It is with very great sadness that I have to inform you of the sudden death of one of our members. Jim joined us in 2010 together with Carolyn, his daughter and took the Beekeeping course in that year. He has been in poor health for a short while and passed away on Tuesday, 8th May. In addition to being a bee keeper Jim was a very talented musician. He received a scholarship to Eton College where he became a chorister and later became a member of the Royal College of Music. He continued with his love of music and indeed, continued to play his piano and organ until his death. Jim has been retired for some years and will be greatly missed by all who knew him. On behalf of you all I extend to Christine and the children our deepest sympathy. Jim’s funeral will take place at Minsterworth Church on Friday, 18th May at 2.00pm.
Allan Wells, Chairman DFBKA
Now that the long spell of wet weather seems finally to have ended, many colonies may be preparing to swarm.
If you haven’t been able to check your hives regularly and carry out swarm controls, do it now!
Clive de Bruyn in his book ‘Practical Beekeeping‘ offers these suggestions to deter bees from swarming:
- Remove some bees and brood to make a nucleus
- Remove some brood to another colony
- Exchange a populous colony with swarm cells with a weaker colony in the apiary
- Give the colony another super with empty drawn comb and foundation (place this immediately on top of the queen excluder)
- Remove the supers and bees. Unite these to a weak colony with newspaper (be sure to give the colony some empty supers to replace those taken away)
For advice on dealing with queen cells, take a look at this excellent booklet made available by the Welsh Beekeeping Assocation: There are queen cells in my hive – what should I do?
WBKA also have a very good booklets on Making increase and Feeding bees
We are running a one-day Introductory Course on Saturday May 19th at Staunton, near Coleford. A booking form is available here: 2012 Introductory course. For more information contact Jim Vivian-Griffiths on 01600 714428.
One lucky person will get the course free! Our member Clive Estcourt won it as prize in our Xmas draw, and has donated it to the club. We will select the winner by drawing a name on the day.
Our weekly Apiary Sessions at Lydney are on Thursday evenings, and start at 6 pm but if you need to come later that’s fine. We use the sessions to give all our members good experience and the opportunity to learn more.
If you are interested in keeping bees and would like to come to our apiary please contact our secretary for more information.
The BBC web site has a large section devoted to honey bees. There you can see excerpts from BBC programmes covering virtually all aspects of their lives: an excellent resource for anyone who wants to find out more about bees.
You will find it here: Apis mellifera at the BBC
