The Walrus and the Honey Bee – Details, episodes & analysis

Imogen reads from Steve's blog post of 1st September 2024

00:53 Queens

The importance of the queen in a honey bee colony cannot be overstated

02:37 Gruff Rees reviewed "Healthy Bees, Heavy Hives" by Paul Horton and Steve Donohoe, calling it "the best beekeeping book ever". We'll take that.  

02:40 Comparison between colonies headed by my normal queens and four which contained queens made by Ivan Nielsen in Denmark. It turned out that the Nielsen queens made lots more honey. Nielsen says that the aim is for honey to be uniformly spread over all colonies, rather than have some monsters and some small ones.

04:40 What makes a good queen? Prolific queens will lead to bigger honey crops, but only if forage is available and the weather is good.

05:50 Starvation and having to feed syrup in early June.

06:00 Buying queens. Quality will vary, as with all natural things.

06:40 Making your own queens

07:15 Heavy queens tend to be better

07:30 Ideal conditions for making queens.

07:50 Controlling Disease and Parasites - the second important factor in producing a good honey crop. Chalkbrood, European foulbrood, varroa mites and associated viruses, chronic bee paralysis. The treatment protocol followed by Steve and Alex at Walrus Apiaries. Formic Pro. Thymovar. VarroMed.

10:38 Forage and Nutrition - the third important factor.

Fixed apiaries versus migratory beekeeping.

11:20 When to feed? Sugar and pollen substitute. Importance of pollen stores in Autumn.

13:00 Sugar contamination risks. Manley's thoughts on syrup feeding in May. Timing of feeding for winter stores.

14:20 Summary

The Walrus and the Honey Bee

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Intro and reasons for not using an AI reader.

01:30 Reasons for making queens

02:35 Importance of being organised, knowing timings, mindset - sometimes things go wrong

03:19 Breeder queens, Steve's three breeder queens in 2024 and why these were selected

06:45 Keeping breeder queens in nucleus hives

07:40 Drones, open mating, using drone comb

08:20 Using BeeBase

09:20 Re-queening poor colonies

10:08 Cell builders, double nuc method compared to Brother Adam method

12:50 Grafting day, checking for queen cells 

14:50 Well fed larvae for grafting, two different grafting methods

17:50 Avoiding brace comb being build across queen cells

19:00 Removing queen cells and moving to the incubator

20:00 Effects of different incubation temperatures on queen development time and colour

21:30 Keeping the cell builder going through summer, bottlenecks in production

23:40 It's ok if you don't have an incubator

24:20 Mating nucs, Carricel portable incubator, cell protectors

25:20 Mini-plus hives and Kieler nucs, Steve much prefers Mini-plus and is phasing out the Kielers. Setting up a Kieler nuc for first use.

27:50 If queens don't get mated in 2-3 weeks they are replaced with a new cell

30:00 Advantages of Mini-plus, importance of letting queens mature for a month or more before introducing to a new colony

32:00 Over-wintering queens in nucs, re-queening production colonies after their second season, push-in cages

34:30 Failure to mate, drone laying queens

35:30 Making queens is very worthwhile, visit the blog post to view relevant images.

 

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Based on post of 19 November 2024 on thewalrusandthehoneybee.com

01:30 The damage caused by varroa mites - leading cause of colony losses worldwide

03:30 Learning to keep bees alive 

04:00 Current trend among hobby beekeepers for going treatment-free

06:00 USA honey bee colony losses, deformed wing virus

07:45 Using an alcohol wash to monitor mite infestation

09:00 Randy Oliver spreadsheet model

10:20 Available mite treatments, using them properly, resistance to treatment

14:00 Extended release oxalic acid - not yet approved in UK

15:40 Mechanical methods, drone comb removal, caging queens - brood break

20:00 Samples of bees don't always give accurate results, what to do if mite numbers are high in June

24:00 Trying different scenarios in the spreadsheet model, one treatment per year - not sustainable

26:30 deciding on the starting number of mites to use in the model

26:50 The four measures I look for when evaluating a treatment regime: starting mites, ending mites, peak number of mites, number of mites in September (winter bees)

30:15 Two treatments per season - autumn and winter. Timing of oxalic acid treatment in winter, when are they broodless. 

31:45 The two treatment regime does ok. The only problem is that there is not a huge amount of leeway, so if the winter oxalic was not fully effective the starting number of mites would be potentially high enough to cause problems before the autumn treatment.

33:00 Three treatments per season, spring amitraz, autumn formic, winter oxalic - this regime is bulletproof and pretty well guarantees control of varroa mites throughout the season. The difference between three treatments versus two is massive.

36:15 Balancing damage by mites against putting chemicals in hives

37:00 Importance of keeping the good genetics in our honey bees, such as gentle, low swarming, high honey production. By not treating I lose most of my bees and most of those favourable genetics, is it really worth it to have varroa resistant bees that have lost the traits that I want

39:30 Most bee farmers will treat for varroa and not raise varroa resistant bees. The only way to successfully breed varroa resistant bees will be to find a place far away from any bee farmers - very hard to do in the UK

40:30 Downside of three treatment regime - no point doing alcohol wash, cannot spot the queens that have varroa resistant bees in their colonies

42:00 Stress testing as above but with a brood-break due to caging the queen. Three treatments per season still wins. My conclusion is that the brood break strategy is not worth the effort, but it may work for others, especially countries with more stable weather.

44:45 Thymol effect on laying rate of queens, oxalic acid trickle versus sublimation

 

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0:00 When oilseed rape (OSR) first arrived in the UK

00:50 The UK has moved from being a net exporter to net imported of rapeseed oil, costing the UK economy £1 billion

01:10 List of the main cooking oils ranked by healthiness

03:10 Rapeseed oil is the most consumed oil in the UK

04:00 OSR is useful to arable farmers as a rotation crop

04:40 OSR downsides, cabbage stem flea beetle, neonics

05:20 The neonic ban in the UK, lower crop yields

05:50 Sources of rapeseed oil imports

06:15 EU emergency derogations (the loophole)

07:20 Emergency derogations are also allowed for so-called organic crops

07:50 Offshoring of neonic usage 

08:20 OSR Reboot - plans for the future by the main stakeholders in the industry

 

 

 

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00:30 Importance of both good queens and low mite levels

01:40 How Steve's thinking on varroa treatment regimes evolved from 2 times per year to three.

02:20 Alcohol wash on all colonies as per Randy Oliver, treatment threshold

03:15 What to do with infested colonies in summer when supers are on, what causes outlier colonies with more mites than the others, benefits of winter oxalic acid treatment

04:50 Shook swarm - the drastic option

05:50 Treatment free approach, for optimists and people in isolated locations, or people who have a closed population of bees 

06:50 The problems with a "live and let die" approach

07:30 Randy Oliver's method for breeding resistant bees that are good bees for commercial bee farming

08:50 Quotes from Randy regarding going treatment free

09:40 Progress towards resistance is still a win, fewer chemicals, lower costs

10:30 Latest advice on dealing with varroa in honey bee colonies, below 2% infestation and below 1,000 mites total

11:30 Importance of continual monitoring for treatment-free beekeepers, natural mite drop problems, alcohol wash

12:30 Survival versus thriving bees, compare traditional to treatment free

Latest science on treatment-free:

Mondet, F., Beaurepaire, A. McAfee, A., Locke, B., Alaux, C., Blanchard, S. and LeConte, Y. (2020) Honey bee survival mechanisms against the parasite Varroa destructor: a systematic review of phenotypic and genomic research efforts. International Journal for Parasitology, 50.

DOI:doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpara.2020.03.005

 

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Intro

including reference to Ian Steppler YouTube video just posted on varroa treatments, using Randy Oliver spreadsheet model. https://youtu.be/Z2FLoAq6LDc

02:20 Recent apiary inspection of nucleus colonies

03:50 What causes swarming? 

06:40 Impossible to eliminate, but we can influence

07:10 Genetics, personal experience, Paul Horton's bees, sub-species

11:25 Queen pheromones, age of queens

12:35 Brood nest congestion

15:10 Climate and weather

16:30 Poor weather in spring 2024 reduced swarming

18:20 Prevention rather than control of swarming

20:20 Selective breeding, selective pressure - leaving a single queen cell in a swarmed colony pushes it in the wrong direction, using cells/queens from breeding program is better, using over-wintered queens

24:55 Re-queening, younger queens are less likely to swarm

26:20 Gruff Rees YouTube interview "No Weekly Inspections" with David Wainwright - a less intensive style of beekeeping

28:40 Regular hive inspections 7 to 10 day rotation, checking for eggs, space for bees, space for queen to lay, swarm cells

30:50 Space for bees, brood, and stores. Staying ahead of the bees. Supering.

33:15 Frame swapping, making splits or cell builders, space in a Langstroth brood box

37:20 Reversing boxes, double brood, brood and a half

40:00 Adding a brood box of foundation overhead, then splitting, combined with oxalic mite treatment

43:55 Demaree, adding space while keeping the colony together - not a split. Lots of heavy lifting, might be problematic with foundation in the bottom box and the changeable UK weather

49:00 What works for one person may not work for the next person

49:40 Checkerboarding, small book on the subject published by Northern Bee Books

53:45 Summary

 

 

 

 

 

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Intro

00:25 New book by Dorian Pritchard on conservation of native bees

01:10 Argument for conservation of native bees, legally protected areas should be created

02:40 Is the black bee really the best bee for all people? I think not, but each to their own. 

04:40 Sue Coby's New World Carniolan project could be a template to follow

05:00 Examples of human interference in nature to domesticate wild animals into farming livestock. Also BEAGLES!

07:20 Modern commercial bee farming, selective breeding of honey bee queens

08:15 Good things about bee farming, pollination increasing crop yields

09:15 Some negative things about bee farming: miticides, reduced diversity, competition with wild pollinators, spread of pathogens

11:20 EU policies to assist apiculture and pollinators

11:50 Selective breeding - objectives and methods, isolated mating, instrumental insemination

12:55 Natural selection - survivors pass on resilience

14:10 Advantages of natural selection

15:00 Downside to natural selection, low honey, unpredictable temperament, short term high losses

15:55 Conclusion - we can have both

 

 

 

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As we move from winter into spring here in England, Steve Donohoe discusses over-wintering success, feeding colonies, and plans for once the season kicks off. Bluesky Threads Instagram YouTube Facebook

Imogen reads from Steve's blog post, in which sets out his latest learnings and understanding of this sometimes tricky subject. How to introduce a new queen into a colony that has lost it's own. Bluesky Threads Instagram YouTube Facebook

Taken from a chapter in Steve Donohoe's book, Interviews With Beekeepers, this covers a conversation between Steve, Jolanta, and Murray McGregor in 2017. Jolanta is the head of the queen rearing unit at Denrosa Apiaries, and she explains how she makes her queens. Denrosa is the largest commercial beekeeping operation in the UK. Bluesky Threads Instagram YouTube Facebook