After breakfast I had a brief coaching session with my friend Vanessa Drew. She is taking her Senior Exams and has for months been running past exam questions and her draught answers past me by email for comment and correction. Not just me apparently, as I had a complaint about her from Norman Walsh! I have also lent her books. She asked my about artificial swarms and I briefly outlined the methods, problems and opportunities including Pagden’s method. She’s never heard of Pagden, which surprised me as it is a useful technique that has been around for many years.
I abandoned Vanessa as I had to dash off for the first lecture of the day: Professor Pickard on Parasites and Pathogens. This time it wasn’t so dark and I was able to take notes, some of which I can read.
Parasites and Pathogens is all about relationships. He made the point that Nature is not benign. He outlined the roles of predator; pathogen; parasite; symbiont and inquiline. I wasn’t familiar with the latter term. It means a lodger in the hive, generally harmless, Braula coeca being an example.
Professor Pickard then went up the scale by size of potentially problematic pests, starting with Prions which are chains of amino acids that are best known for causing brain diseases such as CJD and Scrapie and possibly may be associated with Alzheimer’s disease. Next up are viruses, of which new ones affecting honeybees are being discovered all the time. Apparently viruses can’t stand ultraviolet light, so let the sunshine get at your bee-kit! Bacteria come next in size, E.Coli being a topical example; then Protozoa, Nosema being an example affecting our bees; Fungi include Ascosphaera apis that cause Chalkbrood; Acarapis – mites such as Acarine and Varroa. For Varroa, Professor Pickard recommends inspecting the hive in February, when there is little brood, and if there is a Varroa problem, remove all the brood and treat then. Misumena vatia is the crab spider that lurks, camouflaged, in flowers and preys on bees and other insects. The order Diptera (two winged insects, mainly flies) include the wingless Braula and we were shown a film of them feeding. Coleoptera include the Small Hive Beetle which is causing problems in America and is expected to arrive here soon. The Greater and Lesser Wax moths, Galleria and Achroia, have, in the Professor’s view, (not all would agree!) a symbiotic relationship with the honeybee, their benefit being that they destroy old brood comb. He described an experiment in which a comb was made up of a patchwork of old and new comb in a frame and placed in a hive. The bees queen laid up the new comb preferentially, ignoring the old until there was no choice. The last and largest of the creatures described was the Death’s Head Hawk Moth which fools the guards and gains entry into the hive by mimicking the challenge call of the virgin queen. There’s clever!
The next lecture was Jim Ryan and was entitled Getting the most from your bees – a seasonal perspective. He gave an excellent talk and I took 2 pages of notes but, again, it was aimed more at Intermediate than at Advanced level. The most useful thing I learned was that if you boil up combs in a washing soda solution in an aluminium Burco boiler it will eat holes in the metal. Mine has the warning not to use soda embossed on it. Now I know why. I wonder whether I could line it with a plastic sack to get around the problem? Jim suggested using a scale hive, a thing I have been meaning to do for years as I have a suitable scale, but getting around to it is a different matter! Jim finished with some excellent advice: Think like a bee!
I saw Vanessa again at lunchtime. She had taken her exam and was quite pleased with what she had done. Everything we had discusssed earlier had come up, including Pagden!
After lunch I joined the annual nature walk with Peter Whyte. It was a pleasant stroll through the grounds discussing the natural history to be found, especially the trees. Last year, knowing the route he was likely to take, I planted a couple of adder skins in plain view but nobody spotted them.
The last lecture of the day was Simon Rees on Pollen and Pollination. Yet again I am not sure that this was aimed at the right audience. Usually Simon moves from side to side of the stage but this time he varied the pattern, not only crossing the centre line 10 times but also moving forward on the right side 10 times.
After dinner I walked round the beach again with Jan Stuart, this time heading north for an extra mile before returning via the Cock. Once upon a time the Cock would have been packed with beekeepers of an evening, often with the senior lecturer joining us for an informal seminar. There would be singing too, sometimes going on until the early hours. Once Claire and Miriam Kehoe gave the world premier performance of my hymn ‘The Lord’s My Beekeeper’ there at 3am! Nowadays very few beekeepers go there and only John Clarke and Brian o’Dochartai, who lives in the next village, joined me, so I was back at the College and in my bed by 12.30.
Chris Slade's Bee Blog 