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Monday 24 Sept 2020
BBKA Chair, Anne Rowberry, says thanks for a successful Asian Hornet Week in which we have seen the first Asian Hornet nest of 2020 located and destroyed:
"As we come to the end of a very successful BBKA Asian Hornet Week I hope you have enjoyed reading and viewing all the resources that have been available on the BBKA website and our social media channels.
"I would like to thank our Patron, Jimmy Docherty, for supporting us and the NBU for sharing the launch of their new video and Rebecca Clarkson for liaising, sharing links with the NBU and helping to compile the programme.
"We are also grateful to the researchers who contributed their photos, videos and experience. Peter Kennedy for the information about his recent research trip to Jersey to test the small, new radio tags and Prof Xesus Feas for sharing his work from Spain. Xesus started out week with an excellent video and continued to share short clips and photos. Thank you to Katy and...
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Lead rain after the Notre Dame cathedral fire, and how honey bee colonies map this contamination
By J. van der Steen PhD - AlveusAB Consultancy, The Netherlands - The international INSIGNIA group Honey bee colonies are well equipped as bio samplers of contaminants in the environment, and how beekeepers can cooperate optimally with scientists to map this contamination is currently being studied at the European Union level in the Insignia citizen science project. Regularly, new studies are published about how honey bees and hive products can be applied to detect environmental contaminants. This is a very promising development. Apiculture is a world-wide activity and with adequate tools and the help of apiculturist citizen science, a world-wide network can be built to search for contaminants.
An interesting study was published recently in July 2020. Kate Smith and co-workers published the article Honey maps the Pb fallout from the 2019 fire at Notre Dame cathedral, Paris: a geochemic...
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Lead rain after the Notre Dame cathedral fire, and how honey bee colonies map this contamination
By J. van der Steen PhD - AlveusAB Consultancy, The Netherlands - The international INSIGNIA group Honey bee colonies are well equipped as bio samplers of contaminants in the environment, and how beekeepers can cooperate optimally with scientists to map this contamination is currently being studied at the European Union level in the Insignia citizen science project. Regularly, new studies are published about how honey bees and hive products can be applied to detect environmental contaminants. This is a very promising development. Apiculture is a world-wide activity and with adequate tools and the help of apiculturist citizen science, a world-wide network can be built to search for contaminants.
An interesting study was published recently in July 2020. Kate Smith and co-workers published the article Honey maps the Pb fallout from the 2019 fire at Notre Dame cathedral, Paris: a geochemic...
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BBKA's YouTube Channel is available here
There are videos about Asian hornets, a message from patron Jimmy Doherty, and a collection of other videos.
There are a few short videos of practical beekeeping help listed below. This video set will be added to, so please subscribe to the YouTube Channel.
Practical Beekeeping - How & why to move frames in a Super
Practical Beekeeping - How to judge if uncapped honey is ready for extraction
Practical Beekeeping - Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus
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Monday 14 September 2020
The Gosport Asian Hornets were the first confirmed in 2020 and their nest has been located and destroyed.
The hornets were first reported flying around a bunch of grapes in an area north of Gosport in Hampshire. Bee inspectors set up monitoring traps and tracked the hornets to an apple tree.
The nest has now been dealt with by the Animal and Plant Health Agency ( APHA) National Wildlife Management Centre.
Inspectors are monitoring for any other Asian Hornets.
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Monday 24 Sept 2020
BBKA Chair Anne Rowberry says thanks for a successful Asian Hornet Week in which we have seen the first Asian Hornet nest of 2020 located and destroyed:
"As we come to the end of a very successful BBKA Asian Hornet Week I hope you have enjoyed reading and viewing all the resources that have been made available on the BBKA website.
"I would like to thank our Patron, Jimmy Docherty, for supporting us and the NBU for sharing the launch of their new video and Rebecca Clarkson for liaising, sharing links with the NBU and helping to compile the programme.
"We are also grateful to the researchers who contributed their photos, videos and experience. Peter Kennedy for the information about his recent research trip to Jersey to test the small new radio tags and Xesus Feas for sharing his work from Spain. Xesus started our week with an excellent video and continued to share short clips and photos. Thank you to Katy and Epping Forest for linking the BBKA site...
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Urban bees – can businesses help through green infrastructure?
In this study we focus on honeybees and other pollinators in an urban landscape. The central point of the study are the Grey Street Gathering planters: two small flowerbeds that are seasonally installed in the very heart of Newcastle upon Tyne. Apart from the social and economical benefits this novel green space brings, we aim to establish whether small sites like this can have an impact on urban pollinators. In order to do so, we monitored 14 urban flower beds of different sizes in Newcastle. In addition, we also monitored two rural sites for comparison. At each site, we identified the plants in flower, counted the numbers of floral units per plant species and observed which insects (and how many) were visiting the flowers. An overview of the sites is given in Table 1. In addition to the field work we also analysed honey samples from a selection of urban and rural hives and identified the pollen in this honey.
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An extract from the blog article by Peter Davies which can be read in full here https://aphascience.blog.gov.uk/2020/09/11/asian-hornet/
Dealing with an incursion
When a report comes in with a photograph that can be clearly identified as an Asian hornet, the NBU local contingency operation swings into action.
Firstly, the local inspector will head to the location to try and collect a sample hornet to send to FERA science at Sand Hutton for a formal identification and possible genetic analysis.
Secondly, a small team of 4- 6 inspectors and an incident commander assemble at the location to start the ground work to enable monitoring and tracking operations to commence. This will involve door to door visits with information sheets to gain the public’s help and support as we may need access to gardens, private property and grounds as well as public spaces. The team need to familiarise themselves with the local area, terrain and locations of amenities services such as hospi...
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10 Sept 2020
The first Asian Hornet of 2020 has been confirmed in Gosport in Hampshire. Beekeepers and members of the public were today asked to remain vigilant.
The National Bee Unit has confirmed the sighting of Asian Hornets on a bunch of grapes in an area near Gosport. Live tracking of the hornets is underway and they hope to find the nest soon.
The Asian hornet is smaller than our native hornet and poses no greater risk to human health than our native wasps and hornets. However, they do pose a risk to honey bees.
This is the first confirmed UK sighting since October 2019, when two related nests were detected and destroyed near Christchurch, Dorset. DNA tests on those nests and two others found in 2019 have shown that the queens all came from France.
Defra’s Chief Plant and Bee Health Officer Nicola Spence said:
"By ensuring we are alerted to possible sightings as early as possible, we can take swift and effective action to stamp out the threat posed by...
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