Sipa Honey Bees Resources

Here we will share useful documents, spreadsheets and videos to provide guidance and advice for beekeepers. There is more on our facebook page.

We will add more sections over time to include health, feeding & nutrition, husbandry and general management. Scroll down to see more.

General Management

Colony Inspection sheet. V1.3

Here is a colony inspection sheet that we designed and use ourselves, hope it's usefull for you.

Email Info@honeybeenucs.co.uk with ' inspection sheet ' (without the quote marks) in the subject line, you wil recieve the inspection sheet by return

Emulsified Thymol Premix - Use to treat nosema apis and to stop home made syrups fermenting

Place 30g Thymol crystals in a honey  jar. Add 5ml of isopropyl  alcohol to the crystals, then place jar into a water bath of boiling water to speed up the dissolving process. When dissolved place to one side.

In another jar, pour in 140 ml of boiling water and add 1 teaspoon of lecithin granules, stir well, and place this jar into a water bath of boiling water, stirring often for about ten minutes or so until most of the lecithin granules have dissolved, you can then strain this mixture through a tea strainer or similar to remove any granules that have not dissolved fully.

Simply add the dissolved thymol to this mix and shake well. It will look just like a jar of milk. If the mixture forms any crystals at a later date, place the jar into a hot water bath reheat, this should dissolve the crystals. This mixture will keep indefinately.

Honey Bee Health

Treating Nosema Apis with Thymolated Syrup

Add 5ml of the emulsified Thymol mixture to 1 litre of 1:1 syrup and stir well, the syrup will go milky. Lightly Spray each frame in the infected hive on both sides and all of the bees, repeat the treatment three times, once every four days. If the bees react to the spray, a couple of drops of lemon grass oil in the mix could reduce the reaction.

A scientific paper discussing the use of Thymol to treat nosema apis : http://www.scialert.net/qredirect.php?doi=pjbs.2005.1142.1145&linkid=pdf

Free Bee Health phone app for Iphone or android produced by the Government of Alberta Canada

The Bee Health app is based on current scientific knowledge to address honey bee diseases and pests. It is a handy resource to help beekeepers to detect, diagnose, manage and treat honey bee diseases and pests. Yes, I know..... we don't have bears here in the UK !

Search your App store for more info & to download. For IOS,  https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/bee-health/id1005231410?mt=8#  or Android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ca.ab.gov.beehealth&hl=en

Feeding & Nutrition

Syrup Calculator Spreadsheet. V1.4a

We developed this tool to easily calculate correct proportions to produce sugar syrups of differing strengths & volumes used for supplementary feeding. It will also calculate the amount of stores contributed from feeding heavy syrup. Currently calculating in Metric.

This new version also allows you to calculate proportions to augment or dilute syrups you already have. I've also included the Emulsified Thymol mix instructions for preserving home made sugar syrup. Further enhancements to come, check back for updates.

Email info@honeybeenucs.co.uk with ' Syrup Calculator ' (without the quote marks) in the subject line, you will recieve the spreadsheet by return.

Stopping home made sugar syrup from fermenting & going mouldy

Simply add 5ml of the Emulsified Thymol Mixture to five litres of sugar syrup.

Husbandry

Requeening agressive bees

Trying to requeen an agressive colony presents unique challenges. The process detailed below is one way of dealing with this issue.

Create a nuc with plenty of young bees ,emerging brood, pollen and honey. Leave it in the original apiary so that the flight bees return to the original colony. Reduce the entrance to make it easier to defend and feed the nuc with syrup. Introduce the queen to this nuc, once established combine the aggressive colony (now Q-) to it by doing a “newspaper combine”.

You could also consider doing the introduction using a “push in cage” this is normally near to 100% effective.

Learning how to perform an Artifical Swarm

This can be daunting for new beekeepers, but It's an essential skill that should be mastered. Here is an excellent youtube video showing the process.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQPQj_UhmMk