This has been another busy year with a record number of people attending our Apiary meetings. We bought lots of new equipment and have had a new shed erected which will serve as our Club House.

The weather for 2004 was not the best and made it difficult to manage the bees at the planned times. We had a total of 5 adopt-a-hives and 2 association hives. The honey flow was very good and it looked to be a bumper year but soon very cold weather and rain put a stop to this. As a result we had to feed the bees a lot despite them being on a brood and a half in later summer. The problem was made worse by wasps robbing honey and hornets stealing bees. The introduction of New Zeeland Queens to all adopt-a-hives did not go smoothly either due to the terrible weather and the first batch being lost in transit.

In June we we sold about 12 colonies and spare equipment to members of NLB which enabled them to start beekeeping in an easy and inexpensive way. Also, frames of eggs were sold to those with queenless colonies.

In 2005 we plan to run 2 association hives with the help of second year adopt-a-hive students (about 6 people in total). These people will help run the Apiary and this way gain more experience in handling bees.

We had little evidence of resistant varroa mites this year and little, or in some cases no dead mites were seen on the varroa floor boards of most hives. To our great relief no EFB was found at the annual inspection by our Bee Inspector, Alan Byham.

His visit was very helpful – here are just a few of his comments:-

All visitors to the Apiary should wear clean protective gear.

Only apiary hive tools should be used on apiary hives.

If the bees make a good bridge of honey above the brood a queen excluder is not needed, but this is rarely possible in the UK.

Uncapped patches of drone brood may be caused by bees getting rid of mites.

Less than 15% mite infestation on drone brood is acceptable.

Unusual noise from the bees in the hive can indicate they are queenless.

Brood cappings are darker and more rough in texture than honey cappings because bees use hive debris mixed with the wax to allow oxygen to pass to the cells.

A line of uncapped brood often seen as a silver trail as the bees attempt to catch a wax moth.

You can often catch a wax moth by tapping on the frame with the hive tool.

Washing soda dissolves propolis.

After the inspection Alan Byham demonstrated a test for pyrethroid resistant mites - a useful day!



All supers and brood boxes were fumigated with Acetic Acid. In addition to this, equipment was flamed regularly, and all brood frames were replaced in Spring to prevent any pests and diseases from spreading. Also, each colony now has it own hive tool which is a great improvement to our hygiene regime. Instead of Apistan it was decided to use Apiguard, and last year Fumidil B was administered to all hives at the time of feeding in late summer.

This coming Spring we will try to replace all brood frames by using the shook swarm method on the strong colonies (at least 5 frames must be covered with bees). On the weaker ones we will apply the usual method of adding a new brood box (with new foundation) on top of the other.

We look forward to the coming season and meeting the new adopt-a-hive people. To make it easy we will start them on small colonies led by young queens in nuc boxes. To help keep track of what is going on in the hives, a new hive record system will be introduced.

Due to the increase in traffic by our ever increasing number of visitors it is no longer possible to park inside the entrance gate, and we would kindly ask you to park your vehicles in Stormont Road.(Note this does not apply to the person(s) taking the class).

We would like to thank Elizabeth Murray for all her help during the Apiary visits.

Finally, we would like to congratulate our NLB member, Caroline Washington on her appointment as one of our Bee Inspectors. We look forward to working with her.

Happy BeeKeeping for the 2005 Season. Johan Kjaer!