Discussing natural comb orientation
Just after the Spring Equinox ten members met to discuss swarms, how to inspect hives non-invasively, and network and chat over food and tea. Gareth brought along a skep filled with comb, we looked at an empty TBH and discussed various modifications people have tried. Everyone left with a buzz, and a slightly glazed look from the fact-fest.
33 folk were privileged to convene at Christ Church College, Oxford. In 1833 this was the birthplace of Britain’s first beekeeping society, the Oxford Apiarian Society, so there was a pleasing sense of beekeeping returning to its home. The meeting featured a presentation by Derek and Elaine Mitchell on his latest research on hive insulation and bee clustering; a film by Luke Purdye on beekeeping styles; and a brief tour of some areas of the college not usually accessible to the public. And, of course, tea and cake. The setting is very characterful and has been used in films and TV such as Inspector Morse and Harry Potter.
We started with lunch and networking. Present were beekeepers from the Wye Valley and London natural beekeeping groups; Hampshire; Hertfordshire; Steve Gibson – a log hive maker; Chris Park – master skeppist; and experience ranging from none to 40 years. Some of these people have worked with Bees for Development. Brian had brought a beelining box, Gilliane some dead bees to examine, and Derek & Elaine Mitchell talked to some people about their novel studies. There was quite a lot to discuss.
Following lunch, we started our programme of events and this being a university, the first item was academic research.
In early December, Gilliane welcomed fourteen bee-folk into her house on the edge of Oxford where we discussed insulation, annual colony rhythms and thermal photography of hives, with a large portion of gossip over a shared meal (traffic and flooding being a recurrent topic in Oxford!).
Click to enlarge
Gill has organised a course in straw skepping, taught by Chris Park, at Wakelyns organic farm in Suffolk in spring.
Wakelyns is an inspiring, pioneering organic farm that (the UN says) is one of the models of sustainable farming that could feed the world. They have their own breeds of locally adapted, old wheats (long straw) and grow willow for fuel and weaving (willow skep making next!) – and even a population of wild honey bees. And Chris Park needs no introduction, being a master skeppist and practical archaeologist.
Wakelyns has accommodation – and a bakery on site, which makes delicious food grown mostly on the farm. So, if you feel like a visit to the sunrise coast, and fancy making a skep, or know someone lmore local who’d be interested — even if you’re stuck for ideas for presents, please think of joining us! Here’s a link – https://wakelyns.co.uk/skepmaking/
Each Spring, we survey our treatment-free members to ascertain winter colony losses, and compare with the national surveys of conventional beekeepers’ losses. Over 8 years we’ve built up an interesting comparison graph, but though our treatment-free results (blue line) can be readily compared to conventional losses (red) at first glance, there’s more to it when you burrow into the data.
Strategising
On a sunny day in August, a crack team of beekeepers clustered next to a beautiful lake to meet, eat, talk about bees and have a quick peek in a hive.
Rather than concentrating on one major theme, we discussed many different things like a recent New Yorker article, dealing with wasps and Asian Hornets (there was an unconfirmed sighting in Oxford), wild colonies and dowsing, interspersed with lighthearted chat like beekeeping’s weird resemblances to magical rituals (strange garb, rituals like smoking, sacrificing queens, talking to the bees etc).
Bees (nest entrance above propolis stain on left) are basically snobs, and appreciate statuary and Listed buildings
I recently gave an 18 minute Zoom talk to the HoneyBeeWorld Café, an informal online salon for those interested in wild survivor colonies, on the unmanaged wild bees around my home.
Here’s a direct link to it on YouTube, though it’s actually more fun to navigate to it through the HoneyBeeWorld Resources page (look for 20th July 2023) where you will find a bunch of other interesting short talks.
The key point here is that, living in a village, I have had the opportunity of mapping (perhaps all of?) the local wild colonies. Mapping most, or all wouldn’t be possible in a town(1), where the sheer density of people and properties would mean you would not, over the years, get to be known as the local swarm collector. And it turns out the colony density is very high. There are far more unmanaged colonies than managed ones. Separately, I’m involved in a monitoring project to determine how long lived these colonies are; most survive several years.
It seems a tad unlikely that I just happen to live in some special high-density location, so one has to wonder about the extent of the survivor population around Britain, Europe and Russia, the home range of the Western Honeybee.
Of course there are denialists, but… just look up.
(1) Well OK it is possible in a town: the only example I know of is, Jovana Bila Dubaic mapped the wild colonies in Belgrade, finding several hundred. I think it took a couple of years of dedicated effort. The results were published as Unprecedented Density and Persistence of Feral Honey Bees in Urban Environments of a Large SE-European City (Belgrade, Serbia)
Oxfordshire Natural Beekeeping Group 
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