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).
New Yorker interview
Sam at Gareth’s apiary
The New Yorker magazine has published an article on beekeeping by staff writer Sam Knight. He’s based in Britain so it focused on British beekeeping, and it’s of particular interest because it’s written by a non beekeeper with no particular corner to fight, and compares ‘natural’ and ‘conventional’ styles.
Sam interviewed conventional beekeepers, scientists, and a couple of OxNatBees members (hence the mention here). You can read it yourself and form your own opinion, but what we found most impressive was the thoroughness of our grilling afterwards by a staff fact checker. We were each on the phone 90 minutes to them! Hearing this, William mentioned he was a retired journalist and the serious American media are famous for their fact checking, he then gave us some examples of their integrity. Sadly the British press can rarely afford this level of checking now.
Observation Hive
The observation hive at Oxford Natural History museum. Image courtesy of William
William has feet in several camps, running some hives for honey and others as low intervention ones. He volunteered to help run the Natural History Museum’s observation hive, and was taken aback to find that as the only remaining applicant he was suddenly in charge of it. This observation hive essentially comprises one huge vertical comb split across four frames, with glass either side. This exposes the bees to light all the time which isn’t normal and disrupted the (marked) queen’s laying pattern; for some weeks she only laid at night. We considered ideas like curtains, but the purpose of the hive is to allow the public to view the bees; or red filters, as bees can’t see red but humans would be able to look through it.
Management is unusual. The bees struggle with the topology and the location is not immediately adjacent to forage. They have access to the outside via a tube at the top, and can be top-fed with fondant. William told us how the hive needed repopulating when he took it over and he arrived with a nucleus of bees to install. He had planned to open the front, swap the frames over and hopefully be finished without too many bees outside the hive and in the museum. But once he started he realised he was trying to fit National sized frames into a space designed for larger Langstroth ones. The situation rapidly slid out of control and he ended up with many upset bees outside the observation hive, and blocking access through the the museum’s side / wheelchair access door. Somehow he found some Langstroth frames and sorted it out the same day.
Dowsing and more
Jonathan explains some dowsing / magnetic energy concepts
We were joined by Jonathan Mitchell who had driven up from Somerset to meet us. At one point he ran 30 hives but has downsized to 2 as his interests shifted to magnetic science.
This isn’t in my knowledge zone; dowsing and ley lines are a controversial subject outside my experience. But I was interested to hear more from a different perspective – let’s listen before judging. I’ve come across a number of engineers who told me they’d tried dowsing and it worked for them, even though they were sceptical and couldn’t explain it.
I felt his terminology was rather inconsistent, but here’s the thing that really interested me. He’s been tracking down wild colonies for 7 years to determine if they are on ley lines (he concludes they are). So far he has found several hundred such colonies. Later, back at my house we looked at a large scale map of my village and plotted the precise location of the 10 or so I know of here on it. He was very methodical about this. So if he says he’s found 700, I believe that.
I’ve pointed him towards honeybeewatch.com and suggested he plot these wild colonies on their map.
Further information: Jonathan will be speaking at the British Dowsing Conference in Worcester in a week, which may end up on Youtube, or you can email him directly at Jonathan dot Mitchell at live co uk.
Wasps and Asian hornets
We are keenly aware that Asian Hornets have been found in alarming numbers in Britain this year and may have managed to establish on the British mainland. Mary has been considering a hornet trap, and showed us her design, but she’s a bit stuck on how to release non-target species from the trap. To be honest, we couldn’t solve this one, but the point is that everyone’s getting extremely concerned about this invasive pest. Once it’s established it’s going to change the face of beekeeping here.
A few of us have had wasps raiding their hives this year, but from what we hear, the problem has been far more acute for our conventional beekeeper neighbours. My feeling is there are two key factors. Firstly, most reports of wasp attacks are in areas with poor forage – which means the wasps have no other food sources. Secondly, many of us took heed of Gareth’s advice not to open hives until wasp season subsides (September), and that really seems to have helped.
Ron Hoskins
Many readers will be aware that Ron Hoskins died recently, after nearly 80 years keeping bees. He had a tremendously broad knowledge of the craft and was famous for breeding the varroa resistant Swindon Honeybees, being possibly the first, outspoken, champion of breeding for resistance rather than relying on miticides. We covered him in previous articles (Wisdom from an Old Beekeeper and Convergent Theories). He cast a very large shadow, having trained many beekeepers, and influenced many other conventional ones to go treatment-free. A sad loss.
Hive inspection (not)
Top Bar Hive
We moved over to the hives to do a quick inspection. First though, we had a quick chat about out-apiary safety. This is both your own – make sure someone knows where you are going; beware smoker use next to fields of dry grass; and the bees’, because it is not unknown for hives at remote apiaries to be stolen, so don’t answer nosy questions about where they are – that’s an extremely suspicious breach of beekeeper etiquette. Just earlier in August, 14 hives were stolen in Wales – but were found in an apiary 3 miles away
The normally defensive bees were untroubled by wasps and pretty chilled about a crowd round them. This is probably partly due to being undisturbed for a while, but I think the massive amount of varied forage means that pests have easier food sources right now, so the bees didn’t need to be on guard.
One hive was only established (hived swarm) 2-3 months ago and though the window showed plenty of comb, and entrance activity was healthy, the hive wasn’t very heavy when hefted. We left it alone rather than disrupt it.
Close-up inside hive. Walls are black due to being scorched before swarm was put in. Capped honey at top of comb.
The oldest colony though had a gratifyingly heavy heft, and I was hoping to take some honey. But on opening it I realised the last couple of top bars were slightly cross combed. They were only part full of honey. I could have pressed on deeper into the hive (where I know the comb is beautifully straight) but that would have left a trail of smashed comb behind me, just for some honey, and I have plenty of that at home. So I left them for now and made a note in my calendar to remove these wonky combs next Spring before the colony expands into this area again. It was obvious the hive was healthy from the heavy traffic of happy pollen bearing bees, lack of deformed wings and hive weight. There was no mysterious excess of bodies outside the entrance and examining a handful of hive floor debris, we only saw a couple of varroa.
After the main meeting broke up, Caragh, Jonathan & I decamped to my house, sampled honeys/honeydew, and viewed wild colonies. Jonathan had already checked out 3 before coming!
Next meeting: nothing settled yet
Oxfordshire Natural Beekeeping Group 
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