BEEKEEPING IN EAST DORSET

Have you ever looked at the bees on the flowers in your garden? Some of them will be honey bees - doubtless belonging to a beekeeper in you area.

Beekeeping is a fascinating craft, though while the beekeeper aims to obtain a crop of honey, the real value of the honey bee is in its pollination of the fruit trees and bushes and plants in your garden and the agricultural crops in the fields. Beekeepers can learn their craft by joining other beekeepers. Our local Association is the East Dorset Beekeepers Association which holds its winter meetings at Broadstone Community Centre - you are always very welcome to join us even if you are not a beekeeper and demonstrates practical beekeeping at its own apiary. One is frequently asked how much honey one obtains from a hive of bees. This will vary on the strength of the colony, the local flora, the weather and the skill of the beekeeper. From a strong hive of bees and other things being favourable one can obtain on occasions as much as a hundredweight of honey; the average yearly take spread over four / five years is thirty to forty pounds. One can class bees as livestock, but unlike most livestock bees need looking at only once a week in spring and summer and not at all in winter except to check that the hive is standing sound and weatherproof.

In general conversation the one question that seems commonly to arise is about "this pest which is attacking your bees". "This pest" is a mite called varroa, which invaded this country from the Continent about 10 years ago, and has now spread from East Asia to most parts of the world. The mite is about the size of a pin head, is crab like in appearance and red brown in colour. The female mite lays its egg in the cells of the bee comb where the bee larvae lie. The mite hatching from this egg is a parasite feeding on the blood of the bee larva. Left undisturbed the varroa mount and mount in numbers until the colony of bees collapses. Beekeepers have learned how to treat their colonies routinely once a year against varroa and by this means the hives of bees continue normally. It does mean however that honey bees once found in the wild in chimneys, trees and roofs no longer exist as these fall prey to varroa.

Most people have seen a swarm of bees at some time. Swarming is the natural way for colonies to increase in number. The old queen with about half the number of bees in the hive, fly from the hive to find a new home. Usually they settle in a cluster on, say, a tree or fence or sometimes quite strange places where they normally hang for an hour or so before proceeding to their new home which they have chosen. The bees now remaining in the hive rear a new queen and so continue as a separate colony. Should a swarm hang in your garden a call fairly promptly to a local beekeeper will mean that he will come along and collect it. Good beekeeping usually means that by and large swarms are not allowed to occur, since in swarming one loses half one's work force and therefore much of one's honey crop. An old beekeeping adage runs along the lines of" A swarm of bees in May, Beekeeper much astray!"

Anyone in the Broadstone area who may be just no more than curious to see what all this beekeeping business is about, or is perhaps interested in starting can ring David House on Parkstone 743687 - we have six bee suits, awarded to us specifically through the Lottery Fund, for the very purpose of allowing you to see beekeeping safe and secure in a bee suit. Or come to our winter meetings at the Broadstone Community Centre, every 3rd Friday at 7.30pm.

Bob Carter

Archive Winter 2002

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