Top Bar Bee Keeping Class -- 30th March 2014 in Leap, West Cork

Top Bar Bee Keeping & Hives Introductory Class 30th March 2014

• Natural

• Sustainable

• Local

• Gentle 

Text or Ring: 0873284762

Many honey producers are placing nearly all of the current problems with the decline in local bee populations as well as some of the issues faced by agriculture today, on the way bees have been reared and kept during the past century. 

Basically, natural beekeeping involves less intervention (or none), using native species of bees, providing hives that suit bees more than humans, letting the bees do what they do best and not extracting all the honey in any one season. This system when combined with other natural practices such as organic farming becomes a conservation project and part of the solution to ensure thriving local populations of bees.

Top Bar Hives, as these have been used for well over a thousand years, are more bee friendly and are easy to maintain. They also appear to support the low intervention approach as they are sturdier, house varying populations of bees and allow the bees to produce varying types of comb. In the effort of sustainability, many honey producers believe that this low-tech approach “may mean accepting lower honey production per colony in return for healthier bees.”

Max and April Danann are Bee Keepers using only Top Bar Hives and a natural approach to apiary. 

o Top Bar Hives building courses available

o Custom made to fit frames

o Nucs can be ordered

o Courses and Training 

1:00 to 5:30 pm

€45 (adult), €25 children with adult attending

To book your place text or ring 087 328 4762

Please email, text or ring to order your Top Bar Bee Hives

Mob:  087 328 4762       email:  maxdanann@gmail.com

Top Bar Bee Keeping 30th March 2014, Leap

Aggression in Normally Docile Irish Honey Bees

These past few weeks we have watched our little herb garden bee hive become more and more active….to the point of a little aggressive. Of course, being this time of year our minds went to a few different explanations as we kept our distance to allow them to do their thing.

There are several reasons a normally docile bee hive might suddenly become more assertive – one occurs when they are stressed at this time of year such as a lack of winter stores of food (probably sounds like us all, trying to gather winter food and fuel LOL). However, with the summer we just had, a lack of food stores would hardly be the case. 

Unless – they were being robbed of their resources by another bee hive or wasps. One way to try to ascertain if this is happening is to watch the bees coming and going into the hive to see if there is anyone leaving with pollen or if something looks amiss etc.

Another reason for aggression in a hive is when a queen dies and the bees are busy growing another one. Of course, there are also very simple reasons for aggression such as running out of space – and everyone crowded in on top of each other - making them a little testy.

As ever, we were observing and standing at the ready to assist or help in any way….bees would rarely require our help, but because they are in an unnatural environment of the hive, it is our duty to at least keep a watchful eye on things.

So, this past week we noticed with the warm sunny days a bit of a population explosion around the hive…..there were bees everywhere over a day or so. Upon closer inspection this is what we found.

They were building comb on the outside of the hive in an attempt to create more space for their growing population. They were already a good sized hive when they moved in last July (wild swarm), however, we did not anticipate this exponential growth at this time of the year!

So….the only thing to do was take a chance…..we grabbed a larger Top Bar Hive that was complete except for the roof – and working quickly so as not to stress them further, we moved the entire old hive into the bigger box. 

In the meantime, Max went to work finishing a temporary solid roof for the new hive – the old box was placed underneath the new one for the bees to clean out and as ever….we just stood back to allow them to get on with sorting themselves out in their new expanded space.

For us it was a learning curve…we have had bad weather and terrible summers for so long we had forgotten that bee populations will actually expand – at any time when food is plentiful and the conditions are right.

Even at this time in mid October, the conditions are still fairly pleasant for the bees with decent weather, warmish days and lots of vegetation close by. So, when the rain holds off for a few days at a time – watch out!  

They seem to have settled down again now - and the are back to being their normal docile, happy selves - going into winter in very good shape by the amount of honey we saw in the comb....

April

New Top Bar Hive with temporary roof - old hive underneath - bees coming in and out at the front

Bee Keeping Presentation during A Taste of West Cork Food Festival

This week during the Food Festival some exciting and innovative local foodie adventures are coming to the fore….one of them involves a home schooled boy from Leap who also happens to be a certified Bee Keeper.

Trevor Danann, age 13 has been a bee keeper since 9 years of age, having studied his first level in Gormanstown along with his father Max Danann. Together over these past few years they have researched and built several bee-hives finally settling on their own style of Top Bar Hive.

Trevor is taking part in the Growing Awareness Workshops for Children and Adults in the Old Fields Bakery, which is a special event during the Taste of West Cork Food Festival with an emphasis on where food comes from.

For this workshop, Trevor has put together a short presentation geared mainly to school children but certainly informative and interesting for just about everyone, on bees, honey and beekeeping – with an emphasis on several key points;

Irish Honey Bees – Ireland has one native species of honey producing bee, which are known to be gentle and easy to handle as well as being very nearly black in colour.

Honey - is perhaps the only food we humans eat that is produced from an insect and has been in our food chain for many thousands of years. It is known for it’s medicinal properties and use as a sweetener.

Pollination – it was Einstein who said it best….without bees to pollinate our foods, we would have 4 years at best – and then be left eating mainly bread and pork with very little vegetables or fruit.

Bees versus wasps – bees often get the blame for buzzing around our heads aggressively at this time of the year, however when you look closely these may just be wasps. Bees are usually darker, smaller and quite docile in comparison.

Overall, it is well worth a visit to the Old Fields Bakery to take in this informative and unique approach to food, honey and beekeeping as seen through the eyes of this young beekeeper – and to take in the many other stalls throughout the hall at the same time.

Top Bar Bees busy again

Its good to see the Bees back into the swing of things again, the last few weeks of sunshine was the boost that was needed to get them flying and foraging. Unfortunately, the rain has returned and settled in for the time being. This change in weather will affect the bees ability to build stores up for the winter so lets hope that the sunshine returns very soon.

I plan to show the Top Bar Bee Hives at the Skibbereen market again due to renewed interest from a number of aspiring beekeepers that I have talked to at the market. As always, I strive to improve the hive structure with each new hive that I build. The design originates in the Kenyan style of hive with some modifications to adapt to the Irish climate, such as ventilation to deal with excess dampness in the hive. I still prefer to use Larch timber for its durability and weather resistance.

 I am looking forward to seeing some more Top Bar Hives getting out into back gardens and fields. I set up a hive last week in a garden center and I am sure the bees will be very happy with the extended range of flowers and herbs to forage from.

All for now,
Max

Winter Shelter for Bees in Top Bar Hives

Winter shelter is important for Bees to survive a prolonged cold season and recurring cold snaps that occur well into the spring. This early Spring has seen a number of extended cold snaps that have taken their toll on hives that were not properly sheltered from the bitter winds.

A sun trap is the ideal protection for Bee hives, all it consists of is a wind break from the North, East and West and exposure from the sunny South. The wind break can be made of any material that will stop the wind, such as wood fencing, stone or block walls, straw bales or even a good heavy hedge that will block the wind.

I have often thought that installing the hive in a shed is a good way to keep the hive out of the weather. The bees just need to be able to get in and out through a short tube through the wall of the shed. Excessive heat in the shed on hot summer days could be an issue so thought would be needed to enable  lots of ventilation, perhaps removable windows or a roofing material that will not trap heat, such as sod.

What ever approach is used, keep in mind that Top Bar hives do not travel well, do to the unsupported comb at risk of breaking and falling to the floor of the hive. Top Bar hives are really intended to be in a fixed position, they can be moved but are very heavy when full of comb and is best attempted with two people and with minimal jarring or bumps while driving. 

Regards,
Max

The importance of reserves

Having enough to eat during the winter and early spring is an important topic for Bees. Bees store their food source because they do not hibernate during the cold months and must have enough food stores to last until they can get back to foraging when the weather turns.

It is important that there is a variety of honey within the hive, summer honey as well as honey stored from late autumn because honeys from different seasons and plants will store at different hardness. Ivy honey stores, gathered in the Autumn and Winter, is very hard and would be impossible to digest if not mixed with softer honeys.

I saw more activity from my hives in January than I have in March, this is due to a mix of very cold days with milder very wet days neither of which are good days for foraging. So that means the Bees are  continuing to eat last years honey until they can get out again. This honey from last year must be very good quality if they are going to survive. I cant expect the Bees to live on sugar water, because there is no nutritional value in this supposed honey replacer, so I don't give them any at all.

My own rule of thumb is about one third of the total stores gathered by the end of August could be harvested from the hive after a very good summer of fine weather. If the summer was very wet, then less or no honey would be harvested. This way I am not interfering with the only source of food and nutrition available. There will be some good weeks of foraging weather in the Autumn and this will boost their stores before the colder weather settles in.

We have all been, at one time or another, without any reserves of cash or cache and it is a frightening situation, so don't overtax your bees by taking more than they can afford to spare.

Natural Beekeeping for Children

Trevor Danann is instructing a Natural Beekeeping course for Children in Leap, West Cork on May 12. He is the ideal instructor as he is himself 12 years old and has been a certified Beekeeper for the last four years.

After attending and passing the FIBKA Gormanstown Beekeeping Summer School, he has participated in managing several Top Bar hives, as well as assisted in numerous hive builds, Bee installations, inspections and extractions.

Trevor has also been assisting in the previous 10 Natural Beekeeping Courses and is keen to present this course himself to an audience of children.

The course is designed to introduce children to the skills of Natural Beekeeping, covering topics such as: Bees, Honey, Commercial Beekeeping, Natural Beekeeping, Bee Health, Getting started and Research. The two hours duration of the course will include time outside observing Bees around the onsite hives.

Any younger children attending the course must be accompanied by an adult. The cost is €25 per child.

Trevor can be found at the Skibbereen Farmers Market every Saturday at our stall and ready to answer any queries on the Hives on display or Natural Beekeeping in general.

Regards,
Max