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May has been extremely busy, and we have had a huge amount of orders, so thank you! We are working hard to get everything shipped as quickly as possible. |
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We’re proud to have once again sponsored the Bees for Development garden at the Chelsea Flower Show. The garden looked stunning and was awarded a Silver Gilt medal. Pictured are Paul and Gill enjoying the garden. |
Read more about the garden on the Chelsea Flower Show's website. |
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The TRAP-X™ Asian Hornet Trap, made by Apitura Innovation Ltd in the UK, is designed to catch invasive Asian hornets (yellow legged hornets) while protecting beneficial insects. It's unique fin and funnel design means the hornets are attracted to the trap but by-catch can escape. |
Read more about the TRAP-X on the Apitura website. |
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Raise your own queens in the original Apidea mating hive. |
The bundle includes the book Using Apideas by Daniel Basterfield. Daniel is one of a few people who holds a NDB (National Diploma in Beekeeping) and the book includes tips and techniques developed through his hand-son experience with mating hives. |
You can purchase the book along with the Apidea mating hive for the special price of £50. |
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Splitting Hives - when & why? |
By splitting a hive, of course we actually mean the colony…splitting the hive would be silly. The colony is constantly evolving and expanding in size during the active season. Eventually the colony gets to a size where it feels it has got too large and needs to split – this is when it would naturally swarm. Swarming is its way of reproducing because after a swarm, you are left with two separate colonies (hopefully!). |
Swarm prevention is important if you want to try and delay this swarming instinct e.g., using new prolific queens and making sure that the colony has enough space inside the hive. However, there is only so far swarm prevention can take you until you get into the realms of swarm control…which is basically reacting to whatever the bees are doing. Swarm control methods include splitting a hive - doing an ‘artificial swarm’. This makes the bees think they have done their swarm and takes away the swarming instinct, so they don’t do it again (fingers crossed). |
Even if you do not want to expand your apiary, splitting a colony into two successful parts is a good idea because you can always merge them back together at a later date, if you want to. |
If you do not pre-empt swarming and put in place control methods, you are likely to lose half, if not more, of your bees. In simple terms, if the colony swarms it means the original queen leaves with the foraging bees and what you are left with in the original hive are queen cells, hive bees and brood. Not only have you lost your queen and foraging bees, if multiple queen cells are left in the hive, the new emerging queens may cast, which is just like swarming but with progressively fewer bees. This will leave you with very little, if anything, in the hive. |
The good news is, you can generally pre-empt this and keep all of your bees! All you need to do is familiarise yourself with typical pre-swarming behaviour and act swiftly. |
The age-old question! It would be so much easier if there was a set day and time to do this but like anything beekeeping, it depends on the weather and your bees. Normally, a hive can be split in the spring – this usually coincides with a honey flow where the bees are more easily stimulated to grow than at any other time of the year. As an idea, we would do our splits from about mid-April to late June. Splits can be made in the summer but should be avoided late in the season as the bees are less likely to be able to recover from such a manipulation before winter. |
Typical signs that bees are thinking about swarming:
· Lots of bees in the hive – think overcrowding, bearding, not enough space for the queen to lay
· Queen cells that are close to being sealed |
Overcrowding is one of the things the bees are trying to combat by swarming so you may see lots and lots of bees (sometimes we see bearding, where bees ‘spill’ out the front of a hive, resembling a beard). This is good news; not only have you caught the colony before it has swarmed, but you will also be happy that once you have performed the split, both colonies will have enough bees to sustain themselves. Splitting a hive that is not ready to be split is a recipe for failure of not just one, but two colonies. |
Queen cells that are about to be capped show that the bees are thinking about creating a new queen and demonstrates their desire to swarm. You should act quickly. If you find sealed queen cells, then there is a good chance you may be too late to perform your split. |
Interesting fact: The queen may stop laying eggs in the few days prior to swarming. Why? To slim down a bit! The workers will stop feeding her so that she can actually get up in the air. If you notice a lack of eggs, along with presence of queen cells (and potentially a much slimmer queen!), it is time to find your queen and hope she hasn’t already left. |
» Don’t split too early; you not only need enough bees to cover the brood, but the ambient temperature also just needs to be warm enough for the bees to be able to cope with the sudden ‘loss’ of bees. Wait until your bees are showing you that they are congested and that it is going to be nice and warm outside for considerable time. |
» Leaving more than one queen cell as insurance can be a problem because it often means the first queen to emerge will fly off with a swarm of its own, and so on if you leave several (as mentioned before this is called casting). This is a failure of the swarm control method because you have not managed to control the swarm! |
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May, as always, has been an extremely busy month for us here at Thorne HQ in Lincolnshire. The sun has been out, the bees have been busy and we have been even busier (if that’s possible!). |
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We have continued last month’s main job of taking off nucs for sale. This has become easier and easier as the month has gone by, with lots of brood frames and stores to choose from. Here you can see the difference in size of some of our nucs as we also sell 14”x12” and Langstroths for beekeepers who run those hives. |
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The turnaround time for nucs varies and so it is always a balance between getting enough bees in there and not filling the box so much that they swarm. Here are a couple of nucs ready to go! |
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We have seen plenty of drones in the hives this month, meaning that the breeding season is well underway. You can see lots of emerging drones with their big eyes in this photo. This means that new virgin queens are getting mated nice and quickly, especially with the great weather we have had this month. |
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The next two photos are quite interesting. At first glance you might think that this patch of dead bees was caused by pesticides or even CBPV. |
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However, we know for a fact that there was a swarm that landed at the front of this hive so most likely there was a fight of some kind between the bees already living in the hive and the incoming swarm. The dead bees could be the swarm that tried to get in but were fought off; they could be the original bees killed by the swarm and dragged out; or they could be a mix of the two and what’s left in the hive is a merge of both the original bees and the swarm. We will probably never know. |
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As with last month we also got a couple of swarms in May too. It is always a fascinating process to watch (albeit frustrating at times!), especially when you witness them settling down and can get close enough to have a good look. Here are two that we caught in the big laurel bush at the apiary. It is interesting to see how different in shape they are. One is compact and oval and the other is long and thin! |
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Next month we envisage much of the same long, busy days beekeeping. It is hard to believe that we are only just coming into June when we have had what seems like a summer already! |
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Bees for Development at RHS Chelsea May 20-24, 2025 |
The EH Thorne, Bees for Development and Humble Bee Gardeners team have worked tirelessly over the last few months, weeks and days to create our stunning balcony garden, ‘Making Life Better with Bees’, at this year’s prestigious RHS Chelsea Flower Show. |
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On Monday 19 May, Megan Denver, CEO, Bees for Development, Steve Benbow, Royal Beekeeper, London Honey Company and Gill Smith, Director, EH Thorne, were extremely honoured to welcome Her Majesty The Queen to our tranquil, wildlife friendly Balcony Garden at Chelsea Flower Show. |
Our Patron, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, also visited our Balcony Garden to meet with our designers and sponsors. Hugh spoke to the press about his involvement with Bees for Development and why he chose to support the charity. |
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Our Patron, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, also visited our Balcony Garden to meet with our designers and sponsors. Hugh spoke to the press about his involvement with Bees for Development and why he chose to support the charity. |
This year’s beautiful Balcony Garden is inspired by the invaluable work that Bees for Development do in Africa, and is a vibrant, sustainable urban retreat that proves small spaces really can make a big impact! |
Bees for Development would like to thank our designers, Humble Bee Gardeners, our sponsors and build team, EH Thorne and our sponsors, the London Honey Company and Protek Wood Stain for all their hard work, commitment and support. |
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Monmouth Bee Festival -14 June, 2025 |
Join Bees for Development on Saturday 14 June for the Monmouth Bee Festival 2025, a vibrant community celebration of bees, pollinators and the vital role they play in our lives. |
Taking place in the beautiful Nelson Garden in Monmouth from 12pm to 4pm, this free, family friendly event promises something for everyone. There will be face painting, seed ball making, beekeeping displays, homemade cakes and refreshments and much more, all set to the sound of live music. |
Visit our website HERE for more details. |
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Bee Walks with Silver Circle Distillery @ Humble By Nature, Penallt, Monmouthshire – 1 June & 20 July |
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There is only one species of bee in the UK that produces the honey we know, with the other 270 or so species living very different lives to their hive-occupying cousins. |
Join Bees for Development and the Bees of Monmouthshire project at the Humble by Nature farm to explore the fascinating world of bees, from fluffy, queen bumble bees 3cm long to almost hairless, Yellow-faced bees only 3mm long! |
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We'll start with a walk around the farm and local area, visiting different bee habitats and hopefully seeing some different species up close, before heading back to the Silver Circle Distillery for a short talk on bees and the work of the Bees of Monmouthshire project, with macro photographs of over 100 different local species. |
For more information and booking, please click HERE |
Empowering teachers, inspiring change! |
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It is a well known fact that teachers are always busy! Planning lessons, delivering classes, setting and marking tests, breaking up arguments amongst pupils, liaising with parents. The list is endless. |
Which is why when we started the idea of beekeeping clubs in basic schools in Ghana we realised that the only way for this to work, would be to make it practical and rewarding for the teachers, as well as for the children. |
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To help the teachers get started, Bees for Development Ghana invited them to 4 days of training to learn about bees, beekeeping and pollination…..We wanted to make it as easy as possible for teachers to plan lessons and activities for the kids, and to have a reference resource at hand. This prompted us to develop the Buzz Club Teachers Handbook which, after many rounds of writing, editing and refining, was printed and disseminated to schools in early 2025. |
Read the full blog post HERE |
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The lecture video release for the first Friday in June, at 5.15pm UK local time is Phil Stevenson talk on ‘Sex, Drugs and Pollinator Health’. |
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Phil is Professor of Plant Chemistry and Head of Trait Diversity and Function at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Phil’s research focusses on biological and ecological functions of naturally produced chemicals especially in pollen and nectar and their effects on pollinator behaviour, health and ecology. |
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Professor Phil Stevenson from Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew’s lecture on 'Sex, Drugs and Pollinator Health’. |
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Many plants produce toxic compounds in nectar and pollen affecting the animals that collect the pollen and nectar as food including bees and other pollinators. Caffeine for example, a defence compound produced by some plants to stop insects eating the leaves or fruits, is also found in nectar at concentrations too low to be toxic or tasted. However, these concentrations directly impact bee brains to improve memory implying that plants can drug bees into being more dedicated pollinators, having a stronger memory for floral aromas associated with caffeinated plants. Phil's team is using these findings to improve pollination in greenhouse crops. |
They have also discovered compounds in the nectar of heather (Calluna vulgaris) and strawberry trees (Arbutus unedo) that are medicinal for bumble bees enabling them to be more resilient to diseases and parasites. Pollen from some species is also highly effective at clearing gut parasites from bees, varying dramatically across plant taxa. The aim is to better understand the potential landscape limitations for some nutrients and benefits of some nectar and pollen metabolites. |
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This is the time of year when our bees are gearing up to producing not only tasty honey for themselves and for you, but the very best entries into this year's National Honey Show. Last year, one of our committee members extracted at frequent intervals, resulting in an array of distinctive coloured and textured honey which made an impressive display as his entries were booked in to the show. |
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Bruno’s colourful selection of 2024 honey entries being booked in to the National Honey Show. |
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Do venture into the Beekeeping Tent at your local Agricultural and County Shows across this summer. If you are helping out at any of these shows, do ask Val: publicity@honeyshow.co.uk if you would like leaflets, and also for our special leaflet featuring the junior classes to encourage junior bee enthusiasts to take part in the National Honey Show. |
Remember we invite teachers and group leaders to book for our Schools Day visit on Saturday 25th October 2025. George from the Thornes team has compiled a video from the Schools Day visit 2024 which you can view by pressing the button below. |
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We look forward to seeing you at this year’s show:
National Honey Show Thursday 23rd to Saturday 25th October 2025 at Sandown Park Racecourse, Esher, Surrey, KT10 9RT, UK. |
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Bee Propolis: Natural Healing from the Hive
By James Fearnley |
"This pioneering book is probably the most comprehensive overview of research into propolis in the English language.” |
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Souvenir Press (1st ed. 2001)
Paperback
172 pages
£15 |
Reviewed by Ann Chilcott
Scottish Expert Beemaster and author of The Bee Listener |
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Bee Propolis—Natural Healing from the Hive by James Fearnley was a trail blazing book at the time of publishing in 2001. Back then there was little available evidence that propolis was key to honey bee immunity and colony health, and the risk to human health from antibiotic resistant strains of life- threatening bacteria was only just starting to make news headlines. Fearnley focusses on propolis and human health though a chapter is dedicated to animal treatments. Coming from a retail background in wholefood shops, the author is an internationally recognised expert on propolis and how to use it. |
This book has been well written and well researched with a reference list and useful contact address list at the end. There are ten chapters dealing with many topics including what propolis is and its role in the honey bee hive. Fearnley describes the use of propolis down the ages in folk history and follows on with how propolis is used in modern times. We learn how propolis works, and how it is used to treat certain conditions in humans and other animals. It has a wide role as an antibiotic, antifungal, antacid, anti-allergen, anti-inflammatory, antiseptic, and an antioxidant and preservative substance. Chapter 9 discusses the commercialisation of propolis and is one of the most useful chapters. We discover how propolis is obtained and processed correctly, and how standards have been set for the UK market— everyone producing, refining and using propolis should be aware of this information. In the UK, propolis is sold as a food and not a medicine, despite its medicinal powers, so it is governed by the UK food regulations. |
Fearnley discusses the problems of lead contamination and how any UK food product must have no more than one part per million lead (1 ppm). However, at the end of last century when interest in propolis was rekindled, most propolis samples had higher than acceptable lead levels. For example, “Most Chinese propolis at the time contained around 2– 300 ppm; Russian propolis had lower levels of between 10– 50 ppm and European propolis, depending on the source, between 10–30 ppm”. We learn how this prompted propolis refining and of the setting of UK standards. Being familiar with these standards is crucial for anyone making and selling goods containing propolis. Propolis contains around 150 different biochemical components and their composition varies across different countries and climates so that quality control is a challenge. Bioflavonoids are the key ingredients of propolis and the main ones are chrysin, pinocembrin and galangin. Raw propolis must contain at least one per cent of each of these chemicals. Using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) it becomes possible to create a bank of chemical signatures for propolis by recording how each chemical refracts light as it passes through a column in solution. This information can be used by manufacturers to test propolis samples against for purity and standardisation. There are very clear instructions in Appendix 2 for carrying out flavonoid analysis using HPLC. |
The chapter on making your own medicines will appeal to everyone who has access to propolis and wants try their hand at making some remedies like tinctures for sore throats and creams for skin conditions. The instructions are clear and there is advice on extracting propolis in alcohol, and not to heat propolis too much otherwise bioflavonoids are damaged. |
Bee Propolis—Natural Healing from the Hive is unique because very few publications cover the subject in such detail that is also easy to read. The intended readership is wide-ranging from discerning consumers to manufacturers and retailers. Beekeepers, health professionals and everyone curious to learn more about nature’s medicine chest will enjoy this book which is also good value for money. |
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Newburgh Industrial Estate, Cupar Road, Newburgh, Fife, KY14 6HA |
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Oakley Green Farm, Oakley Green, Windsor, Berkshire, SL4 4PZ |
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Chilbolton Down Farm, Chilbolton Down, Stockbridge, SO20 6BU |
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Quince Honey Farm, Aller Cross, South Molton, Devon, EX36 3RD |
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Beehive Business Park, Rand, Lincolnshire, LN8 5NJ |
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