Bees’ winter of discontent: Keepers counting the costs after a harsh season

The extended period of cold and wet weather has left the beekeeping community counting the cost in their hives, writes Mary O’Riordan

It must be one of the longest winters we have had in a long time, I have fed a huge amount of fondant since Christmas and most especially, the nukes, which were made up with new queens late in the summer, and have been wolfing it down.

Fondant can be purchased from bakers providers, or from beekeeping suppliers, fondant is a paste mixture of sugar, glucose syrup, and water, it is put in plastic containers, and put over the feedhole on the crown board. It is eaten straight away by the bees, not stored in the comb and is used to keep the bees going until it is warm enough to give them a feed of syrup.

The general news is that there has been a fairly big percentage of winter losses. Beekeepers never really know until they have a very fine day and can go right into the hive.

It is very important to check the hives from Christmas on, as they can die of hunger very quickly. They can also die of hunger even though there is lots of food in the hive and this has happened a lot during this awful spring.

I had one stock in particular, who had a huge amount of food in the brood chamber and a full super of food a few inches over them, they had eaten the food from the frames near them, but they had brood on two frames, from which they would not leave

When the weather turned really cold, with the snow and that easterly wind, the bees clustered tightly forming a heat ball, with the queen in the centre. Despite a feast of food very near them, the cluster of bees contracted tighter over their brood/babies and would not move to the food.

The outer bees died of cold and hunger, mostly with their head down in the comb and it is one of the saddest sights a beekeeper can see. These bees had been flying prior to the really cold spell, as I had been checking regularly in the apiary for fondant feeding.

Its like a mother not leaving her babies — they would not leave the brood and died with their heads stuck in the cells. This behaviour is described as ‘isolation starvation’.

It was a very upsetting sight — a lovely queen and a good lot of bees and brood for the time of year — I was close to tears cleaning up the frames and hive. They were such a super hive, having brought in a huge crop of honey last year, and had drawn out a brood chamber of new comb after taking off the honey.

I’ve been speaking to other beekeepers and they have had similar problems, and of course we have the usual failed queens, and now there is just a fist of bees in the brood chamber. Most years we have opened our hives on good days in late March, but the weather is too cold so far this year. Temperature’s are set to rise this coming week and there is a field of oilseed rape near some of our hives, so we will remain hopeful. The willow and gorse and dandelion are the first sources of pollen and nectar, but the bees have not been able to avail of these this spring so far anyway.

Meanwhile a split has occurred in the Federation of Irish Beekeepers Association, known as FIBKA for short. It happened at Congress in the Autumn of 2017 when there was disagreement between members of the executive and members of associations, with the result that several associations set up a new umbrella organisation called IBA CLG or“Irish Beekeepers Association Company Limited by Guarantee”. www.irishbeekeepersassociation.com

Instead of an executive with president, vice-president, chairperson etc, they facilitate their members in the same way as FIBKA, with exams, insurance and the journal is online one, not posted.

In 1887 the IBKA (Irish Bee Keepers Association ) was formed and it worked under that name until 1901 when FIBKA was formed as a continuation of IBKA.

FIBLA is an umbrella group for the Beekeepers Associations in Ireland. Each association is affiliated to FIBKA and each association pays a portion of the subscription that beekeepers pay it, to cover insurance and the cost of An Beachaire, the monthly journal, as well as running costs of FIBKA. The split was unfortunate and a pity, as the population of beekeepers is not huge, and hopefully FIBKA may learn from the experience, and in the future the associations may reunite again.