Going against the Flow

Some time last year I did a blog on the revolutionary Flow Hive. I think it must have been when I was using Wordpress and can't find it, but to summarise:-
- I have no doubt they are genuine people who have stumbled on something that had consequences they could never have expected.
- It is a brilliant technical solution.
- its a solution to a problem that doesn't really exist.


The FH rode on the back of a perfect storm.
- The people who make it seem to be nice entirely reasonable people so buyers don't think they are being ripped off.
- It taps [excuse pun] into peoples well meaning, and probably ill-informed wish to 'help the bees'.
- It promises easy honey and not having to disturb the bees getting it thereby appealing to our eco side
- The press were able to give it mass coverage as they originally wanted  £70000 to develop it and got $13m and there's nothing like nice people making loads of money selling something ecologically sound to produce endless column inches.

Bee keepers more experienced that I have pointed out numerous possible technical issues with the FH but my main problems with the hive are twofold.
Firstly I think they are bee hives for people who don't want to keep bees. Bees are not nice friendly things like cats and dogs and you don't have any sort of relationship with them. They are utterly unaware of us and can be difficult to manage if provoked or ill. The promise of not having to get involved and having easy honey is obviously attractive.
Secondly I think I think its based on a false premise.

Out of curiosity after my initial blog I set up a eBay search for Flow Hives. Nothing for a long time and then like buses four turned up in the space of a couple of weeks.
FH1 - Sold for £500. Auction said 'beat the queue. Avoid the wait'
FH2 - started at 99p but didn't last a few hours because the auction was closed as 'the item is no longer available'. The is eBay speak for 'someone offered me a shed load of money so I took it'.
FH3 - sold for £511.
FH4 - Simon Sprott misjudged this as it wasn't sold at £599 and wasn't re-listed.

All four were unused and the sellers didn't have nor had any other bee keeping equipment for sale.
Two of the auctions were because of a 'change in circumstances'. I suspect this could be translated as
' Because of the press coverage I bought one of these things as I wanted to make some money out of it but couldn't admit this so lets pretend there has been a change in my circumstances'.
One of the change in circumstances said she 'ordered this and learnt about bee keeping'. I wonder if she meant to say she ''ordered this and learnt about bee keeping' by reading a book'?
Anybody who tries to keep bees after reading a book is at best misguided. I'm reading a book about open heart surgery but I don't feel too confident about giving it a go without help.

I had a look at the Flow Hive web site which is nice looking and well laid out. In the UK I find beekeeping forums to be populated by grumpy old men who seem to take delight in ridiculing questions from new bee keepers, saying things they would never say to their face.
The Flow Hive forum is noticeably different from the UK ones and there are lots of questions that the Grumpy Old Men would have a field day with.

If you put Flow Hive in Google you will find listing of sites saying things like:-

Turn the Flow™ Key and watch as pure, fresh honey flows right out of the hive and into your jar. No mess, no fuss, no heavy lifting, and no expensive processing equipment.
Through the clear end-frame view, you can see when the honey is ready without opening up the hive. The extraction process is so gentle, the bees barely notice at all

Flow is a revolutionary beehive invention, allowing you to harvest honey without opening the hive and with minimal disturbance to the bees. 

The USP's of the Flow Hive seem to be 'honey on tap' and 'not disturbing the bees'.
In the previous blog I mentioned the part of the promotional video where a pair of gurning hippies were pouring honey over their waffles [no bees in sight strangely] and it seems to me the hive is just turning a bee hive into a vending machine so we can have the convenience of honey whenever we want it, irrespective of what else is going on in the hive.

As for the 'not disturbing bees', I had a look at the FAQ section.
In reply to the FAQ

 'If I get a Flow Hive does this mean I never have to open the hive?' [the FH is for people who probably don't like bees but just want honey after all] ,

 the reply is

 'All Flow™ hives need to be opened for inspection, just like regular beehives.'

In reply to the FAQ

 'Do I need to smoke the hive',

 the reply is

No, not when you are operating the Flow™ comb or just viewing the bees........You will still need a smoker to do the routine inspection of the brood nest.

So the FH web site says that apart from extraction you will still need to routinely open the hive which during swarming season can be every 9 days and you should still smoke them as you would do a normal hive. So no saving in disturbance there.
Therefore the FH only apparently reduces disturbance to the bees when honey is extracted. People are often surprised when I say extraction normally takes place twice a year.
When honey is extracted from a FH the frames are split in two which I would have thought slightly disturbing. Also as the cappings are still on the hive the bees have to stop making honey, chew the old cappings off and start again.
I think routine inspections which FH'ers still have to do regularly, are far more disturbing than honey extraction. When I extract honey from my hives, I lift off the supers and place them on two blocks near the hive leaving plenty of space for the bees to get out from underneath. On top of the supers I put a frame with hession spread over it which is spraying with a liquid that is 'A non-toxic blend of natural oils and herb extracts for clearing bees quickly from supers.' The bees leave the supers which are empty in 2-5 minutes and return to new supers placed on the hive.
So is the FH really reducing disturbance to the bees?

Bees News

BEE NEWS

Scald End
Just after I got the Shed back I found myself in the Scald End area and couldn't resist having a quick look.
Its been several months since I was last there and although I had put fondant in the hives, I was worried they might be short of food. It was a warm day and when I arrived I found all four hives had bees flying. Hurrah!!

I came back the following day with bags of candipolline for them but it was much colder and they weren't venturing out. Saying that once I took the crown board off Hives 3-5 they all decided they really didn't want to be disturbed and made this fact perfectly clear. I got these 3 hives from the same source so I expect they share their behaviour.
The first three hives had built comb in the space below the crown board which was dry so taken out. Hive 1 was particularly busy and considering this was the weird swarm that decided to set up in a nuc box in my garden I was pleased to see it doing so well and the bees seem calmer than the other hives. Once the season is underway I will find and mark the queen and see if I can raise some queens from her. I will probably use either the Snellgrove or Horsley boards that I have ordered to produce some new colonies from her during the swarming season.
Hive 5 [there is no Hive 2!] was on the small side and hadn't built any brace comb and was only about 5 frames wide. Hopefully the food will keep them going although they were all bringing in pollen the day before so hopefully all the queens are laying.

Bumble Bees
This blog started off as a honey bee blog but as time has gone on things have diversified a bit and I've become more interested in other types of bees. I have been a member of the Bumble Bee Conservation Trust for some time and have done a survey for them about BB's in my area and I think they are, for want of a better word, cute.

As I am now doing talks for WI's, schools etc and talk to people about 'bees' at markets I decided to buy a proper bumble bee nesting box and see if I can start up a BB colony.
The maker of the nest provides proper nesting material with grass, shredded paper and kapoc which is mouse scented as BB's often use mouse holes to make a nest and will be attracted by the scent.

The box has a red perspex lid so if you take the roof off they are not alarmed by the bright sun light.

Its suggested you make an extended entrance to try and mimic an entrance to a mouse hole.
Amongst the remains of the old engine that was still in the back of Shed when I picked it up, I found a piece of radiator hose that was exactly the right diameter.
Its also suggested you try to fool the BB by making the entrance look larger than it is and also have some sort of contrast to make it easier to spot. I drilled a hole in a piece of wood I painted yellow and put some black tape around it to make it look like a bigger hole.

The nest was placed in a hedgerow as BB's patrol raised ground looking for mouse holes; and covered it with some branches and leaf litter.

It faces a field behind my house where the farmers plants wildflower seed so it should be great for bees

Solitary Bees
I got the SB nest from the same man as the BB nest and it is a thin box with a removable cassette in it. Into the cassette are drilled tunnels for the bees to lay their eggs in and it has perspex sides. At the end of the season these can be removed so the tunnels are cleared of parasites. The outside of the box has removable doors to view the cassette.

 It needs to face south west and to achieve this, and get the benefit of the field by my house where the BB nest is, I put it at the end of my garden on a post about 3 ft high.

 Some SB's, particularly Red Mason bees, use mud to seal the compartments in the tunnels in the cassette, so to entice them in some mud is spread across the entrances.

We'll see what happens and if something sets up in either of the nests I can set up my trail cam to take some pictures and videos.

Lottery funded bee keeping and The Shed

I didn't deal well with swarms last year and my end of term report would have said 'Could do a lot better'.
My bees at Scald End are a bit of a problem as they are 5 miles away so not so easy to keep an eye on.
So I have been looking at using some other ways of dealing with swarming in particular using what are know as Snelgrove and  Horsley boards [explanations of which will be in a future blog].
Problem is if you buy them from Big T [bee keepers will know who I mean] they are ridiculously expensive considering that are little more than a modified crown board made of plywood, and completely uneconomic to have one for each hive.
I had been looking at them again recently and came across a company that sold them for half what Big T were selling them for. Then last week I got an email from the National Lottery :-

We've got some news about your ticket from the draw on Wednesday 16 Mar 2016.
Please sign in to your account as soon as you can for more information.
Congratulations and thank you for playing.

This is it I thought, a life changing amount of money is mine.
£25.
Then this morning I got another email from them.

We've got some news about your ticket from the draw on Wednesday 23 Mar 2016.
Please sign in to your account as soon as you can for more information.
Congratulations and thank you for playing. 

Ok this time its going to be The Big One?.
£51

Cumulatively about the same amount as a Horsley and Snelgrove board.
They are on order.

Incidentally on the principle of third time lucky, if I get another email from the National Lottery this will have been my last ever blog.  [I do wonder if someone who wins millions just gets the same sort of email]

Many of you will be aware of my beloved Land Rover. It is affectionately known as The Shed and is part Site of Special Scientific Interest, part National Heritage Site, part reportable health hazard, but mostly a rusting lump of agricultural machinery.
What seems years ago, it suddenly became very ill and came to a wheezing stop on the A603.

Extensive analysis revealed it was suffering from PISS or Piston Is Seized Syndrome as it is better known. Rogers of Bedford undertook the difficult task of trying to nurse The Shed back to health but eventually decided it needed major transplant surgery. A new engine.

Months passed as a suitable transplant was hunted down. Possible replacements appeared and were rejected then a couple of months a suitable donor was found and the delicate task of replacing a rusting lump of agricultural metal with another lump of rusting agricultural metal began.

The process was successful and once again The Shed rumbled into life.

Just as it seemed we were about to be re-united it turned out it needed to be MOT'd. Appropriate valves, grommets and flanges of the right colour and shape were purchased. Bits of metal were hit with suitable hammers and it finally passed.

We were reunited yesterday and surprisingly Rogers had tried to clean it meaning several rare species of microbial life will forever be lost to the scientific world. Also it turns out The Shed is blue not the brown colour as I thought so I will be looking for a muddy ditch to drive through or perhaps I should buy this
The Rogers mechanics obviously have a sense of humour as they put those white plastic bag things on the seats to keep them clean.

The bee keeping relevance to all this is that I will at long last be able to get to the Scald End bees to see how they are and to give them the feed I have already given to the Ravensden bees.

Also in the next month some new colonies will be delivered and I need the Shed to get to the apiaries.

 

I think they might be OK

This is a tense time of year for me.
During the winter there's nothing much you can do except worry and put some fondant in the hive for them to tide themselves over and hope.
Therefore I almost try and ignore them even though the Ravensden bees are on the route where I take my dogs for a walk. I just peer at them through the branches.
However the time must come when I reintroduce myself to them.

Last year I insulated the Ravensden hives with bubble wrap and hessian so as a first step I decided to take it off. It was quite mild yesterday so I took off the hessian and hung it up in the trees to dry out.
I then took the roof off R6 and gently prised up the crown board so I could have a quick peek inside.
Bees! Obviously not a huge number but enough.
R5 - the same. R4 - the same. R3 - the same.
R1 is the smallest of the bunch and the most vulnerable. Up came the crown board. Bees.
Bits of fondant were poked in where needed.
As The Shed still isn't fixed there's no way I can get to the Scald End bees. However they have always been pretty robust so hopefully they are OK.

Last year I bought two colonies from a very experienced bee keeper and they were wonderful;. Amazing temperament and productive. However the bloody wasps killed them both off. Recently he had some more colonies for sale and I couldn't resist.
They should be ready in the next few weeks as will the package for the Top bar Hive.

When the bees emerge its a dangerous time of year for them as the queen is starting to lay again and there's little forage available. Therefore its customary to feed them fondant and in previous years I have also put some blocks of pollen in to provide them with the protein they need. Its still too cold to feed them 1:1 syrup

This year I am trying Candipolline which is a mixture of fondant and pollen.

It comes in 1/2kg bags and holes are put in the bag for the bees to get to it.
A bag was added to each hive and I  de-propolised the porter escapes and removed the comb they had built above the frames into the eke. It was vitually all dry and I will keep it to show at markets or talks. There was some that was granulated which I left by the entrance for them to scavange.

Emily Bee, this is all your fault.

 I have numerous blogs that I start and don't finish. This can be for a variety of reasons mostly because I get bored with it or realise its becoming too much of a rant. Occasionally I realise the content may go beyond being a 'Dissappointing opinion' and may result in people wearing hoodies carrying pitchforks and blazing torches outside my house.
This blog falls into this category but I read something today that made me think the blog needed adding to and I would publish it anyway.
Tin hat on.

Part One

For the two other people who read this blog, you will know that Emily Bee is often kind enough to comment and on the last two blogs mentioned honey and pregnancy. I first encountered this issue quite a while ago but have never been brave enough to do a blog on it before now. However because of Emily I have added it to my list and I might as well do a blog on it and get it out the way


Last year I met a couple at a Farmers Market who had a young baby with them. They tried the honey, honeycomb etc and I half jokingly asked if the little one wanted a little bit of honey but the Mum said you shouldn't give honey to a baby under a year.
I was a bit surprised as I had never heard of this and if anything had a dim recollection of Mums dipping dummies in honey as a pacifier.
Again this is an issue of little relevance to me as a bee keeper but I thought  if I'm selling honey, its something I need to know about so I settled down for a few hours Googling to find something specific or some scientific data.
And found absolutely nothing.

I started off with 'Why can't babies eat honey' and there was nothing.
There were several references to botulism, such as:-

Honey shouldn't be given to a child under one as there is a small risk that it can contain spores of the Clostridium botulinum bacterium which could cause infant botulism. Symptoms may include constipation, listlessness and lack of appetite.

So I then had a look for botulism and found an NHS page about it which said:-

infant botulism can occur when a baby ingests spores of the C. botulinum bacteria in contaminated soil or food, such as honey

and,

However, you should avoid giving honey to babies less than 12 months old because it has been known to contain C. botulinum spores.

OK, good enough for me. If the NHS say so that's fine.
However it also said:-

There were only 16 cases of infant botulism in England and Wales between 1975 and 2013, although 10 of these occurred from 2007 onwards. None of the 16 cases were fatal.

So in 38 years fortunately there hasn't been a single infant fatality. I thought I would have another look for some more information and I did find something more authoritative, more comprehensive than mere scientific evidence.
An article in The Daily Mail.

The headline screamed
Babies left fighting for their lives after getting botulism 'from eating honey'  
It went on to say:-

Two British babies have contracted a rare life-threatening disease triggered by eating honey.The boys, aged three months and five months, had to be put on life-support machines suffering from infant botulism.Both had been feeding badly and showed typical symptoms – a floppy head, drooping eyelids and constipation. They were cured only after medication costing £50,000 a dose was flown in from America.The incidents, confirmed last week, have prompted public health chiefs to warn that infants under one should not be given honey.

So here it was, apparently the case that prompted the NHS to warn about babies having honey. Now when anybody asks me about it I can show them the NHS stuff and Daily Mail article.

It went on:-

The younger boy had eaten honey, while the older one had been given a homoeopathic treatment that may have contained honey, which can carry the potentially deadly bacteria.

'a homoeopathic treatment that may have contained honey' - Mmmmmmm.
Much later in the article it says

He had taken the homoeopathic remedy before becoming ill, though tests on it showed no trace of botulism

 and,

His mother admitted giving him honey at home, though tests on what was left in the jar also failed to detect the botulism bacteria. 

 So, one of the boys had taken a homoeopathic remedy which didn't contain honey nor any trace of botulism, and the other had honey that also had no trace of botulism in it.

To remind you the headline said
'from eating honey' , 
the article then goes on to say  

Two British babies have contracted a rare life-threatening disease triggered by eating honey. 

yet the same article said only one of the boys had eaten honey and there was no trace  of botulism in the homeopathic remedy or honey.
Could this be the first example for 38 years of sloppy journalism?

The article then takes a predictable turn by bringing in AN EXPERT.  Except where the BBC are desperately trying to be balanced, most experts are there just to support the drift of the article - I have never seen something like 'an expert in XXX said 'sorry you're article is badly researched, badly written and misleading. You're just trying to generate web traffic to your site aren't you|?'
If they do they know they will never be asked again so its easier yo go with the flow and collect the fame and cheque.

The expert starts off by saying 'I am concerned that not enough mothers and women know about infant botulism and what can cause it. Children under 12 months should not be fed honey. 
She then goes on to say 'They don’t need homeopathic preparations or herbal tea. They should also be kept away from dust and soil .....’ So far so-so then things go a bit weird when she finishes with ',,,,and pet terrapins'

'Pet terrapins'?  So the countries favourite flushable pet can carry botulism?Surely the country needs to know the perils of this reptile. What does the NHS have to say?
I searched the net to find more of the perils of this plague carrying reptile. Nothing.
Perhaps its a conspiracy by the multi million pound terrapin industry to bury bad news but I found nothing.
I looked at several pet sites selling terrapins hoping to see 'WARNING - terrapins spread botulism that could result in the importation of expensive medication and a hysterical article in the Daily Mail', but no.
I did find a series of horribly detailed medical reports on a previous case of two children in Ireland who contracted botulism which was traced to the their parents terrapin tank.  [the parents didn't live in the tank, the tank belonged to their parents and it had terrapins in it]. No mention of honey.
The children survived.

I expect to be asked in an accusatory way, 'Would you give honey to a baby?' Would you take the risk' 
Don't know' would be the reply, 'as far as I know there hasn't been a fatal case of botulism in 38 years. Also, why would I - its a treat food for adults that has well known medical benefits. If parents are so concerned about what their children are fed, why are there so many kids in McDonalds eating Chicken McNuggets or drinking a Starbucks coffee with 20-25 tea spoons of sugar in it,?'
As regards the 'risk', there hasn't been a fatality in 38 years and I expect the response will be 'it might happen one day'. It might and equally one day I might be hit on the head by a meteorite. It hasn't happened in the last 38 years but it might do.

 
Part Two
Today I found an article in the Telegraph with the headline

Chemical found in babies' dummies and condoms 'probably causes cancer'

The article describes how the World Health Organisation has said that  MBT - full name 2-mercaptobenzothiazole, a chemical that is found in condoms and babies' dummies "probably causes cancer", according to world health chiefs, who ranked it alongside red meat as a possible carcinogen.
The headline is accompanied by a picture of a dummy in a babies mouth but no picture of a condom or a .............

Expert No 1 says

the small amounts of MBT in everyday products were not likely to be harmful. 

It doesn't quantify the risk although it might be there hasn't been a case in say, 38 years. In any event I don't expect people would get past the headline with the perfect panic scare headline including babies, condoms and cancer.

Expert No 2 says

"We need the regulatory system to work faster to protect us," he told the newspaper. "People would be right to be concerned about this, and to ask retailers whether this chemical is present in products that they have bought."

In the Daily Mail article about botulism it said

Social networking forums Mumsnet and Netmums have scores of queries from new mothers asking if honey is safe for babies 

I couldn't find anything about terrapins or MBT on Mumsnet or Netmums.

As for the cancerous condoms [what a Daily Mail headline that would be] and dummies, I look forward to health warnings printed on packets, NHS web sites etc.

We seem to get some sort of weird enjoyment in having the crap scared out of us by sordid little rags like the Mail. There is a website here with a list of the things the Daily Mail has claimed will give us cancer. 
Perhaps purple track suited loon David Icke was right when he said the world was being controlled by reptiles from the 4th dimension controlling humans by broadcasts from the Moon.

The season has started

For no particular reason I take the bee keeping season to start on 1st March. However its raining so I don't expect the girls to be out today and it may be a while before I start to have a look inside.

I don't really make formal New Year or New Season Resolutions but this year I hope to:-
 - get the Top Bar Hive up and running. The hive has been repaired and I have a package of bees arriving in April. 'Proper' bee keepers are a bit unkind about them but I think they are interesting if a bit impractical.
 - have a proper attempt at queen rearing. Some of the queens in Scald End will need to be replaced this year. I could just buy them but I would prefer to rear my own and I have a likely candidate for the production of the new queens.
 - Find out a bit more about solitary bees and bumblebees. Incidentally could Emily Bee email me through the contact page, I have some information for her.
 - be more vigilant with wasps. I lost three last year which was an exceptional year but I don't want it to happen again. Reading the bee keeping forums [fora?} there is a wasp catching system that is much more effective than the lemonade bottle thing I normally use.
 - Stop being stupid. A bit optimistic this but I really must prepare myself properly for inspections. In the Summer I often check the hives in shorts and flip flops and a half suite which I don't do up properly with predictable results, This year it will be full length suite, wellies and gauntlets.
 - Don't rant so much when doing the blog. It'll never happen.