pollen sacs brimming

It always seems like Todmorden and the surrounding locale gets more than its fair share of rain fall – it’s a wet place.

But today was one of those rare days of glorious autumn sunshine. We went to one of the hives to install a mouse guard. However, we couldn't because the bees were so active: taking advantage of the warm, dry day. They were busily going in and out of the hive, their pollen sacs bulging with bright yellow pollen. We wished we’d had our camera with us to take a photo of them. But in the absence of a camera a drawing will suffice.

To see other fab drawings of honey bees check out  Henry Touray’s school project  about bees

all clear for bee credible bees

On 6th September to the regional inspector e-mailed to inform us that:

 … there is an outbreak of American Foul Brood in the Todmorden area (OS 10Km square SD92). The Bee Credible group’s bees are located in the ‘at risk’ area and I will therefore need to inspect them.

Yesterday, Thursday, 15 September, all of our 8 hives were inspected.

The Bee Inspector, Ivor, gave us the 

ALL CLEAR; NO American Foul Brood.

Ivor inspected each and every frame in all of the hives starting with a top bar colony that Bee Credible set up in June of this year.

He then moved onto inspect the other hives; 5 nationals (no added foundation) and 2 top bars at 3 more sites in Todmorden.

We can all breath a sigh of relief - for now. There are still hives to be inspected in the 'at risk' area...

We should also be grateful to the beekeeper that reported American Foul Brood - for his diligence. If he hadn't of acted so quickly and responsibly the story in the valley could have been quite different.

All his hives and bees were destroyed – burned. We are sorry for his loss.

We asked Ivor how American Foul Brood could have got in the region. Apparently it could be something as simple as someone throwing away a honey jar (bought off the shelf from an unknown source) with some honey left in it. Foraging bees could find this, eat it, contract the bacteria, and then pass the disease onto the whole colony – and beyond if not caught in time. 

bee first encounter

On Tuesday, August 23^rd, we invited the 58 bee interested people who have contacted us to an evening about bees and our group. Around 24 people came to the Odd Fellows Hall where we had tea, coffee and homemade cakes.

Andy welcomed our guests, Helmut and Alan gave a slide presentation of our history and our bee keeping methods, then Kerry talked about our part of the ‘beespoke’ people’s millions award: community beekeeping in the valley.

We broke for more tea n coffee n cakes n biscuits and had time to answer individual questions as well informal chatter.

At the end we arranged “meet the bees’ sessions for all those who were interested in becoming beekeepers.

It was a very jolly evening and 2 people signed up to become members of beecredible there and then.

On Saturday, September 10^th, our first ‘meet-the-bees’ session took place. A moderate breeze and nice sunshine – very pleasant conditions.

Three ‘bee meeters’ came; and what a great meet it was.

We had a cup of coffee, made sure our guests were properly dressed and bee-sting-proof wrapped (that applied to us, too!). We talked them through our plans for the morning and gave some behaviour instructions – don’t panic, don’t stress, relax, and enjoy. We prepared some bicarbonate of soda (the magic ease of sting related pain) just in case!

Then we opened 2 hives: a national and a topbar

Our ‘meeters’ handled frames and bars with bees and combs 

- all without foundation

They took to it like bees to honey!

No bicarb was necessary; our bees showed themselves from their best side!!!

Day 2 on the 11^th was similar, following the same procedure.

They came in peace

we opened a national hive and the ‘meeters’ handled the frames

we then opened a topbar hive and explained how it functions before exposing the interior

and handing some bars to our guests

14 people had signed up to meet the bees – 6 turned up.

Of those 6, one joined beecredible.

Beekeeping isn’t for everyone. Some people are simply interested in beekeeping; others want to do it as part of a community group: like James – one of our new members; others prefer to solitary bee keep

As a group we will continue to be ‘open’ to new members, but we wont be twisting anyone’s arm. 

Happy Anniversary!

 July 13^th 2011 marks Bee Credible’s first anniversary as beekeepers.  Just a year ago we put our first bees into the top-bar hives – not even the louring skies and intermittent rain could dampen our excitement on that evening.

Although there have been one or two setbacks during the year – not least the bees’ insistence on building comb across the bars rather than along them - both colonies survived the worst winter weather for many years and are still going strong.

During the year we have added five more hives and, with the success of the Bee Spoke Bid we are ready to expand further – adding more hives and getting more people involved.

So, charge your glasses with some suitable honey-based concoction and make a toast to the bees and a year of success for Bee Credible!

Hive inspection, 2nd july

Some of us

Just before

Hive inspection

Two weeks ago the group purchased a new five-frame nuc of bees for a national hive. The nuc came on frames with foundation but our intention is to keep these bees without foundation, so the brood box was filled with empty frames.

Today was the day to open up hive and see how they are doing.

Fantastic! We saw the Queen. And then we lifted a frame without foundation and to our delight the bees had built new comb within the frame, including a small teardrop shaped extension

We then moved on to check one of the top bar hives. In theory bees should build comb along the bars in a teardrop shape.

And sometimes they do this by the book

However, the bees don’t always read the books

And, for reasons best known to themselves, decide to build across the bars.

This is something we have encountered in all of our top bar hives and we are working to modify our top bars in order to rectify this. It doesn’t appear to be a problem for the bees, but it does hinder hive inspection.

THANK YOU

Bee Spoke Todmorden has been awarded The Jubilee People's Million award.

A massive THANK YOU to all those who picked up the phone and voted for the bees.

And a big thank you to all the project partners and people of Todmorden who pulled out all the stops to promote the bee spoke project.

http://www.peoplesmillions.org.uk/2011-finalists/yorkshire/bee-spoke-todmorden

bee spoke todmorden vote today

Working in partnership, Incredible Edible, Todmorden in Bloom, Todmorden Pride, and Bee Credible have submitted a bid to the Jubilee People’s Millions to create a Beespoke project in Todmorden. If the bid is successful the partners in the bid will be in a position to:

• Create six bee friendly gardens in Todmorden, with bumblebee and bug hotels;
• Install interactive interpretation learning pods at each bee garden, all about bumblebees, honeybees, other pollinators, and bugs;
• Create a Bee Trail along Todmorden’s new Incredible Green Route;
• Design and publish bee route maps;

And, importantly for Bee Credible and all wannabe local beekeepers:

• Purchase beekeeping equipment, more bees and beehives - top-bar hives, national hives, and warre hives;
• Train new beekeepers;
• Provide the opportunity to become hands-on community beekeepers in 2012.

PLEASE CALL 0871 6268147 NOW

For more information go to

http://www.incredible-edible-todmorden.co.uk/

http://www.peoplesmillions.org.uk/2011-finalists/yorkshire/bee-spoke-todmorden