44 : Letters Oilseed Rape
I am an amateur beekeeper, based in North Hampshire, and I have five hives located in my garden. I am surrounded by thousands of acres of arable farmland. In the spring/early summer, oilseed rape has been a favourite crop for farmers. For several seasons, the early honey harvest featured a high proportion of oilseed rape and proved difficult to extract. Much of the crop remained in the frames after spinning, needing a supplementary heat extraction to achieve usable yields. The spun honey would also crystallise very quickly, often within two to three days. This year and last, I noted the spring flow was much easier to spin out, with no need for heat extraction. Yields have remained high. It seems, from appearance and taste, that the oilseed rape content also remained high. The easily-spun honey remained liquid for much longer and has not set to the normal ‘jack- hammer’ consistency that I have experienced previously. Discussing this with local beekeepers, it seems this observation is shared. What has changed? Did the peculiar weather during the spring cause this change, or has the type of oilseed rape grown changed? Local gossip suggests the latter, but I have no details to support the claim. I would be interested to know whether other readers of your magazine who have heavy oilseed rape concentrations grown locally have also experienced this difference. Note: with easier extraction, I am not complaining, but I would like to understand the reasons why! Chris Williams, Kingsclere, Newbury, Berkshire
www.bee-craft.com Letters TO THE EDITOR A selection of your personal views and comments Food for Thought
With the current discussion about the link of processed sugar with increased disease in humans, shouldn’t we, as responsible beekeepers, review and consider the practice of feeding our bees sugar syrup? Feeding on sugar provides instant access to food which bypasses the need to digest and process raw food, as normally required. A diet of processed sugar, in time, reduces the human individual’s capacity to fight disease. Could the same apply to bees? We are seeing an increase in the type and number of bee diseases. Perhaps we should consider what we are feeding them? Surely it is better to leave enough honey on for overwintering, placing the hives where there is food all year round (an ideal, I know), planting more for our bees to feed on and relying on sugar syrup as an occasional emergency measure for truly starving bees?
In terms of human health, is the honey we are selling to the public really pure honey? How much of it is sugar syrup? For all of us, we are what we eat. The
more natural and less processed the better – surely we owe this to the bees in our care? Clare Lewis (by e-mail) [Ed: Bees collect nectar which contains mainly sucrose. They don’t ‘digest raw food’ but break down the sucrose into fructose and glucose. The sugar syrup we provide is nearly all sucrose, ie, is not yet broken down.
There is no evidence that a diet of processed sugar reduces human capacity to fight disease, except dental caries. Trading Standards (and commercial analysts) do test for sucrose in honey and UK honeys are generally OK.]
Varroa-free Scottish Bees
With interest, I read Claire
Waring’s article on varroa treatment (August, page 32). However, she is incorrect in saying that, ‘varroa mites are now present in every hive in the United Kingdom’. Many beekeepers in Scotland are fortunate to live in areas where there is no varroa; Braula coeca running freely around these colonies demonstrate they have not been eliminated by the need to use varroacides.
Apimondia Gold Medal for Popular Beekeeping Journals, 2007, 2013 and 2015
My main point is, however, that unless these varroa-free areas are recognised, incoming beekeepers will continue to import varroa-infested bees into our ‘reserves’ and further challenge beekeeping there. It is already compromised in the north by poor weather at crucial foraging times and by unscrupulous bee suppliers knowingly selling varroa-infested bees to these special areas. Any beekeeper relocating to anywhere in Scotland would be doing the beekeeping community a service, and showing respect, by contacting the nearest local association on arrival to ascertain the varroa status and situation. Ann B Chilcott, Scottish Beekeepers’ Association North Area Representative
Apistan® and Bayvarol®
Thank you for your article on varroa treatments.
One thing that always puzzled me is the relative efficiencies of Apistan®
and Bayvarol® .
Both products are licensed to control varroa but an Apistan® strip weighing 8 g contains, on average, 824 mg of tau- fluvalinate; a corresponding strip of Bayvarol®
contains 3.6 mg
of flumethrin. That implies that 57 times more tau-fluvalinate is needed to control varroa than the more effective flumethrin. Was the rise of resistance to pyrethroids led by tau- fluvalinate requiring such a higher concentration of chemical to be effective? I would think that many mites received less than lethal doses of tau-fluvalinate, promoting the production of resistant strains. I assumed that flumethrin, being so lethal, either killed a mite or not. Can any reader throw further light on this subject? Ian McLean, NDB (by e-mail)
September 2016 Vol 98 No 9
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