Timothy about Varroa

After the last entry Timothy the beekeeper mailed me this: 'It's weird to see mites outside the hive. The mite actually drains the blood from the bees just like a tick. The main problem with them is they spread viruses which actually do the killing. Varroa on it's own will only weaken a hive. Varroa and viruses of which there are over 15 will kill the hive. In the hive contaminated material is very rarely exchanged but the mite does this by biting one bee and that then becomes contaminated and then biting another and so on: spreading the viruses.'

Clew Bay Honey’s First Birthday

Message from Timothy Stevens beekeeper to among many others the Polranny Pirates. ‘Hi everyone. Sorry for such infrequent posts. Things tend to get a bit hectic in the summer with me. So here is a quick update no photos I’m afraid as I scratched the lens on the camera I use. I hope to get that sorted out soon and start getting more pics up. I celebrated my 1st year in business on the 20th of June. The year has truly flown for me. To think last year I was registering for tax and getting my company name sorted. The list of what has been achieved from then to now is massive. I started this with 19 hives and now have over 35 full hives and close to 40 nucs(half hives). I am well on line with meeting and surpassing my own goals for this year for growth. All I need now is 3 good weeks weather in July (a big ask I know) and I will be able to get honey into a few more shops.’ Congratulations to Timothy and hopefully the Polranny Pirate Bees will surpass themselves in supplying Clew Bay Honey! I’m going to Amsterdam now and I’ll be away for a few months. Most likely it will be very quiet on the blog for a while. The bees will be busy making honey and I shall miss all the fun.

Beekeeping in Ancient Egypt

Apiculture was popular in the whole of Egypt but particular in the Delta region. Hives were made of mud or reeds covered with mud. Empty hives were also used as wall insulation of houses. The cylindrical hives were stacked horizontally, sometimes up to 500 together. The harvesting was done twice a year: in spring and autumn. Because of the climate there seem to have been no winter hibernation. The hives were transported to where the flowers were. They had to be moved again when the farmers were clearing the ground by fire after harvest or when the Nile water rose and it was necessary to bring the hives to higher ground. The moving could cause some logistic problems especially when there were many hives involved. It is all written down in queries, prayers and petitions and mercifully kept for prosperity. The drawing is of fields on the banks of the Nile and two huge statues near Luxor

Meanwhile back in Achill

Yesterday Timothy swung by accompanied by Jude a colleague from the Westport Beekeepers Association. They had been replacing an aggressive colony at Achill Secret Garden with a more docile one. The hive now gets a new residence in Glenhest far from the madding crowd. Timothy also had installed a starter hive at Sheila McHugh in BullsMouth (another colleague of mine from the Achill Writers Group). He has now four and possibly five addresses in Achill of which three on Achill. That means that we will get our own ‘run’ in the future. Now Timothy gets in later and later because he has so much to do before Achill. Yesterday it was nine at night. The bees were grumpy and the midges out in full force. Still, the second hive has a honey box now too. The stores were sufficient and things were generally going well. One of the bee’s favourite summer flower is in bloom: white clover. The picture shows the first ones but soon the garden was covered… till Mike Wilson came yesterday to cut the grass. But there are still plenty left. The most enthralling ode to white clover is in Soma Morgenstern’s ‘In einer anderen Zeit’. If you read German it is well worth the effort. I found it ‘unputdownable’.It's in the library of the Polranny Pirates.

The weight of the stores

Timothy the beekeeper is detecting a problem in his hives: the feed stores are low. He checked the stores by weighting the frames in his hands. In Polranny they seem alright for the time being, but it might come to pass here too. I quote freely from his recent entry on Facebook Clew Bay Honey: ‘Most years have a gap in nectar producing plants in the summer. This is called by beekeepers in Ireland "the June gap". Normally bees store enough spring honey to get them over this gap and into the main honey flow. This year it is very possible that I shall have to feed the hives instead. This leads to an interesting problem: making sure there is no feed ending up in the honey that is harvested in August. If I feed too much I risk mixing and if I feed to little the hive dies… ‘ But today the sun broke through the clouds and the bees are in a feeding frenzy. I’m already stung when I went to spy on them. Photo Karin Daan

The shopping basket of the worker bee

The worker bee never leaves the hive without her shopping basket. Nature attached it permanently to her hind leg. When she sticks her head into the flower the pollen gets stuck to her head and thorax. With her front legs moistened with nectar, she gathers it up and brings it to the pollen comb. There the pollen is combed, pressed and put into the basket. The nectar gives the pollen in the basket its colour. That’s how the beekeeper knows from which flower or honey source the bee has been foraging from. Once the pollen is in the hive it’s gets stored by the home worker bees. They mix it with honey and pack it firmly into store cells. The mixing with honey has to do with keeping it safe from going off. Photo of the bee with pollen on her hind legs: Timothy Stevens. Drawing by me.

The life and times of worker bees Part 3 Foragers

After the learning stages in and close to the hive the worker bees venture out into the great big world to find the honey source and bring pollen and nectar home. As Timothy the beekeeper already said: the bee is stupid but the hive is clever. And so the worker bees dance the story of the best honey sources to each other generation after generation for tens of thousands of years. They perform tremble dances to let the home front know that foragers are returning with the goodies. Worker bees also scout the ‘nesting’ place for the swarm to go to when the time has come for the queen to leave the colony and start a new one. Photo Timothy Stevens