Next meeting: At Helen's house on 18th August, Saturday 2.30pm. It's 57 Derwent
Avenue, OX3 0AS, and the house is on the corner with Eden Drive. Plenty of
street parking. She has two TBHs nearby. Thank you Helen!
Windfalls: remember wasps are attracted to windfall fruit as it rots, so clear
it away if it is near your hives.
Logs available for hollow log hive experiments: Caroline in Wheatley has a
couple of large logs left over from tree felling, 11 inches in diameter and 55
inches long. She wondered if anyone would like them for making a log hive out
of, perhaps by cutting them into sections. If interested, contact:
carolinedaltonox@xxxxxxxxx
General gossip: I just had an email from Thornes, the beekeeping supplier. It
just brought home to me how far away from conventional beekeeping I am. It
covers "clearing bees with chemicals" [repellents used instead of smoke, to
drive them away from comb you wish to inspect of harvest] and a sales blurb for
Apivar, a miticide.
The BBKA have done their annual winter loss survey and published results in
BBKA News (but not their website yet). 2016/17 winter losses were about 13%,
but 2017/18's were - ummm I'm not sure which region we are so I'll put all 3
down -
South West 21.7%
South East 24%
Southern 35.4%
So I need to get my skates on and analyse the results of our own survey for
comparison. (If anyone wants to do that survey but lost the link let me know.)
In the USA the losses were, as usual, higher than the UK's:
2015-2016 44%
2016-2017 33%
2017-2018 30.7% (estimated)
I heard recently that some US beekeepers deliberately allow their bees to die
over winter as it is cheaper to simply restock in Spring than keep them going.
It didn't sound likely to me, anyone know the truth here?
