Category: Uncategorized

The NBU has been unable to carry out any Bee Health Day training, evening Association talks or attend any national events due to COVID restrictions.

To part mitigate this, Fera Science have prepared several You Tube training/educational videos, which are now available via BeeBase and are freely available to beekeepers and Associations.  Initially three of these have been released looking at the following topics:
Asian Hornet Biology
Asian Hornet Genetics
European foulbrood

The presentations can be found on BeeBases pages on
Asian hornet
and
Foulbrood.

The information can also be accessed on BeeBase news page.

Alternatively there is a link at the foot of the Advisory Leaflets, Training Manuals & Factsheets page.

There is also available  a series of on-line evening lectures throughout the rest of the beekeeping season, starting on 9th June. Topics are chosen to fit with the work in the apiary, aiming to be timely and thought-provoking to inspire all those 'thinking beekeepers' out there.

Ken and Dan Basterfield regularly give popular lectures on practical and thought-provoking beekeeping topics. They lecture across the UK and Ireland, from local association meetings to national and international conferences."

The full programme and booking links can be found here.

The forecast for this week is for thundery showers, some of which could be torrential.  If there was thunder in the air would you want someone to take the roof of your house! I guess not and bees are the same. They can become very aggressive if you try to open the hive in thundery weather. Don't.

We all hoped that by September we would be out of the current pandemic but the organisers of the Dorset County Show have decided that they cannot hold the show this year and as a result the Dorset County Show for 2020 is cancelled. More details can be seen here. 

Look Out!

When you next go out to check your bees you may find:

• Flying insects as big as mice
• Your bees have all been decapitated and eaten by Asian Hornets
• You are at risk of being killed by a single sting from an Asian Hornet.

And you thought we had enough problems with the current lock down. Fortunately the threats suggested above are not real because they are Asian Hornet Myths. They are what we see in the papers. Fake news is not restricted to 5G masts and politics.

A new page I have added today is an attempt to start to set the record straight by debunking Asian Hornet myths that are floating about out there.

A lot of the myths are spread on social media. If you are a user of any of these can I ask that you search for Asian Hornet on your favourite social media sites and if you see the Giant Asian Hornet (Vespa mandarinia) labelled as Asian Hornet (Vespa velutina) then ask for it to be removed as being false and add your own comment to say what it really is.

We need the help of the public to keep on top of the Asian Hornet but they will not be able to do that if they are looking for the Giant Asian Hornet.

This page was originally posted on the Dorchester and Weymouth Beekeepers website but I felt it to be sufficiently important that I have put a copy here as well.

24th March 2020
Well, who could see that coming - we are in lockdown.
There have been a lot of communications from the BBKA over the last couple of weeks and thus I have created a special page for Covid-19 updates.  Please read it so that you are up to date with what the BBKA are suggesting and what they are doing.

16th February 2020
Been a busy time preparing for the possible arrival of the Asian Hornet. Last week there was an excellent conference at Stoneleigh organised by the BBKA. I was fortunate enough to attend and my report can be found here. Though I have done a lot of reading about the Asian Hornet there was still a lot to learn and I have put as much as I can remember in my report.