Winter weather

A while back I did a blog on preparing bees for winter and mentioned there had been press reports about very early sighting of Bewick swans and how the Russians say 'the swan brings snow on its bill' and this was an omen for a very cold winter.

Although I have insulated the Ravensden bees I haven't got round to doing the Scald End bees due in part to the mild, if windy, weather we have been having. There have been reports of honey bees still flying around which oddly isn't good for them as they are consuming their winter stores at a faster rate than usual.

So what about these geese with snow on their beaks?
Turns out its a typo and the Russians call them  'the swan brings snot on its bill' not snow.
Thought you ought to know.

Christmas

At a hastily arranged press conference in the opulent magnificence of the Press Office at Honeycomb Towers, Wayne Carr CEO of North Bedfordshire Holdings the global provider of honey based products based in a shed in Bedford, spoke to the press.

'Dear hod carriers of the Fourth Estate.
Can I firstly thank you for coming and confirm the 'eat all you like, drink all you like' event we promised you will be held in the gilded halls of the Staff Canteen at the end of this presentation.
Unfortunately Dezzie, our preferred provider of Class A and B drugs is 'having a word' with the local plod but we hope he will be here with some of his 'specials' for you before you disappear down the pub.

In our ceaseless quest to squeeze as much money as possible out  out of The Great British Public we regularly hold focus groups to hear what the punters have to say. Unfortunately most of them mumble or talk utter bollocks, so we normally decide what we want to do and then persuade the punters its what they wanted anyway. Its called marketing.
However one thing we have discovered is that there is a festival held annually every year towards the end of December and we think it gives us an synergistic opportunity to maximise our customer relationship interface through an ongoing paradigm shift and to distinctively unleash an empowered consumption scenario.

We understand part of the festival involves the purchase of a small green conifer that is kept until all the needles fall off and clogs up the vacuum cleaner. It is brightly decorated with lights that constantly flash on and off to irritate the people living opposite. Chavs also decorate their house, garden, children and car with decorations that make Disneyland look like an Amish retreat.
Excessive amounts of food and drink are consumed before everyone falls asleep with The Best of Morecombe and Wise on telly.
Apparently an elderly man in his dressing gown and wearing a beard for disguise, visits the house at night and 'empties his sack'. Why he does this or whether he cleans up afterwards is not clear.

The interesting part of this festival is the requirement to spend as much as possible on gifts that are handed around and the recipients try to look pleased.
Therefore to coincide with this event we will be  relaunching our gift pack and also selling some candles of the bloke with the sack.
To remind you, the gift pack consists of a jar of honey marmalade and a jar of honey in a nice little bag. Our focus groups tells us punters like the idea of being able to choose optional extras, rather like indicators for an Audi TT, so we will give them the option of having either a bag of fudge or a bag of honeycomb to put in the bag.
Hal Ucinate the Director for  Marketing and our best creative marketing minds have been thinking outside the box [we will be buying a new lock for the box] and they have come up with a brilliant new marketing strategy which is 'Buy one for the price of two and get the second one absolutely free!!'
Any questions?

Ed Lynenuws, religious affairs correspondent for Honeycomb Sports Illustrated asked  'Is the coke here yet?'

At which point there was a stampede to the Staff Canteen.

Keeping warm for Winter

To help the bees get through winter I have insulated the hives. The hive as it was.

Its now too cold for bees to eat the syrup they were being fed in Autumn so each hive gets a block of sugar fondant that has a low water content. The fondant is put on top of the frames near to the middle of the colony to make it easier for the bees to get to.

Fondant

Next up wrap the hive in bubble wrap.

Finally wrap the hive in hessian.

I've put the queen excluder on the roof of the hive with a brick on it to [hopefully] stop it all from being blown away.

Nothing much is going to happen for a while until after Christmas when they get their oxalic treatment.
This is done so they are fairly free of varroa mite before the Spring. Its done in winter when the queen has stopped laying as the oxalic acid kills any brood in the hive as well as the varroa mites.

Roundup - brought to you by Monsanto, the people who also brought you Agent Orange.

As friends, family, my Probation Officer and psychiatrist all know I am inclined to engage in 'campaigns' arising from slights, real or imagined, by companies particularly banks and mobile phone companies.
My current campaign is with Homebase. Having read about the apparent dangers of glyphosphate, the main ingredient of Monsanto's Roundup, I checked the price of it on the Homebase web site for a blog entry. This set me wondering why they still sold it or at least why they didn't alert their customers to its possible dangers.
In fairness to Homebase they had previously banned some neonicitinoid 'bug killers' in 2013 so I thought they may be responsive to this.

Their web page for Roundup seemed to allow comments from customers so I tried to add a comment about the possible dangers of using it. I received a little pop up window saying my comment was being considered and if accepted would appear in three days.
3 days - nothing.
So I did it again.
3 days - nothing.

So I decided to take it further and Homebase, like other companies, invite customers to phone their help desk for assistance. However I'm sure everyone is aware of the problems of phoning a help desk:-
 - wait for ages listening to Green Sleeves, Enya or cheesy 80's disco.
 - speak to bored operative who have iniative and decision making abilities chemically supressed
- find you are speaking to the wrong person, or through to the wrong department.
 - Have anything you're been told contradicted or that be told there's no trace of any previous call
 - get cut off.

Email has the same problems but at least there's a record of the rubbish you are told.
So I contacted the helpdesk to be told:-

I am sorry to read that you are not very happy that are we still selling the above product due to this containing glyphosate.  I of course have no say as to whether the product is kept on sale, but I will feed this back to our buyers for this to be investigated further.

I replied

While I'm waiting for your buyers response, could you let me know on what basis Homebase decided not to publish my comments about Roundup. I assume you must have some rules as regards what is acceptable and what is not and I would like to know what they are.

Emails were exchanged and I was told:-

I am sorry to advise that you can only place a review on an item if you have received an e-mail asking you to do this.  If you did receive an e-mail to do the review then this will take a few weeks for it to show. I have e-mailed our buyers again for an explanation and will e-mail you once I have received their response. 

I resisted the temptation so say their systems shouldn't allow customers to write a review and have a reasonable expectation it would be published when they have not been been invited, that their site says a wait of 3 days not 'a few weeks' and where do they get people's email addresses from?
A few weeks later I was in Homebase and as usual handed a big wadge of paper. Thinking there may be an 'invite' I asked the cashier about it. She had never heard of it and she had worked there for a long time.

Time passed. Deadlines promised. Deadlines missed.

I idly wondered if they had any published corporate view on this sort of thing and found the sort of stuff David Brent would find embarrassing.

Our vision and values

What comes first at Homebase? That’s easy. The customer. Always. It’s one of our core values that we apply to everything we do. 

For 'customer' read 'customer's money'. The 'visions' for their staff are almost beyond parody.

As I was going nowhere their site invites people who want to complain to:-

Visit Customer Services
Call Customer Services on 0845 603 6677
Email Customer Services on enquiries@homebase.co.uk
Email Paul Loft (CEO) on mdcustomer.escalation@homebase.co.uk

1. No chance
2. Ha, bloody ha.
3. Done it.
4. OK then I'll have a go.

I'm sure you're aware that any phone call/letter/email to the MD of any company goes through numerous tiers of secretaries, Personal Adviser's, Assisistant secretaries,Personal Advisor's to the Assistant Secretary etc before it gets palmed off on some underling.
So my email was clearly addressed 'For the attention of Paul Loft'.
I did this because:-
 - I wanted to try and get the email to the right person.
 - I knew Paul Loft had left a year ago and I was curious to see if they would admit their web site doesn't know who their CEO is. [He was replaced by the wonderfully named Echo Lu].


Time passed. Deadlines promised. Deadlines missed.

Eventually I was told

I am sorry you haven't received a reply. One of my colleagues is currently investigating further with our directors office and will ask he chases a response when they are open next week and provides you with an update. Please accept our apologies for the delay in the resolution.

Time passed. Deadlines promised. Deadlines missed. then

Please accept my apologies, I have again chased our Directors office and asked they contact you as soon as possible

I'm still waiting.

of course have no say as to whether the product is kept on sale, but I will feed this back to our buyers for th

this containing glyphosate.  I of course have no say as to whether the product is kept on sale, but I will feed this back to our buyers for this to be investigated further.

A very common question I am asked is 'Has it been a good year for bees?' to which I have a range of unhelpful answers including 'No idea. There's about 250 pollinators in the UK and honey bees are only one type. I've no idea about the others'
More accurate, but equally unhelpful, is 'I don't know yet'.

Each year the British Beekeepers Association carry out a survey of their members on honey 'yeilds' which I take to mean the honey they produce to sell/give away in excess of  the amounts in the brood box as stores for winter. This years results published here state that the average yield per colony is down from 32lbs to 21lbs, a drop of about a third and mainly caused by 'the wrong weather'.
It has been a pretty bad year for me too and I haven't bothered counting up what the girls produced. Other bee keepers I have spoken to have said its been very bad for them as well.

So far I haven't seen any national coverage of the survey in the media but an article in the Western Evening Press said:-

The poor year will have an impact on honey prices, with commercial beekeepers hit as hard as those who keep bees for a hobby. Market forces will mean that with availability down, prices may have to rise. But dedicated lovers of British honey will probably swallow a price hike and keep on buying.

As usual our interest is in consumption and our concern in honey bees is largely based on the fact they produce honey. Doubtless we will get the usual 'the bees are in trouble again' coverage but to a certain extent I don't care what the honey production over the year has been.
For me the bee keeping year starts in March and the measure of a 'good' or 'bad' year is dependant on how many colonies get through the winter to the spring, not how much honey they produce.
Obviously a bad honey yield has an effect on the bees' ability to survive winter but it seems possible to have a 'bad' years yield of honey and for a bee keeper recognising the problems of building up honey production, and not taking much from the hive, administering varroa treatment and feeding properly in Autumn allowing a strong colony to build up for the winter.
Equally a 'good' years yield could be followed by a very long wet and cold winter with an occasional mild spell to increase their activity meaning more honey consumption, and for their stores to run out before spring.

This year so far hasn't been great with two, and nearly three, colonies already lost to wasps.
the BBKA also publish figures on colonies lost during the winter and last year is was 14.5% - 1 in 7.

I'll let you know how we got on in March.

Drink anyone?

In the seeming endless list of things that irritate me about the Interwebnet, high in the list is 'cute' animal video clips.
Facebook particularly is infested not only with meaningless inspirational aphorisms that make 'You don't have to be mad to work here but it helps!! - share if you agree!!' sound positively Shakespearean, but with endless 'hilarious' videos of dogs running in to glass doors, parrots jumping up and down and cats with funny faces. LOL!
Therefore I'm slightly embarrassed to add to the collection with a video of a bee. Drinking water. OMG !!!!!

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Like us bees need to drink water but they also take on water to spit out in the hive and then fan it to maintain an even temperature in hot weather.

My apiary in Scald End has a stream just a couple of yards away but at Ravensden there's no standing water for a mile or two.

The issue with drinkers [and some feeders] is the problem of the bees drowning. I have used drinkers that use a Coke/Sprite bottle as a reservoir but I have never seen bees drinking from them and I'm not convinced they work.

The most bees I have seen drinking was after heavy rain when water built up on a board that was laying at an angle and the bees were able to walk down to the 'shore line' and drink.

People use bits of cork or straw as floats for the bees to land on but I liked the look of a marble tray.

Problem with this is that in warm weather the water evaporates quickly and you would have to constantly top it up. I have bought a small ball cock that I will attach to a jerry can and have some sort of gravity feed to it from a reservoir
There's no urgency to sort out something now as the girls are settling down for the winter but its something I want to sort out before next spring.

Bees in the news

There's only two things that irritate me - people and things.
Being a bee keeper a thing that irritates me is the generally brainless and ill informed reporting of bee issues in the national press and interwebnet. One journalist will cobble together a lazy, inaccurate  piece of crap and other journalists too lazy to do their own  research and reporting, just copy it. And if you work for the Express or Mail you PUT THINGS IN CAPITALS in the middle of a sentence for no good reason.

Therefore despite the amount of coverage the plight of bees may have, its not surprising there are  urban myths and misconceptions about bee issues caused by stupid journalists.
I have a growing collection of daft newspaper articles and in my upcoming world speaking tour, coming to a Women's Institute  near you, I show a few of these. My all time favourite was something about swarms and how you can prevent them by moving the queen to another part of the hive. Tragically I fell into a coma after reading it and have never been able to find it again.

Another popped up today and I thought I might share it with you, my dear reader, and then post them as and when I come across them.
But first we could have a look at a brilliant piece of journalist that appeared in the Lancashire Evening Post, which isn't easy to get delivered to Ravensden.

The article is about Steve Garner, who looks a bit like a cross beetween an albino Darth Vader and a ragged Mel Gibson,  and Steve is a bit cross.

It says:-

'A bee keeper is buzzing mad about new advice being handed out on bumble bee swarms.'

It's a little known fact that the media are bound by something known as 'The Bee and Related Species Reporting Requirement Regulations 1994' which puts a statutory requirement on them to include the word 'buzzing' in anything relating to bees. Although not statutory, the Regulations also state it is considered good journalistic practice to have the words 'sting', 'bumble', 'hive, 'bee'' and ' swarm' in some sort of lame pun.

The reason Steve is so cross is that when people phone South Ribble Council about a bumble bee swarm they are given the number of the British Beekeepers Association.
Steve goes on to say:-

“Why on earth are the council giving out a contact number or website address for bumble bee problems when the BBKA have absolutely nothing to do with bumble bees? “It’s like them telling you to ring the BBKA about a blocked drain.”

Steve is obviously correct and this explains why the BBKA won't deal with any blocked drain I have.

However there's a slight problem.

Bumble bees don't swarm.

Who says so? Something called the Bumble Bee Conservation Trust, that's who.

However, Steve has apparently

been called out to 300 bumble bee swarms in 30 years,

Oh dear.

The South Ribble Council politely suggest:-

“We invite Mr Ganner to meet with us to

dicuss [yes, they did say 'dicuss'] his concerns.”

I would suggest they firstly discuss his level of  medication.

There are a couple of things I don't understand about this blog.
Firstly, why do I bother?

When I started going to markets it seemed a logical thing to do to have a web site which I set up as a technical exercise [ I have an IT background unfortunately but I'm better now] rather than to advertise my 'products' I do follow a couple of  blogs so again it seemed sort of logical to set up a blog and link it to the site. Again a technical exercise more than anything else.
However it does seem like I'm probably talking to myself in an empty room and given my trait of doing something and then promptly dropping it, and the fact that there are a number of blogs that I can't be arsed to finish, I suspect it won't be long before this becomes another Marie Celeste of the interwebnet.

Another thing I don't understand is how I seem to be some sort of Wolfie Smith of the bee world, railing at 'The Man' and how he's poisoning the bees and no one cares or understands.
However I would genuinely like to know if pesticides are as dangerous as some people say or neonicitinoids do the damage they are supposed to. However any discussion about this depends on scientific evidence and its clear to me that, as far as this issue is concerned, science is totally corrupt.
In other areas it might be possible for a rational discussion on the 'evidence' which may be unclear or contradictory but as soon as money is involved, all this goes out of the window and the opposing sides of the debate produce all sorts of 'evidence' support their argument.
Another dark secret I try to keep quiet, is that for a long time I worked in Financial Services where the 'scientists' were mathematical  experts called actuaries. They were the butt of endless jokes and a truism abut actuaries was if you asked them a question they would ask you what you would like the answer to be.
Such it is with scientists. Provided its financially important enough, any argument can be supported by some sort of scientific fact. These 'facts' are then presented in a friendly, smiley sort of way and those of us gullible accept it. How can science be wrong?

Since the ban on neonicitinoids, which our Government voted against and allowed the NFU a partial exemption, I have no doubt that the scientists employed by Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta et all have been beavering away producing their evidence and I watch with increasing boredom as one report is produced that contradicts the other ad nauseum in an increasingly noisy propaganda war., and recently I came across something that I found to be just another missile.

I was in the Homebase garden section and saw a solitary leaflet forlornly hanging in  a tatty dispenser zip tied to a shelf.

'Bee Informed', 'Bee safe' and 'When using insecticides in your garden' caught my eye so I took it. At markets this is the sort of thing people often ask me about so I thought I would contact the providers and see if they would let me have a few to hand out.
At home I saw it was issued by the Crop Protection Association.
A Little Voice said 'Mmmmmmmm......'

Inside it went on in the usual way about how bees need to be protected and then stated

There is no reason to stop using tried and tested pest control treatments in your garden'.

 'What about fucking Roundup?' shouted the Little Voice.

On the reverse of the leaflet it then said
Always use Garden Care Products as directed on the label and they will not harm bees.
It wasn't clear who Garden Care are and what their products are but they were listed in the 'For further information' section directly below the CPA.
I  went to the Garden Care website to see:-

The header says:-
This Crop Protection Association (CPA) website is designed to give simple,
basic information....
 I clicked the 'gardeners' link to see this:-

I clicked the 'Products' tab so see what their products were to be told

Garden Care Chemical is a term to describe a group of chemical products that control the pest organisms that are a problem in the garden and in and around the home. These products control weeds, moss , insects, fungal diseases, rats, ants and slugs.

So they [whoever 'they' are] don't have products as such.

Next onto the 'Garden Care section to find out:-

Responsible garden care means:

1. that consumers are well informed on how to use Garden Care Chemicals safely and effectively.
2. that consumers understand how garden chemicals must be disposed of safely to avoid pollution of surface and ground water.
3. that products have minimal impact on the non target plants and animals living in the garden.
4. that new products suitable for ‘organic’ gardening and new products compatible with integrated pest management are researched and developed.
5. that alternative methods of pest, weed, and disease control are considered so they can be integrated with the use of Garden Care Chemicals.
6. that new products are developed with sustainable product profiles in terms of safety, and environmental impact, including recycling of the packaging.
7. that tiered training is carried out with retailers selling and advising on Garden Care Chemicals. 

As the front page of the site says
 'Garden Care Chemicals are often confusing for the consumer with pest, disease and weed problems in the garden and home. This Crop Protection Association (CPA) website is designed to give basic information to the gardener on how to choose, use, store, and dispose of Garden Care Chemicals',, some of the statements above are weird and inappropriate.
'This stinks' said the Little Voice.

Head spinning slightly, on to the Crop Protection Association who seem to care so much about bees.
First thing I found was that the CEO is Nick von Westenholz, who was previously the head of government affairs at  .........  the National Farmers Union, but obviously a different National Farmers Union to the one that has consistently denied the impact of pesticides on bees, had an application to ease the neonicitinoid ban earlier this year refused before getting an easement from Defra who refused to say what the basis of the NFU's application was, what was the basis of their change of mind and to ban the release of the minutes of the meeting that agreed the easement in contravention of their terms of reference. Definitely a different NFU.

On their site the bee leaflet is downloadable but as I wanted a few and there was a members log in option, I wondered if I could register as a member to get them. There wasn't an option to register so I clicked the Members tab and got this:-

A roll call of the members of the Drug Cartel.

Bayer - sellers of Provado which contains neonicitinoids
Monsanto - I think we all know what they provide
Syngenta - biggest seed manufacturer, including Oil Seed rape, and a recent take over target for Monsanto
A lot of the others sell insecticides.

'Crumbs' said I falling to the floor in a faint.
'Does this mean the nice bee friendly leaflet has been produced by companies selling products that allegedly kill bees and butterflies?'
'Is this just a shameless piece of  deceitful propaganda funded by Monsanto and Syngenta'
'Are big conglomerate companies lying money grabbing bastards?'
'Is it a risk that people might take notice of the leaflet without knowing who produced it and why?'

'Yes you moron' said the Little Voice.

Some other interesting things on their site included a link to a leaflet called 'RSPB - Controlling garden pests with wildlife in mind'
The leaflet has a RSPB logo at the top and someone could assume the RSPB supports the CPA
However the RSPB official policy is:-

Pesticides are currently an important tool for farmers and other land managers in managing unwanted insects, weeds and other pests, but should be viewed and used as just one part of a toolkit of sustainable pest management methods, and only as a last resort.

Neonicotinoids were intended to be safer for people and wildlife than earlier pesticides but there is mounting evidence that they contaminate the wider environment and can pose a threat to a range of wildlife. The RSPB is calling for the EU moratorium on neonicotinoids to be expanded to cover all agricultural uses (not just flowering crops). 

Another extremely dull leaflet on their site goes on about the 'The effects of the Loss of Plant Protection Products' and is produced by the Anderson Centre. Who are they I wonder?

Looking at their web site who do you think their clients are? 

Surprisingly they include Syngenta, Bayer, the NFU and Defra. Obviously impartial then.

Elsewhere on CPA's site they say:-

There’s a great deal of debate and misunderstanding about the use of pesticides in food production and in our environment more widely, and we hope this website will help overcome any confusion by helping people to understand why pesticides are used, what their benefits are and why they’re safe for consumers and the environment

''this website' is at http://www.pesticidesinperspective.org.uk/home which is an endless stream of propaganda for the pesticides industry but has nothing about who produces the site or who back them.

Back at the leaflet it gives a link to the British Beekeepers Association. The link given is wrong although you do get through to the BBKA. The BBKA has 'previous' as regards insecticides and in the past allowed their logo to be printed on insecticides. Presumably the ones the NFU now don't want to go back to.
I wonder if the BBKA are comfortable being referred to on a leaflet that says
There is no reason to stop using tried and tested pest control treatments in your garden'.
Garden Care Products [pesticides]...... will not harm bees

Same goes for the Royal Horticultural Society

I wonder what Homebase's view on this but I have been promised a response from the Directors on another issue and have been waiting weeks for it.
Also have to wonder what the BBKA, RSPB and RHS think about ostensibly being seen to support this leaflet and am considering writing to them.

However, I don't think Wolfie can be arsed.