Saturday 28 March 2009

Wednesday 18 March 2009

You can take the 'Dame' out of the Panto, but you can't take the panto out of the Dame!

Fellow Beekeepers!
You HAVE to read the above link and, after you've got up from the floor from laughing! contact your MP to ask just how on earth such a dizzy woman gets to be a Dame, let alone an MP!

Monday 16 March 2009

Integrated Pest Control: it does what it says on the tin!

We put in our Varroa floor at our home apiary a week ago, and checked it yesterday. Result.....only one mite after seven days! ONE mite! I call that a result for the common beekeeper! I think that that shows that Oxalic Acid at Christmas works. However, we have heard that many fellow beekeepers have lost colonies this winter, and locally, some have lost just about everything. That is really sad, and on a personal note, is upsetting. But we must all band together, learn from each other, and work (as the bees do) as one to defeat whatever is ailing all our bees! We are taking nothing for granted, and I fed the hive sugar syrup yesterday, and plan to do the same at the lottie in the next day or so. Our colleagues fed their bees 'Apifonda' during the winter, and their bees seem to be in excellent fettle, with a negligable Varroa count. Bravo LAAGS!

Wednesday 4 March 2009

DEFRA register

We were contacted today via a local friend who informed us of a news piece on BBC Farming Today concerning bees. In essence it was a discussion on the merits of hobby beekeepers informing DEFRA that they are keeping hives. This therefore enables a database to be maintained and for hives to be inspected for disease by an approved inspector.
We have always maintained our place on the register and have therefore been inspected every year since keeping bees - but other people seem not to be quite to happy to do this!
If we are to control the rate of disease in our bees, surely a national database of hives is the sensible thing? What do you think?
Defra link https://secure.csl.gov.uk/beebase/
Farming Today link http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/farmingtoday/index.shtml where you can download a podcast of the bee piece or just listen via direct link on the site.