February 2024

Snowdrops and Hopes for a Kind Spring- Newsletter from Alan Riach

In some of the unseasonably warm days the bees have been out collecting pollen from the snowdrops. A sign that the queens are already in action. The bees are always desperate for fresh pollen early in the year. No doubt they will be lacing it with some fungal material. Dr Nicholas Naeger of Washington State University gave an excellent talk recently on one of Gino Jabbar’s SBA webinars on the value of fungal material to bees and described how researchers are now finding that they gather more of this material than we realised. Nick also had some good news on the work that has been carried out on fungal treatments for Varroa control. They have managed to develop a version of the fungus Metarhizium spp that is capable of surviving inside bee colonies at temperatures of 35C (natural M. spp being normally a ground dweller, doesn’t like temperatures above 25C). This fungus is quite effective at killing Varroa mites whilst being harmless to bees and humans. However, it will take some time to convince the USA Environmental Protection Agency that it is safe to use in bee hives.
There have been some queries about whether beehives can be moved out-with the “less than 3 foot or greater than 3 miles” rule. The answer is that it is possible to move bees several metres within the apiary at this time of year, provided the entrances are masked with some branches so that the bees have a bit of a struggle to get out. This causes them to re-orientate which prevents them getting lost. This works when there are small numbers of bees flying.
 Although we’ve had a touch of snow and frost, the winter so far has been mild, but of course getting bees through winter is the easy part, it’s getting them through spring that’s the challenge. From now on  keep an eye on these fondant packs or sugar bags. They are a great food reserves indicator, as you can check the pack without disturbing the bees. As soon as the queen starts laying, driven by the increasing light levels, the core nest temperature has to be raised back up to 33/34 C and heat means energy consumption.
Hopefully you all managed to get your varroa treatments completed in December, but if not, then keep an eye on the levels. Clean the varroa tray and insert it. Check the numbers that have dropped after a week and consult the tables in the Beebase “Managing Varroa” document.  
Now is the time to plan your beekeeping year.