This talk by David Rudland is a regular feature in our Division’s yearly programme, mainly organised for our beginners’ group but to which all the members are invited. Although an annual event, this certainly does not mean that there is no need to attend it more than once: indeed, we all need to be reminded of the importance of revising our knowledge of the recognition of bee diseases and the ways to deal with them, before we have the misfortune of finding them in our own colonies. And it is very important to be reminded to be on the alert for them, and how to recognise them when they are in the colonies. So, it has to be said that that it was disappointing that so few of our members that came along to join our students to hear yet another excellent presentation.
David began by telling us that he runs between 250 and 300 honey-producing colonies. He also produces nucleus colonies and queens. His other activities include the organisation and running of beekeeping and other related courses.
He devoted the first half of his talk to dealing with what he described as our biggest problem as beekeepers, namely varroa. After describing its life-cycle, he went on to describe some of the damaging effects that varroa has on honeybee colonies: reduced body weight, smaller hypopharyngeal glands (resulting in a reduction of brood food production and hence impaired brood development), reduced wax production, shorter life span and eventual collapse of the colony. But perhaps the most serious is that they act as carriers of very many damaging viruses which seriously affect bees, perhaps the most serious being deformed wing virus). He drew our attention to the importance of monitoring the varroa levels in our hives, and be aware of the population levels at which controlling action should be taken.
David went on to describe various chemical and non-chemical ways of controlling varroa, and emphasised the importance of being aware of the risk of breeding mites that are resistant to the chemicals that we use, due to their overuse. Beekeepers are obliged by law to keep a detailed record of any chemicals they use in their hives; in particular the batch number of the chemical. In his own apiaries he makes extensive use of the ‘Shook- Swarm’ method as an effective non-chemical way of controlling varroa. He stressed the need to include a frame of drawn comb when setting up a shook swarm operation to trap and destroy the mites that will be produced in the comb, with the queen in full lay.
In the second part of his talk, David dealt particularly with AFB and EFB, these being the most serious diseases after varroa, and he emphasised the legal obligation of a beekeeper to report suspicion of this in a hive to the NBU via the local Bee Inspector. He outlined a number of less serious problems including chalk brood, ‘pepper pot brood’, bald brood resulting from wax moth larvae activities, although uncapping cells is currently thought to be bees learning to recognise varroa mites under capped brood, and uncapping them to stop the development of the mites. David stressed the importance of learning the appearance of healthy brood (sealed and unsealed) so that diseased brood can be easily recognised.
We were grateful to David Rudland for another excellent presentation on very this important subject.
Geoff Cooper