Making a
tilting towards the horizontal in preparation for bursting open. Catkins are already evident in the woodlands and along the sides of paths, before too long the bird cherries and apple trees will be in full blossom - and with them, we hope, will come the honey bees.
pring is in the air, crocuses are dancing in the breeze and daffodil buds are gently
Bee Line... S
Bees pollinate the trees, the flowers, the grasses and the crops. Their busy interventions to collect pollen ensure that fruits will grow and that seeds will ripen, ensuring that we will have food now and the means of sowing next year’s crop. We will have flowers to enjoy, scents to perfume the air and honey to sweeten our lives. Bees are important.
Over the last few years the bee population of the British Isles has suffered a serious decline. In part this is attributable to the changes in weather, with severe cold and damp spells making life very hard for the hives to withstand winter. New weather patterns have also had an impact on the need to provide food for the bees at times when the natural supplies have not been available as they once were. This atypical weather has impacted upon bee habitat and therefore on food plant growth. To compound these difficulties has come the varroa mite Varroa destructor. A little orange coloured parasite, varroa latches on to the honey bee and feeds from it. The resultant disease, varroatosis, weakens and ultimately kills its host. An infestation in a hive, if it remains untreated, can kill all the bees. The infestation can spread to other hives in the area and as a bee can travel up to 3 kilometres in flight, contact with bees from other hives is unavoidable. Consequently, the varroa mite can spread to new hives very quickly.
experience, to learn from each other and, indeed, to offer practical assistance to each other where physical strength and an extra pair of hands would be useful. It would also be feasible for a constituted group to seek support for the purchase of major items of equipment - a honey separator is vital if the honey is to be removed cleanly from the comb, but a good one can cost several hundreds of pounds. One owned jointly by an association and available for use by all of the members would seem an attractive solution. Funding may be available for this kind of purchase.
Do you have a hive? Are you interested in bee keeping? If you are, please contact Bee Line via
on.a.lead@gmail.com or write to Bee Line c/o The Black Bitch Magazine, Robert Callander Optician, 61 High Street, Linlithgow EH49 7ED. It is hoped to have a meeting of those interested in early April.
Gail Boardman Photographs Elisabet Thorin
Linlithgow is experiencing a flourishing of interest in bee keeping, with a growing number of people having attended bee keeping courses and acquiring their own hives. Situated, as we are, surrounded by farm land and mixed use woodland, food for the bees is readily available, with permissions from land owners also readily given. Sourcing a supply of bees with a strong, healthy queen can be more problematic. The production of ‘nucleus’ stock for sale, where a young queen and a few thousand bees are reared and sold, is a specialist activity and healthy, varroa free nuclei are much sought after. They can also be expensive.
In recognition of everything above and in awareness of the benefits of working together rather than enthusiasts striving in isolation, some Linlithgow bee keepers are interested in the formation of a Linlithgow Beekeepers Association, a Bee Line. The intention would not be to work collectively but rather to share expertise and
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