Professor David Evans is a virologist studying the biology of single stranded positive sense RNA viruses, including poliovirus, hepatitis C virus and deformed wing virus of honeybees. He has a fascinating, practical beekeeping blog, https://www.theapiarist.org/
- The vagaries of the weather, compounded by unexpected events, are what make beekeeping so endlessly fascinating … and challenging. Don't get flustered. Just keep calm and carry on and things should be OK.
- Bees spend more of their short lives learning about the environment during orientation flights than they spend foraging. Why are these flights so important, when do they start, and are bees that have yet to take them really 'non-flying bees'?
- Some observations on the impact of low overnight temperatures on colony development and spring swarming, and the use of Taranov swarm control to partition the flying and 'non-flying' bees to prevent swarming.
- Queenright queen rearing using the 'Ben Harden system' is an ideal way to produce queens without the need for huge cell raising colonies, or compromising honey production. A 'little and often' approach helps mitigate adverse conditions, and mistakes made when learning. Try it!
- Bait hives, ley lines, exotic parasitic mites and formic acid treatments … a spring medley of good and bad beekeeping topics.
- Winter DIY projects to make my beekeeping this year a little easier. Things for frames, mini-nucs, supers, finding bees, vaporisers, and queens. Some are novel, some are improvements, and some are poor facsimiles. All kept me entertained, and may help you in the months ahead.
- What's the best method of swarm control? Some would judge this in terms of equipment needs, or lifting involved, or the number of return visits. However, if you also consider the population of bees in the colony, I'd argue there's one clear winner.
- A recent study suggests that a beeswax Jenter-like system produces bigger, better queens than are reared by conventional grafting. Does this offer a worthwhile alternative approach to the current expensive (plastic) commercial queen rearing systems?
- A pick'n'mix collection of swarm-related information this week. The planning and equipment needed for swarm control, and hiving bivouacked swarms. Some preliminary results on absconding swarms and re-hiving distances, and another over-confident prediction of when swarming will start.
- Early hive inspections — and why you shouldn't — some thoughts on variable spring weather and progress in predicting swarming, and how the accuracy of the waggle dance varies depending on who is watching.