Honeybees

Once, so plentiful, beekeepers could afford to destroy their honeybee colonies at the end of the season once honey had been taken. The reservoir of wild honeybees was so abundant that they immediately filled new skeps in the spring.

No more.

Swarm of honeybees

The traditional home of honeybees is in voids and cavities in old trees. I’m told that a honeybee colony can number five to eight thousand bees. In addition their ‘stores’ and young must be accommodated - requiring, in total, a space of around three cubic feet. Our woodland is characterised by a lack of old trees with cavities this large and so the opportunities for honeybees to occupy ‘natural’ sites is limited.

Chemicals used in agriculture are now (according to Prof Dave Goulson) up to 10,000 times more toxic than DDT. This is as disastrous to honey bees as to other invertebrates and their food chains.

Thirsty work - honeybees stop work for refreshment..

As well as this chemical onslaught, honeybees are now parasitised by varroa mites introduced from abroad. Honeybees have not learned to groom the mites from their skin and so the mites feed unchecked. They so debilitate colonies that they fail. Beekeepers often apply a thyme-based preparation which kills the mites.

‘National’ bee hive most-frequently used by modern beekeepers.

Climate change is playing fast and loose with the seasons and, as in exceptional 2024, creating weather conditions that are sometimes fatal for bees. Mild, damp winters make bees active at times when forage is not available leading to the weakened bees expending precious energy searching for food that isn’t there. Damp winters increase the chance of disease in colonies. Local beekeepers report higher than usual losses to their colonies over this winter.

Little wonder that ‘colony collapse’ (sometimes termed colony collapse disorder) has been a major concern for beekeepers over recent years.

The anticipated arrival of predatory Asian hornets is expected to have a devastating impact on our remaining honeybee populations.

All depressing stuff.

And so we were especially pleased when a swarm of honeybees occupied one of our little owl nest boxes last summer. The box is sited about 4m high and is 30cm3. It didn’t matter that the little owls couldn’t use it - we had bees! There’s little worry about humans and bees bumping into one another up there and the box seems to meet their needs. We gave them little chance of success but I’m delighted to say that the colony appears to be doing well.

There was little sign of activity during the depths of winter, but, encouragingly, our heat-sensitive camera showed the nest box entrance glowing gold. The colony was alive and warm.

And today, honeybees were busy on our plentiful snowdrop flowers and entering and leaving their colony. Unlike a beekeepers hive, we won’t take their honey, just leave them to prosper.

Their next step is to produce a new queen which will cause about half the colony to swarm in the search for a new home. The colony will send out bees whose job is to find a suitable place for a new colony.

Like a good Boy Scout I’m hoping to be prepared for this and I intend to make and site another prospective bee colony box in the next few weeks.

It would be good to buck the trend of depressing bee news.

Thanks to Linda for help writing this.