probably make them a regular part of my Winter routine.

A developing Drone the workers have removed

On the stronger hives I swapped out the floors for clean ones to remove the last of dead bees left in the hives. One colony has a lot of brood already and had started raising Drones. Examining their hive floor there was the usual dead workers, bits of pollen what looks like wax scales and a large pale drone larva that had been pulled from the comb part way through its metamorphosis. I have no idea why the workers had decided to cull him but as they'ed only pulled one I decided not to lose any sleep over it. Drones come from haploid eggs meaning they only have half the chromosomes of a female bee. This means recessive genes are expressed whereas with a diploid egg there may be a dominant gene so mutations amongst male bees are more common than female. My guess is some sort of genetic mutation in this drone caused the females to cull him. Over the years I've seen a couple of red eyed drones before and once a white eyed drone, if there's a lot of mutation though it may mean changing the queen.

Coccinella septempunctata, the larger one is probably the female.

 It's not just the honey bees gearing up for the Spring. I spotted a pair of Seven Spot Ladybirds in deep conversation taking in the sunlight. Fascinating ladybird fact: Some ladybird species mate for up to 9 hours. Who'd've thought it?

Bumble Bee foraging from a Dandelion

Dandelions are in full flower at the moment providing a nectar source for social and solitary bees. Gardeners tend to combat Dandelions but they're a useful early food source for pollinators.

Spring Time and Winter Losses

Quick entry as we're into spring. On the 20th March Google told us it was Vernal Equinox. That's the first day of Spring. Sort of. If you use the Astronomical Calendar 20th of March is the first day of Spring, but if you use the Meteorological Calendar it started on 1st March. The Astronomical Calendar is based upon the angle of the Earth relative to it's orbit of the sun whereas the Meteorological Calendar is based upon the weather -yep there's clues in the names I know. Today whichever calendar you prefer to use we're definitely in Spring.

Toby sat on a hive

Going into Winter I had 6 colonies, unfortunately one didn't make it through. Well actually they did make it through to early March but seem to have died off during March despite having plenty of food. It's been a strange month with the weather being a car crash mish mash of tshirt weather one day and freezing the next. Last week I'd listened to the hives with a stethoscope and noticed no noise from one hive. After waiting for a warm day I had a look inside and was disappointed to find no bees responding to the intrusion. I had a quick look through the frames and found that although there was still plenty of food stores in the hive the bees had perished clustered away from it. I think this had been my smallest colony going into winter and the cold snap in March seems to have thrown them. They'ed even started rearing brood at some point. This is the second colony I've lost to Winter in 5 years. For a beginner beekeeper that's pretty good but it's still quite annoying. It's still too cold to be inspecting colonies but after hefting the hives (lifting the side to check the weight) I decided to give two of them some fondant to gnaw on.

Other bees have been flying too. Yesterday I spotted a large Bumble Bee foraging the flowers. I don't know what type of Bumble Bee she was but given the timing and her size she had to be a Queen -it's too early for Workers and Drones.

Queen Bumble out foraging

Frog activity is usually a good sign things are warming up too. Last week I took a female frog off Toby the Cat and noticed she seemed rather plump, I figured she was probably heavy with eggs and this week the presence of frogspawn in the ponds at home and my out apiary was clear evidence the amorous amphibians had deemed it warm enough to do rude things in public. They don't always get it right though and they've spawned before freezing spells in the past, fingers crossed they got it right this time.

Frogspawn is appearing

Some March days my bees have been flying and I'd already spotted some bringing in pollen which suggests they were raising brood. They've also been seen gathering water from a couple of locations. Today there was a few heading to a neighbours waterlogged trough (a galvanised planter with no drainage hole) and apparently sucking up water from the mud. Probably far safer than using the currently frog infested ponds.

Gathering water from a trough of mud.

This makes me think that perhaps instead of making a regular pond or water feature maybe an artificial boggy area may be a better as a water source for them. Just a hole in the ground, lined with pond liner, backfilled with lose soil and waterlogged. It's an idea I'll possibly revisit later in the year. Speaking of mud..

Ground Beetle Larva
-some sort of Carabidae

I met a Ground Beetle Larva the other day. It's not really bee related but I liked the photo. These things are pretty useful for gardeners as they eat slugs so if you find one best to leave it alone to protect your plants, potatoes or whatever. Not all larvae are predators but you don't need a degree in entomology to figure out which ones are useful, those large jaws are a dead giveaway that this is a predator.

You can't milk a chicken

One of the problems with the Internet today is disinformation can be spread very quickly especially if it appeals to a lot of people and once accepted by the public consciousness it's very hard to counter with facts and hard evidence no matter how much you present. At the moment 'Cannabis Honey' is causing a big stir on the net. A French chap claims to be making it and his video has gone viral, however whatever he thinks he's doing he's definitely not making honey from cannabis, and in this post I'll tell you why..

First off honey is made from bee gathered nectar (or honeydew) but cannabis is a wind pollinated plant so the flowers have no nectaries to produce nectar. Trying to get nectar from cannabis would be like trying to milk a chicken.

On Facebook someone pulled the fella up on the lack of nectar and he responded that they're actually making propolis from cannabis resin which he thinks infuses the honey. Bees certainly can make propolis from cannabis plants however as THC and CBD aren't water soluble you could smear it on the comb yourself and you're still not going to infuse any honey with it. And that's ignoring the fact bees don't routinely slather propolis over the honey cells anyway.

Looking on his Facebook profile, page and Instagram account there's a lot of close up pictures and some videos of bees on cannabis plants and on his plants and they're certainly doing something, but bearing in mind he's saying they're gathering propolis it's very strange that none of the bees are actually carrying propolis. It's easy to see if a bee is carrying propolis as they pack it into the long hairs on their back legs making it look like they have motorcycle panniers. On the beekeeping forum a few people have suggested the bees are actually collecting honey that's been put on the plants or maybe being fed syrup with a cannabis extract already in it. Given the plants don't make nectar and the bees aren't actually carrying resin or pollen I'm inclined to go with those theories too.

Things get even more suspicious when you look at his photos of honey comb. Below is a photo of some regular honey comb from my bees in which the bees, inserted in the lower left is a photo of the cannabis honey comb.

Spot the difference

Notice how clean the wax on the regular comb is? No red or brown propolis on there. Also the stored nectar is uniform in the same liquid state, no crystals visible. Looking at the insert you can see a green flecked liquid with the crystals in it adhering to the edges of the cells. This isn't normal, it's also not propolis, probably worth noting cannabis trichomes are clear or amber anyway. To me this looks exactly like sugar syrup containing ground plant matter possibly pollen has been paint brushed directly onto the comb. The way it's gathered on the outer edges certainly gives it a painted on appearance and the broken cell wall in the bottom left and widened cell in the top right would also suggest this comb has been subjected to some rough manhandling. On extraction this stuff will probably come out with the honey giving you a crop of honey adulterated with sugar and added pollen or other plant matter. It's the equivalent of adding frothed milk to your coffee then claiming you've trained a cow to produce lattes.

My hypothesis seems to be supported by a picture of a spoonful of his set honey posted on his Instagram and  Facebook. Ignoring the fact it's full of bubbles (use a honey stirrer..) there are tiny dark particles of something in it which I expect will be pollen or bits of finely ground leaves he's added. His claim that the honey is somehow infused with pot propolis simply doesn't bear scrutiny.

So, to summarise: You can't make cannabis from honey and you can't trust everything on the Internet no matter how upbeat the video, or many likes, shares or reposts it has -but don't just take this post from a blog as fact do some research yourself, the info on botany and bees isn't hard to find and at worst you could always buy a book or two.

Whilst I wouldn't recommend it myself if you really want to make cannabis infused honey a quick Google search will tell you how. It's a simple two step process and requires a jar of liquid honey, not a box of bees.

Vintage Makery Do II - Advertisement!

Following the success of the Vintage Makery Do in November last year Vintage Cafe on Chants Av (or Chanterlands Avenue if you're from out of town) have organised another one. Also at St Ninian's Church, Chants Ave, Hull, on Saturday 7th May, 2016, from 13:00 to 15:00.
 

 The Vintage Makery Do is BACK and bigger than ever! 

 A wide selection of local crafters under one roof loving all things handmade. 20p on the door for Hull Animal Welfare or a tin of food for Hull's homeless. Craft,a cuppa, and charity- whats not to love?!

 (I borrowed this bit from the Facebook page - click on it to go there!)

As before it's raising money for Hull Animal Welfare and contributions for the homeless. I think it's going to be in a bigger room this time so you can expect to see a few more stalls than last time too. Save the date!

Soft Set Honey

Honey is normally a liquid but it's often sold as Set or Creamed Honey. This is the stuff that doesn't run, sticks to your knife and is easier to spread on your toast. It tastes the same as liquid honey, in fact it's actually the same stuff except it's physical state has been altered by encouraging it to crystallise in a controlled way. Left to it's own devices liquid honey crystallises and needs warming to melt it again. This process is called granulation. At some point in distant days of yore some bright spark who's name history seems to have forgotten discovered that if you seed liquid honey with honey that has already formed small crystals the liquid honey will form crystals the same size. I have no idea how that works, probably some complicated metallurgy stuff going on there, but work it certainly does.

As I wanted to label my honey as Produce of England I figured I'd best get some English seed honey to start the process. Turns out this is actually far easier said than done, late at night anyway, if it was daytime I could've probably just got some from another bee keeper.. anyway I tried 5 supermarkets before I was able to find any English Honey, everything on the shelves in Tesco and Sainsbury's was a blend of "EU and Non EU" Honey. It wasn't till I got to Asda that I found English Set Honey. Well done Asda for selling English Honey. But unfortunately also big black mark to Asda for sticking a Bumble Bee on the label instead of an actual Honey Bee. D'oh.

Actually in 2014 this stuff was withdrawn from sale after some came into contact with South African Honey by accident. Having been mixed with South African honey they couldn't sell it as English that year. Oops. Red faces all round but I'm sure after a little shouting and some awkward foot shuffling they'll've tightened things up after that though.

English Set Honey from Asda -There's a mistake in this photo..

The smoothness of the set honey depends on the size of the crystals it forms, the larger crystals give a grittier feel to it, smaller crystals a smoother texture. I bought a handful of different set honeys to compare and there was quite range in crystal sizes. This English Set Honey was really smooth, which is what I'd expect given the label suggests it's a premium product.

Asda's English Honey meets my English Honey

The first thing to do is add your seed honey to a bucket of liquid honey. Then stir. It's actually not easy stirring a bucket of honey for long, but not to worry technology to the rescue. A modern honey stirrer is like a 3' long blunt corkscrew made from food grade stainless steel that fits into a drill. You need to mix it evenly and avoid dragging air bubbles into the liquid.

The noise of the drill should give some indication of how much work is involved. It must've been really hard work prior to electronic shortcuts. Once mixed it looked a bit like a coffee.

Liquid and seed honey mixed

Once mixed it was decanted into jars and put somewhere cool to crystallise. I opted to use my Honey Warming Cabinet. It's an insulated box after all. Obviously I didn't turn it on and loaded it up in the evening when it was cool then closing the door seemed to do the trick.

Everybody be cool..

I gave it a few weeks to crystallise probably didn't need quite as long as I gave it. With the first batch done I was able to use these to seed more buckets of honey, and rather than go to the shed I left some in the fridge to cool. I'd turned the fridge up to it's warmest setting as if it's too cold it slows crystallisation.

Chilling. A bit.

 I didn't set the whole honey crop as some people prefer their honey in it's natural state. I put it in three sizes of jar, 250g, 365g and 454g. 454g is the traditional Pound of honey.

45 Kilos of Local Honey.

Some readers may be wondering how it was possible for Set Honey to be made in the first place if you already need a couple of jars full to make it. There is another way. You start with some heavily granulated honey and grind it with a mortar and pestle breaking up the large sugar crystals.

Granulated Honey in a Mortar

Same honey after some heavy grinding

It's harder work than you'd imagine and you have to do a very small batch at a time to get it even. I assume commercial outfits like whoever made the Asda English Set Honey will probably have some high tech machinery to do the job or possibly even some clever sciencey temperature controlled set up but if you have the time you can do it yourself. Once you've creamed a two or three jars you can use them to seed a bucket and when that sets use it to seed more buckets. If you store it right you should be able to use some of that next year to seed your next crop.

The original granulated honey and the ground honey

Ready for mixing with liquid honey

This is actually the first way I tried to make set honey, using a heavily granulated jar I'd saved from a couple of years ago. Unfortunately I made a beginner's mistake and tried to do it in July. It was too warm and the bucket didn't crystallise as hoped. In hindsight I would've probably been okay if I'd put the bucket in the fridge.. But not to worry, if your attempt to make a set honey goes wrong all you need to do is warm it up to return it to it's liquid state and you're ready to go again.

Hot Air and the 2015 Honey Crop

I extracted the 2015 crop in August and September. As my number of hives had increased this year I'd had to make some extra clearer boards. I read a post in the Diary of a Nervous Beekeeper suggesting painting different hive components different colours so you can easily see what component are in place from a distance and decided to adopt that idea for my clearer boards. It's handy being able to see clearer boards at a glance so you don't leave them by accident -the bees are a bit smart and would eventually figure out how to get back into the super. I used some Red Cedar Shed & Fence Paint for the outer edges. I'm not convinced it looks close to cedar but it certainly stands out (ok clashes) against the green components.

Hi-Vis Clearer Board

I gave the bees a few hours to move down through the boards before removing the supers. As the bees move down through the clearer it takes time for them to get between the frames below so I decided to have a little peek under the clearer to see what was happening.

Busy.

 Some of the supers were heavy but the ones from the more recently caught swarms were pretty light as evidently the bees had been a little busy in the brood nest getting settled, drawing comb and whatever else recently housed swarms do.

Supers, ranging from heavy to empty.

Removing the cappings from the completed cells is a bit a of a drag to put it mildly. You have to slide a capping fork under the cappings and lift them off sounds simple enough but in a warm room with honey dripping it gets tedious. Because of that there's a few different technological innovations to make the task easier from heated knives to mechanised solutions. I opted for something recommended by another user in the Beekeeping Forum, the hot air gun.
 

The WHGV2000, just shy of a tenner from Wickes

The hot air gun is pretty fast and seems to work through a combination of melting the wax and heating the air between the honey and the capping to push off the wax. It doesn't take long to uncap a frame this way and if you did it slowly you run a risk of damaging the honey. I did find that with a partially filled frame the airgun makes a bit of a mess of empty cells it hits so I'll not be completely ditching the capping fork just yet. I also found that with some of the cappings being blown off the frame there was some mess where the little blobs of  wax landed. I suspect that with practice and finding the right temperature both problems will diminish with time.

In total I got about 45KG of honey, most of which had come from three hives. Not a massive crop but my best so far.I decided to make Set Honey with some of it which I'll be waffling about a bit in a later blog entry.

Monty Wrong..

Today I stumbled across another entomology fail. This time in an online column by Monty Don on the MyMail Garden website. Monty is a presenter for BBC Series Gardener's World and I think it's fair to say he's generally accepted as an authority on how to grow stuff, although in May he annoyed a lot of beekeepers when on national television he suggested people could plonk a top bar hive in their garden and leave the bees to it. No swarm control, no monitoring colony health, parasite levels, viral loads or even checking food stores.. an irresponsible approach the outcome of which would actually be starving stressed bee colonies dying out all over the place. A beekeeper did complain to the BBC and published their response online, strangely the BBC stood by the bad advice of their presenter.

Anyway in Monty Don's Diary was a short article about Wasps. In it he briefly explains a little about the variety of wasps, social wasp nests, venom and the genuinely useful role of wasps to the gardener as well as a few creatures that predate wasps. Unfortunately the photograph accompanying the article is quite clearly showing Honey Bee workers standing on wax comb.

Those "wasps" look suspiciously furry, and bee shaped.

Definitely not wasps. In fact the comb they're on contain capped calls honey. The article was posted in August 2015 and a quick glance at the comments shows at people have pointed out the error but it's not been addressed... I'd expect that lack of attention to detail from say an amateur blog written by an enthusiastic amateur but not a paid column written by a professional writer.