OKEHAMPTON Beekeepers’ final apiary meeting of this summer season was hosted by Brian Howell at his garden apiary site at Fursham, near Hittisleigh.

The meeting was well attended by some 20 members of the branch. Brian’s bees are kept in an orchard area adjacent to lawns. The presence of the appropriate hoops and mallets hinted that these were on occasion used for games of croquet!

The weather was beginning to close in on the afternoon of the inspections, following an otherwise fine morning. The bees were however reasonably untroubled by this and were not unduly phased by our interventions. The size of the meeting necessitated the group being split into two with inspections being led by Ray King and Simon O’Sullivan.

The first inspection, performed by Ray examined a colony originating from an artificial swarm earlier this year.

Brief examination of the single super above the National Brood Box showed this to contain few bees and very little stores. The brood box itself held few bees and stores in the first three frames inspected (these were at the back of the box the far side from the entrance which faced south west) with brood being concentrated over about seven frames towards the entrance (south facing) side of the box.

Ray suggested that the bees had preferred the south side as it is warmer, benefitting from direct sunlight. Inspection showed sealed and open brood. A fine looking queen with a long dark abdomen was spotted and expertly marked with a yellow spot (this year’s colour) by Ray.

The colony needed feeding to get through the winter, but was otherwise in good condition, headed up by a healthy new queen.

Inspections were performed on the remaining three colonies in standard National boxes and more queens were found and marked. More feeding was in all cases appropriate. This reflects the general situation in the South West which has given rise to repeated warnings from the NBU about honeybee colony starvation.

The final hive inspection was performed by Brian himself. Brian has recently set up his own "Zest" beehive constructed from two feet Insulation blocks and he kindly took us through this revolutionary new concept in beekeeping.

The Zest Hive leans towards top-bar or long hive in its design with the colony expanding along the length of the enclosure rather than vertically via addition of supers. It does use frames which are very deep – about 18 inches or two insulation blocks deep.

There is a queen excluder but this operates vertically and can be used to partition inside the hive. The maximum enclosure size in the Zest is potentially very large and two colonies – one at each end can be easily accommodated.

Brian had had some problems with getting colonies started in the Zest, from this year’s swarms but there now appeared to be a little queen-right colony at one end, starting to lay up. Fingers crossed they do well and build up in time for the winter.

The rain fortunately held off, allowing us to enjoy a picnic bring and share tea on the lawn outside. Simon thanked Brian and Carol for their kind hospitality and an interesting and innovative afternoon of beekeeping.

Our next meeting at 7.30pm on Thursday, October 12, at Whiddon Down Village Hall, kicks off our winter programme. This will be a talk by Somerset Beekeepers’ Ken Edwards, entitled: "What our bees are telling us".

Will Pyne