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Is it too late to wish you a Happy New Year?! We know it is now February, but we wanted to take a moment to send our best wishes for the year ahead. |
We are now taking orders for the upcoming Spring shows. Keep an eye on your inbox as we’ll be sending quite a few emails with all the details, so please accept our apologies in advance for the influx of messages! We want to make sure you are up to date about the season ahead. |
On that note, we will be attending two shows this February. Firstly, we have the Annual UBKA Conference, which will take place on 14th and 15th February at the Greenmount Campus, Antrim BT41 4PS. We will be heading over to Ireland with a full lorry of stock. We will have plenty of foundation ready for wax conversion - we would appreciate it if you could let us know in advance if you are planning on bringing a large amount of wax to convert. |
We will also be exhibiting at The Beekeeping Show, which will be at Telford International Centre, Telford, TF3 4JH on Saturday 22nd February. We will have a fantastic selection of products at The Beekeeping Show, including the large range of Logar extractors and equipment. We will be pleased to have Gaspar Logar on our stand to discuss the details of all the Logar products. We will also be offering special deals during these events, so it’s a great time to grab a bargain. |
If you haven’t seen it yet, be sure to check out our new range of budget-friendly products, designed to meet the needs of every beekeeper, whether you're just starting out or looking to add to your existing equipment. We are pleased to offer high-quality options that do not break the bank. |
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We will be offering 10% off all Hive Alive fondant for the first two weeks of February. Make sure you take this opportunity to stock up! |
We also have a great article written by the team at Hive Alive that you can find further down this email. |
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This ingenious little device means no more slicing at packs of fondant with blunt hive tools.
Simply push the sharp edge into the plastic wrapping - give it a twist and remove. Remove the little circle of plastic. Then reverse the fondant aid and insert the longer spikes into the fondant. The spikes release the bag slightly from the fondant giving the bees more access. |
Priced at £1.60 for one or £14 for pack of 10 |
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A sweet little flower feeder - use all together, or use the individuals cups dotted around your garden.
Simply fill the flowers with water and watch the bees and other insects drink. |
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As we navigate the depths of winter, the long busy days of beekeeping seem so far away. We always feel a slight urge to get going again at this time of year (and mostly regret that come swarming season!), but we always have plenty of jobs to do during the cold months. |
With the arrival of the catkins all over the apiaries however, we suddenly realise that the active season might not be quite as far away as we had thought... |
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So, over the last few weeks, we have been getting ready for Spring - disposing of old kit, burning anything that is now unusable and clearing out dead bees from the hives. This last point is really important to ensure that bees inside the cluster can still venture out if needed, for example on a cleansing flight. To do this we use a floor scraper which makes the job so easy as you just insert it into the entrance and pull out any dead bees that have dropped onto the floor. |
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One of the other jobs this last month or so has, as always, been to make sure that the bees have enough food to eat. Of course, we have hefted the hives to check on the weight and therefore make an educated guess at how much food the bees have. What we also find useful at this time of year is to check underneath the hives to see evidence that the bees have been uncapping their stores. The way we do this is simply to look for crumbs of wax or fondant on the floor beneath the hive, which gives us a good idea as to the size of the cluster and also whereabouts in the hive it is situated. This example shows a colony that has been busy uncapping stores. |
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For any hives that we could see no evidence of using stores, we did a quick check underneath the crownboard just to make sure everything was ok. What we found were bees that were so tightly clustered we could hardly see them from the top. Perhaps these bees were not using up their stores because they were better clustered and using less energy than the others. Time will tell! |
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Next month will consist of checking for dead outs, continuing to monitor feed and looking for signs of queens starting to lay again! |
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The Beekeeping Show 2025, Saturday 22 February - Telford |
Bees for Development will be exhibiting at this year’s Beekeeping Show, the premier UK beekeeping trade show. The show runs from 9:30-16:00 at the Telford International Arena on Saturday 22 February, more details can be found at thebeekeepingshow.co.uk. |
Pop along and say hello to the team! |
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In Conversation with Monty Don & Kate Humble |
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Friday 10 January marked a fantastic fundraising event with two of our wonderful Patrons, Monty Don and Kate Humble. The sold-out show was treated to an inciteful, relaxed and fun evening which saw Monty and Kate discussing Monty’s life, career and love of gardening. Thank you to all who came along and supported us and to the Blake Theatre, Monmouth - we hope those of you that could join us enjoyed the evening as much as we did! |
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Thank you to everyone who supported us and donated to our Radio 4 Appeal and our Big Give Christmas Challenge! We are extremely grateful to all our donors and would especially love to welcome all our new supporters. Your kind donations will allow us to continue our work to pollinate change in Ethiopia, helping protect bees, beekeeping livelihoods and the environment. Here is a short update from Chris Keywood, our Project Manager in Ethiopia…. |
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“While this project has only just begun, we are off to a great start. The initial rounds of training have been completed, with Development Agents and Extension Officers having been trained in how to identify different pollinators and their importance to the crops and natural landscapes in the area. This training also demonstrated the dangers of the pesticides being used to both the people and the bees. |
We are now finalising a toolkit to enable these Officers to demonstrate practical, evidence-based training to farmers, helping them to understand the importance of pollinators and pollination and how to protect them.” |
The Radio 4 Appeal has now finished – however donations are still being accepted by post (cheques need to be payable to Bees for Development – sent to Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal and Bees for Development must be written on the back of the envelope). |
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Our team are busy working on another interesting and informative programme of lectures for 2025. Meanwhile, another two lectures from the 2024 National Honey Show have been released on the show’s YouTube Channel. |
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Thomas O’Shea Wheller talks about VespAI: Applying Deep Learning to the Detection of Invasive Hornets. Thomas is a Research Fellow based at the University of Exeter, working with honey bees, bumble bees, and a variety of other social insects to improve colony health and resilience. His current research includes projects pertaining to honey bee epidemiology and Varroa resistance, bumble bee ecology, and the detection of invasive hornets using artificial intelligence. Our current UK response relies upon visual alerts by the public. Most submitted reports are in fact misidentified native species. In this talk, Thomas introduces VespAI, an automated system for the rapid detection of V. velutina. |
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Thomas O’Shea Wheller presenting his 2024 National Honey Show lecture |
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The second video is Jacques van Alphen’s talk on “Why the bees are dying: a forgotten cause”. In this talk he explains how resistance alleles have become rare or have disappeared from honey bee populations. Honey bees have the highest recombination frequency of all animals, indicating that pathogenic bacteria, viruses, fungi and microsporidia are an important source of selection. To respond to new virulent strains of pathogens, honey bees need to have access to rare alleles that could foster immunity against a new pathogen. Restoring large panmictic populations of native subspecies of honey bees can provide a reservoir from which lost alleles can be recovered. |
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Professor Jacques van Alphen talking about a forgotten cause of bees dying |
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You can also view a chat with Jacques van Alphen, during the 2024 show, on our YouTube channel. |
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For early news of the 2025 National Honey Show programme, visit the Thornes stand at The Beekeeping Show, Saturday 22nd February and pick up a copy of the leaflet with news about the show. |
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The 2024 ‘live’ videos, featuring interviews with interesting people on various aspects of the show, are still available to watch on the National Honey Show YouTube channel. |
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Don’t forget to ‘Subscribe’ to the channel, it costs nothing and is a great help to the show. |
Do get in touch with Val: publicity@honeyshow.co.uk for more information if you would like more leaflets; if you are involved with organising the bee tent at your local county show; or if you are involved with a school or youth group interested in visiting the show. |
We look forward to seeing you at next 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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From Ocean Depths to Hive Heights: How HiveAlive Became the World-Leading Bee Feed Supplement |
Dara Scott’s journey from exploring the ocean’s depths to revolutionizing beekeeping is as inspiring as it is fascinating. HiveAlive, now sold in over 45 countries, owes its roots to Dara’s deep passion for beekeeping and a desire to help bees thrive in the most natural way possible. Here’s how the innovative supplement came to be and why it’s a must-have for your hives. |
A New Zealand Epiphany
Dara Scott’s passion for all things honeybee related began with a trip to New Zealand over 20 years ago. The physics graduate who had been working in medical diagnostics took a year out to explore New Zealand and became fascinated by the amount of beekeeping that was going on there.
“Everywhere I went I could see beehives”, he says of his New Zealand experience. In Ireland, where Dara is from, all the hives are hidden behind stone walls. Reading up on beekeeping, he loved the idea of the symbiosis of the beekeeper helping the bees and the bees returning the favour with honey. Upon returning he prepared for getting his own hives. He began with a small cast swarm captured near his home that a beekeeper collected for him. The apiary expanded and grew from there but so too did his frustration with the lack of natural methods to keep the honeybees healthy.
“I wanted to keep my bees as healthy as possible so that they could fight off diseases and stresses and be more productive and survive better. The west of Ireland is not the easiest place to keep bees!” says Dara. “It is one of the windiest and wettest places in the world with rarely having temperatures above 20 °C/68°F. Bees can survive the cold and the heat but rain and wind are not their friends.” Still, Dara manages to get a reasonable honey return every year and builds nucs for beekeepers in the spring. He is keen on promoting Ireland’s native honey bee Apis mellifera mellifera (Amm). |
Ireland’s native honey bee – the history
This bee was once spread across the whole of Europe but studies have shown that Ireland may have the last significant, stable population of Amm, because in the few other places where it does still survive in Europe, its genetics have been severely compromised by introgression from other strains. By keeping the nucs over the winter Dara can get them to new beekeepers early in spring when they are looking for them. “By providing these beekeepers with an option to obtain native bees early in the spring they are less likely to import different sub species from the continent which additionally can carry diseases not yet in Ireland”, says Dara.
Ireland has a long history of beekeeping, despite the inclement weather. Over 1600 years ago beekeeping was so important to Gaelic Ireland that there was a complete list of laws dedicated to beekeeping. The bee laws, called the “Bechbreatha” were the most important of all the Brehon Laws relating to land and agriculture at the time. Over twenty pages were dedicated to bees and beekeeping covering swarms, hives, honey production and so on. One law in particular shows how high a value was placed on bees. If a person who was stung by a bee had not retaliated by killing the bee they would be entitled to a meal of honey from the beekeeper. If, however, the person died from the sting then two hives were paid in compensation to their family! |
From Deep Seas to Hives
Before diving into the world of HiveAlive, Dara landed his dream job, he spent almost a decade exploring the planet’s deepest oceans with one of the world’s deepest underwater vehicles, a robot called Jason, which could travel to depths of over 4 miles. Dara had the opportunity to explore multiple exotic locations such as the Pacific islands, Easter Island and the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. On his travels around the world Dara met with many beekeepers and learnt the many ways people keep bees. From Carniolans to Russian mite resistant bees, Italians to Apis mellifera jemenitica in the Middle East, Dara has seen a lot of bees!
The work was very interesting and there were lots of fascinating experiences like massive lava flows into the sea, the world’s first live recording of an underwater earthquake and piloting the robot around giant, thirty meter, hydrothermal vents with 300°C/572°F water piping out of them. The craziest adventure was probably climbing a volcano in Papua New Guinea that exploded the following day! However, the travelling took its toll on Scott. “I’m six foot six and going to Hawaii takes a painful three days”, he says with a laugh. “Seriously though, I really missed having a proper garden and being able to mind my bees properly. By the end, I was sick of it.” |
The Science Behind HiveAlive
He wanted to focus on developing a solution to improve the health of his bees and began work on developing HiveAlive. “I was lucky, Ireland has some of the world’s top seaweed experts, so I got help from them in developing HiveAlive. These scientists knew exactly what seaweed extracts to choose and had special extraction techniques to be able to pull out all the anti-bacterial, anti-fungal, anti-viral and immune stimulatory properties that seaweeds naturally have along with a range of vitamins, minerals and amino acids. “I knew about the health benefits of seaweeds for humans and at the time they were just starting to be developed for animals. Now, they are an extremely popular feed ingredient used commercially to reduce the need for antibiotics, boost the immune system and improve gut health.” He was intrigued to find out would the same benefits apply to bees. Through government supports Dara collaborated with scientists from several universities across Europe in developing and testing what would soon become HiveAlive.
His theory was correct. HiveAlive has since been tested in multiple field studies around the world. Results consistently show that feeding hives with HiveAlive makes the colonies more productive – they have more brood and more honey with less disease, in particular Nosema, and lower overwinter losses. |
Why Beekeepers Swear by HiveAlive
Beekeepers around the world are the brand’s strongest advocates. Once they see the results, they spread the word. Whether you’re from the freezing cold of Northern Canada, the searing heat of the Middle East, the wet rainforests of Australia and the windy west of Ireland, HiveAlive works in all situations. Our products are designed to fit seamlessly into your hive management routine.
And it’s not just about better honey yields. HiveAlive represents a commitment to the wellbeing of bees everywhere. As Dara puts it, “Seeing beekeepers love HiveAlive and hearing their success stories is the most rewarding part of my job. To be honest we could spend a lot of money on marketing but the best marketing team we have are the beekeepers that give HiveAlive a proper try over a full year. Once they do, they are our best advertisers as they can really see the benefits and are keen to tell their friends. People don’t believe our claims when we tell them, but they believe them when their friends have seen it for themselves.” |
HiveAlive: A UK Favourite
HiveAlive’s success didn’t stop with its liquid supplement. To further support beekeepers, HiveAlive introduced a fondant infused with the same proven ingredients. Ideal for winter and early spring feeding, this ready-to-use fondant ensures bees stay nourished even when nectar is scarce. The team spent three years developing the most premium fondant possible. “We spent a lot of time making sure all the ingredients used are of very high quality, the sugar particle size is small enough to ensure the bees can digest it easily and it is produced using a special process to keep HMF negligible”, says Scott. The addition of HiveAlive ensures the health of the colony is maintained and the unique proprietary blend of vitamins and minerals further helps the bees through the winter months.
The HiveAlive Fondant Patties are packed in 1kg/2.2 lb individually sealed bags to ensure freshness, avoid fondant drying out and to make handling very quick, clean and easy. It is put on top of the colony, either under or over the brood box, so no feeders are needed. By having the fondant directly over the cluster the bees do not have to leave the cluster to access food, minimizing the chance of starvation. The bag is the flattest on the market, and can easily be placed directly over the cluster. The patties can also be used as an autumn feed but are mainly used as a top up over winter, when it is too cold to feed syrup, or in late winter when bees start running out of stores. The patties do not cause robbing like syrup can. By using HiveAlive Fondant Patties you know you are giving your bees the best chance to survive the winter allowing them to emerge in the spring strong and healthy for a great productive year.
HiveAlive Super Syrup is fuel for colony growth. Building on their commitment to supporting bee health, HiveAlive introduced the HiveAlive Super Syrup—a premium liquid feed formulated to promote colony growth and strength. Designed for spring and summer feeding, this syrup provides essential nutrients and energy during active foraging seasons when colonies expand rapidly. With HiveAlive’s proven ingredients, including a proprietary blend of seaweed extracts, the Super Syrup enhances gut health and boosts immunity, preparing bees for honey production and reducing overwintering losses. The formulation’s focus on digestibility ensures bees can efficiently process the syrup, translating to better colony development and resilience.
HiveAlive Protein Patty is essential nutrition for brood development to further meet the nutritional needs of growing colonies, HiveAlive developed the Protein Patty—an easy-to-use supplemental feed packed with high-quality protein. Designed to support brood rearing and colony build-up, these patties are ideal for early spring and periods of pollen scarcity. The formulation includes HiveAlive’s signature ingredients to enhance digestion and immunity, providing bees with a balanced diet to ensure healthy larval development. Individually wrapped for freshness and convenience, the Protein Patties can be placed directly on top of the frames, providing bees with immediate access to nutrients without causing disruption. Beekeepers can rely on HiveAlive Protein Patties to strengthen colonies, boost productivity, and maintain hive health year-round. |
Fuel Your Hives with HiveAlive
Dara’s final words are, “Bees deserve the best care, and beekeepers deserve products they can trust. HiveAlive’s liquid supplement and fondant patty are scientifically proven to support healthy, productive hives. The team are working hard on developing more innovative feeding solutions to support your hive.” |
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A Brief History of Scottish Beekeeping and Beekeepers
By Taylor Hood |
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“An insightful exploration into Scotland’s rich and often overlooked beekeeping tradition" |
Northern Bee Books (1st ed. 2024)
Paperback
152 pages
£21 |
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A Brief History of Scottish Beekeeping and Beekeepers by Taylor Hood is a collection of biographical accounts of over 30 people who have contributed to the country’s rich heritage over several hundred years of apiculture. |
The author is an experienced beekeeper and enthusiastic historian with the research skills required to unearth and bring to light valuable information that might otherwise have been unavailable to the Scottish beekeeper searching for links to the past. This history book brings together many stories and presents them in one convenient place. It is full of fascinating facts and will be a useful tool for writers and students of beekeeping. |
This work honours great beekeepers from the past, and the kenspeckle contemporary ones such as Andrew Abrahams and Charles Irwin. It is interesting to learn how many of Scotland’s beekeepers have been recognised for their dedication to beekeeping and honoured by the award of MBE (Member of the British Empire). At last, Delia M. Allen, one of our greatest scientists, will be better recognised in her homeland. Dr Allen is well known in the US and often quoted in scientific papers for her work on bee behaviour. |
A contents page guides the reader to each of the 34 sections including acknowledgements and a foreword. It is a well-illustrated book with a few colour photographs and many old black and white pictures and drawings depicting scenes from the past, and explaining equipment. |
The writing is styled in encyclopaedic form with factual statements and lists. This will appeal to the readers who wants facts and figures quickly without the flowing prose of an essay form. However, the book lacks analysis, and discussion and comparisons of the past with modern beekeeping would have clarified some aspects for inexperienced beekeepers. For example, from modern science, we know that the Isle of Wight Disease was most probably caused by chronic bee paralysis virus rather than tracheal mites or Vairimorpha spp. (formerly classified as Nosema spp.) |
The author has achieved the goal of producing a brief history of beekeeping and beekeepers in Scotland, and this useful compendium deserves a place in every Scottish Beekeeping Association library. |
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Ulster BKA Annual Conference
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CAFRE, Greenmount Campus, 45 Tirgracy Road, Antrim, BT41 4PS |
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Telford International Centre, International Way, Telford, TF3 4JH |
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Welsh BKA Spring Convention
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Royal Welsh Showground, Llanelwedd, Builth Wells, LD2 3SY |
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Harper Adams University, Telford, Shropshire, TF10 8NB |
Trade show on Saturday. Order collection and wax conversion also available on Friday 4th between 3pm and 5pm. |
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