Beekeeping in lock-down, April/May 2020

Activity 5: 7 – 12 May

When the BBKA Spring Convention was cancelled this year, we also lost the opportunity to hear one of the main speakers – ProfessorTom Seeley. With a bit of help and sponsorship, however, he has now recorded the talks he would have given and they are freely available via the link here – . The focus of the talks is something quite different to the more technical side of beekeeping that many people tend to stick to these days but provides a fascinating view of honey bees in the wild, as well as a more ‘natural’ style of beekeeping. Maybe this is something we all ought to be more aware of? Anyway, please watch and enjoy them over the next few days.


Activity 4: 1 – 5 May

A quiz, complied by Keith and with the intention of getting everyone looking round the BeeBase site at

BeeBase contains an enormous amount of useful info for all beekeepers and if you have hives and have not already registered your apiary with them (even if it’s your garden) then you really should.

Quiz – BeeBase 1

The following questions are all based on the national Healthy Bees Plan (Answers now available in blue)

  1. What is the overall aim of the plan Answer : To achieve a sustainable and healthy population of honey bees for pollination and honey production…
  2. What does it set out? Answer : Key actions for protecting and improving the health of honeybees / The relative roles and responsibilities of government and other stakeholders
  3. What potential exotic pests should we be alert to? Answer : Small hive beetle, Tropilaelaps mites, Asian hornet
  4. How many amateur beekeepers (approximately) are there in the UK? Answer : 33,000
  5. What are beekeepers responsible for? What does their duty of care cover? List four items. Answers : A. Recognising pests and diseases and through knowing their legal obligations, reporting any suspicion of notifiable pests or disease to their local Bee Inspector or the NBU. B. Maintaining good husbandry and health practices to prevent and control the spread of pests and diseases. C. Ensuring that their skills and competence levels are appropriate and up to date. D. Signing up to BeeBase. E. Complying with legislation on controlling pests and diseases, including standstill notices and import requirements. F. Using and storing medications and treatments appropriately. G. Maintaining records on the movement and location of their colonies within GB and making records available to their local Bee Inspector on request. H. Seeking specialist advice from their local BKA or the local Bee Inspector
  6. How many Outcomes from the Healthy Bees Plan are the government/DEFRA seeking? Answer : 5
  7. Why should individual beekeepers sign on/register with BeeBase? Answer : To help the NBU monitor and control pests and diseases and disseminate relevant information to beekeepers (e.g. disease alerts).


Activity 3: 26-30 April

So, how many people had a look at the two downloadable sheets below and worked out what alternative they would use, to get a colony on to fresh combs? It often comes down to time of year/weather forecast (as with most things in beekeeping…), plus any need to manage the bees’ health in relation to an incidence of pathogens in a hive. So, in Julie’s words “unless the bees were in a field of OSR with a forecast of 14 days of high temperature I would feed [while carrying out either technique]. This is actually unlikely as OSR blooms early and often temperatures are lower, particularly at night, AND I wouldn’t be doing a shook swarm in April, I’d probably leave it until late May early June.” The concensus these days seems to focus on feeding heavy syrup during either procedure (having removed any supers for the duration, obviously), no matter what the time of year – it used to be that light syrup was used to encourage the bees to draw comb but heavy is really just as accessible for them. For my own practice, I will be doing a shook swarm on one colony that has chalkbrood, so I can get them off the old comb asap and without them tracking the spores up into the fresh box all the time. Shook swarm is used as part of IPM in relation to varroa certainly. Thank you to Roger S, for his thoughtful feedback during this activity.


The third activity is focussed on something we all need to be sure of in the spring – that our colonies are on good clean comb for the year. There are two ways of changing all the comb in a brood box in one go, as opposed to changing a few frames each year by moving them further to the outside of the box and waiting until they’re empty of brood or stores (or nearly so). Doing it all in one go has a lot of advantages over the gradual method but it does mean that you need enough new frames made up, an extra brood box and queen excluder, probably also a large capacity feeder and plenty of syrup. The two methods are shook swarm, and Bailey comb change and they are useful procedures to carry out for a variety of reasons. Have a look through the two (downloadable) sheets below that Julie has kindly made available and, in relation to your own colonies, consider:

  1. are most of the frames in the brood box(es) of my colonies more than a year old, so that they are likely to have been in use during at least three anti-varroa treatments and therefore have chemical residues in the wax?
  2. are all the frames in the brood box(es) evenly and fully drawn across each frame face or do they have lumps of old drone comb, big holes that the bees have made through to the other side of the frame, or areas of incompletely drawn comb?
  3. are there any instances of chalk brood, sac brood, bald brood, or wax moth trails in among the current comb, or signs of incipient varoosis?

If any of the above applies to your colonies, which of the above methods of comb change will you carry out this spring, and what would be the deciding factors between methods for any colonies that you know need new comb? Answers by email to me, or Julie, or Keith, please. 🙂


Activity 2: 19-23 April

The activity for this period is to watch a short (c. 10 minutes) practical beekeeping video and then to give some examples of what you consider to be good practice from the video, as well as one that you’re not sure about. It is appreciated that for beginners this may be more difficult, but have a look at the video anyway – which is, generally speaking, showing a beekeeper who really knows what he’s doing – and have a go at picking out the good and any questionnable practices.

So, the video is here:

and the online form where you can enter your answers if you want to is here:


This is the first in a series of online activities that we will be adding to this post over the next few weeks. While those of us with hives are still carefully tending them in the gradually-warming weather, it’s always good to stretch the brain a bit. So check back here regularly, both to access the answers to any quizzes and to explore the links and associated activities we will be putting up.

Time’s up! This quiz has now finished, the answers are shown below in blue so you can see how you got on.

Winner of the quiz in this period was Peter Kingsley, who sent in a very full response, with proper citations for his answers in many cases. Well done Peter! 🙂

Activity 1: 14-18 April

  • What is the queen marking colour for this year?
    1. White
    2. Blue
    3. Red
  • What are the development days for drones to maturity?
    1. Egg 3, Larva 7, Capped/Pupa 14, Mature @ 38 days
    2. Egg 4, Larva 8, Capped/Pupa 14, Mature @ 30 days
    3. Egg 3, Larva 6, Capped/Pupa 13, Mature @ 28 days
  • A colony of honeybees has the following brood ratio: 1½ sides of eggs, 2¼ sides of larva, 4 sides of sealed brood, is it:
    1. Stationary
    2. Contracting
    3. Expanding
  • What is the standard foraging distance for a colony of honeybees?
    1. 1-2 miles
    2. 2-3 miles
    3. 3-4 miles
  • What is the temperature of a honeybee brood nest when brood is present?
    1. 31/32oC
    2. 33/34oC
    3. 34/35oC
  • What is the action of smoke on a colony?
    1. To make them panic and feed
    2. To quieten them down
    3. To distract the guards and disguise the alarm pheromone
  • What is a Snelgrove board
    1. A type of crown board
    2. A board for clearing bees out of supers
    3. A tool to assist preventing swarm control
  • An Apidea is used for:
    1. Catching swarms
    2. Mating Queens
    3. Keeping swarms in
  • When would you avoid giving syrup to a colony?
    1. During the summer
    2. When the daytime temperature is below 10 oC
    3. When you make up a fresh nuc
  • A ‘Thin’ syrup (1:1) is used for
    1. Spring stimulation
    2. Autumn feeding
    3. Winter feeding

The answers to these questions, for anyone not yet convinced that they have all the beekeeping knowledge needed, will be appended here on the 19th. We will then make the next activity visible. Anyone who emails their answers to me (preferably with a (very) brief note justifying each answer choice) before the 19th will be entered into a prize draw that will continue while the lockdown lasts.  🙂