Photo courtesy HBA in the Vita Gallery.

Here’s a beautiful explanation of why bees build hexagonal cells, when they might just have selected triangles or squares.

So, next question: What organisational ability enables the larger hexagonal cells for drones?

The post Why hexagons? appeared first on Vita Europe.

Here’s how it happens as brought to our attention by a Bulgarian bee blogger. The original video is by Franz Obedorfer.

As our Bulgarian bee blogger says the video has a certain sadness about it because the queen emerges outside the hive, but it is fascinating. The whole process takes a few hours, but here’s the 7 minute version.

The post The emergence of a queen appeared first on Vita Europe.

I’ve practised several swarm control techniques over the years — often they work, but uncomfortably often they don’t quite go to plan! I could blame the bees (or myself) for not reading the books, but perhaps the relatively high failure rate is because when I create an artificial swarm I inevitably do it with the wrong group of bees!

Swarm catcher. Photo courtesy of Hampshire Beekeepers Association

I’ve yet to see a precise breakdown of the ages and roles of bees that comprise a naturally created swarm, but it must include a lot of wax builders, many young bees and maybe not as many foragers as you’d expect. Artificial swarms because of the way they are created usually contain a preponderance of foraging bees, many of which are approaching the end of their lives and many of them past their best home-making days.

So I suppose it’s little wonder that my swarm control sometimes doesn’t quite work out one way or another. Often the old queen wants to swarm again, or the queen-making colonies are keen to create caste or secondary swarms despite my best efforts to cull queen cells and reduce the colony size

The challenge is to create an artificial swarm that closely resembles the demographics of a natural swarm. I know of an older beekeeper whose swarm control technique is to sit by the colony on likely swarming days and catch them as they come out.  I don’t really have the free time to do that, but for sure the demographics of his caught swarms will be as perfect as they can be!

Vita’s new swarm lures and the recent research seem to offer me hope if I can check my apiaries daily. By pinning a lure to a suitable and accessible branch, a large proportion of the primary swarms should gather there. So instead of searching for the old queen to be able to start to create an artificial swarm, the first stage in swarm control might be a daily stroll around the apiary. I like the sound of that!

Vita’s Guest Beekeeper Blogger

The post Getting the right bees for the artificial swarm appeared first on Vita Europe.

Vita’s guest beekeeper blogger

The post Solid brood appeared first on Vita Europe.

With temperatures at last becoming spring-like, a second full inspection of the bees has become possible in Hampshire, southern England. All the colonies look healthy and varroa mites aren’t obvious — but some are bound to be there. The colonies, regularly treated in alternate years with Apistan and Apiguard, were treated last season with Apistan since there is as yet no obvious sign of resistant mites in these colonies.

All the colonies came through winter, so there has been an embarrassment of riches To cut down a little, one colony was given to another local beekeeper and one was united with another existing colony because although it was very healthy, it was just a little too defensive for so early in the year.  Today, the united colony under a new queen was in perfect temper. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly a queen exerts her influence on thousands of bees!

The united colony is of course bursting with activity and was the only one to show new comb building. This has been the slowest spring in my beekeeping career!

Vita’s guest beekeeper blogger

The post Full force spring appeared first on Vita Europe.

The parasitic varroa mite up close.

We are hearing and seeing some reports of apparently high levels of varroa early this season, so here are a few management options that we hope will help.

If you are already seeing varroa, it is important to monitor carefully and be ready to act quickly to ensure the colony’s strength and survival through the season ahead.

Firstly, check if there is a daily drop of varroa mites – what you are seeing could just be debris that has built up over the winter.

If there are varroa falling at this early stage, we recommend:
1) feeding your colonies with Vita Feed Green, which will give them a good boost to strengthen the colony and can help with varroa
2) a full six-week treatment with Apistan which can, if necessary, be left on during the honey flow and when supers are present.

The post Seeing varroa early this year? appeared first on Vita Europe.

Spring is late in many parts of Northern Europe. A horse chestnut tree bursting into leaf not blossom on 23 April 2013.

As spring starts to reach Northern Europe rather slowly, you may be wondering if you should give your bees a boost.

There’s a quick rule of thumb as to whether to feed with Vita Feed Green or Vita Feed Gold at this stage of the season:

if you see crawling bees, they might have Nosema, so VF Gold could be worth trying.

If not VF Green should give them a boost.

Let’s hope the weather continues to comply!

The post Green or Gold? appeared first on Vita Europe.

Inside: Vita’s new smartphone app, HopGuard news, secrets of the honeybee bite.

The post Newsletter April 2013: honeybee health smartphone app appeared first on Vita Europe.

Setting up

Jon and Jeremy setting up the Vita Stand at the BBKA Convention this morning. Drop by to hear what’s new, have a chat and receive a free poster and newsletter.

The post Setting up at BBKA Convention appeared first on Vita Europe.

• the new finding about swarms revealed by using Vita’s Swarm lure
• the HopGuard registration
• the brand new Vita newsletter.

And bring your smartphone for a nice surprise.

Jon, Seb, Jeremy & Max – outside Vita's offices on a rare sunny spring day! They all plan to be at the BBKA Spring Convention.

The post Meet Vita at the BBKA Spring Convention this weekend appeared first on Vita Europe.