August 2023
An interesting article published in April in Scientific Reports, Putting Hornets on the Genomic Map, on the genetics of Vespa crabro and Vespa velutina, the European and Asian hornets, brings us closer to understanding how and why the Asian Hornet is such a successful invader. It turns out that its genes that control the development of its communication and its odour receptors can change and evolve very quickly, allowing it to adjust to whatever a new environment offers.
A recently published article, Beekeeping in Europe facing climate change: A mixed methods study on perceived impacts and the need to adapt according to stakeholders and beekeepers, investigated how beekeepers perceived the impacts of climate change on beekeeping. Unsurprisingly, the analysis indicates that Southern European beekeepers indicated that they were ten times more likely to be heavily impacted by climate change than their Northern European counterparts. The US also reported winter losses of 48% this year, presumably also related to climate change. It appears that food resources, weather, length of the season, and disease are all perceived as being worse with climate change. Given the grumbling about poor honey crops in Ireland this year blamed on the bad weather, it’s a timely report.
A recently published article, Beekeeping in Europe facing climate change: A mixed methods study on perceived impacts and the need to adapt according to stakeholders and beekeepers, investigated how beekeepers perceived the impacts of climate change on beekeeping. Unsurprisingly, the analysis indicates that Southern European beekeepers indicated that they were ten times more likely to be heavily impacted by climate change than their Northern European counterparts. The US also reported winter losses of 48% this year, presumably also related to climate change. It appears that food resources, weather, length of the season, and disease are all perceived as being worse with climate change. Given the grumbling about poor honey crops in Ireland this year blamed on the bad weather, it’s a timely report.
While the UK are rightly concerned about the spread of the Asian Hornet, with 5 sightings including a primary nest, most of which were in Kent, another threat to bees has started breeding there, this time in Norfolk. This is the European Bee Eater, a rather striking bird that also eats dragonflies and other flying insects. So far there appears to be only one breeding pair, but this could be the start of another problem for beekeepers, helped by climate change.
On the subject of be pests, John de Carteret continues his war against the Asian Hornet in Jersey and posted a video of a rather large nest in a gents’ toilet. I can only imagine the shock of wandering inside only to come face to face with this. You can see the video on https://tinyurl.com/4n32uzda.
I’m sure everyone regularly does a sugar roll (or something similar), in order to check the Varroa load of their hives. This can be a real chore at times, particularly if the bees are grumpy. The good news is that scientists have reported in an article entitled Automated, non-invasive Varroa mite detection by vibrational measurements of gait combined with machine learning, published in the journal Scientific Reports in June, that they have used AI to analyse how the mites walk. Because of the unusual vibrations of their footsteps, they can distinguish between mites in capped brood and those wandering around the hive. While this is very new, it should be possible in the not-too-distant future to drop a sensor into the hive to allow remove monitoring of Varroa levels. Perhaps ApisProtect could add this functionality to future versions of their little black box.
In the past I have always recommended Tom Seeley’s paper Bait Hives for Honeybees for those who want to try to catch a swarm. However, In the Welsh Beekeepers’ Summer magazine (available free on https://wbka.com), Wally Shaw has an excellent article on using bait hives to catch swarms, which rivals Tom Seeley’s. In his usual clear and straightforward style, Wally explains the best box and the best lures and describes how best to care for the bees when they arrive. While swarming is mostly done for this season, the information provided will be useful for next year and, indeed, for any year.
I have mentioned plenty of celebrity beekeepers before, but I learned of one during the summer that came as a real surprise. Sir Edmund Hillary who, along with Sherpa Tinseng, was the first person to climb to the summit of Mount Everest, and travelled to both the North and South Poles, was also a beekeeper. His family kept around 1600 hives in New Zealand, so he was quite an accomplished professional bee farmer. Here he is holding a hive with a couple of jars of honey – probably not the picture of him you might have expected.
Harry Potter fans will know another famous, although fictitious, person associated with bees, the headmaster of Hogwart’s, whose name derives from the old name for a bumble bee, dumbledor.