OKEHAMPTON Beekeepers’ August meeting, our last but one for this summer’s programme, was a visit to Tiverton Branch Apiary at Knightshayes.

August meetings have in the past had a sparse attendance with members being away on holiday or otherwise engaged. Our chair, Simon, was himself unable to attend this meeting, as he has been taking the battle to the Asian Hornet by directly assisting our beekeeping colleagues in the Channel Islands.

Nevertheless, some eight of our members made the trip to Tiverton where we were welcomed by Branch Chair, Malcolm Jenkins, Tony Lindsell, DBKA Chair and also Tiverton Branch Programme Secretary plus about a dozen Tiverton Branch members who had come to their branch apiary as hosts for us visitors.

After we completed the afternoon’s business, so lead by Tiverton’s apiary manager, Baruch Livneh we approached the hives. These are in three small groups, in a small copse just off the beaten track, out of the way from the visiting public, but a conveniently short walk from the apiary bee shed, in which branch equipment is housed.

We first visited the lower hives where Baruch inspected a five frame Nucleus, checking for brood before feeding the Nucleus with syrup, refilling a small rapid feeder. He worked expertly and very gently, with no gloves, removing each frame and showing the group the patches of sealed brood in brood nest, now confined to the central frames.

Next, we walked on to the top group of hives, which were in partial shade amongst a small group of young saplings. Baruch here opened a much larger, stronger colony; three supers which had recently been extracted within the past month. The recently extracted drawn comb was already being refilled with nectar.

He showed frames from the lowest box, already two-thirds filled, before removing the queen excluder to examine the brood-and-a-half below.

Baruch took the opportunity to talk about the “Rose Hive”, an approach to beekeeping pioneered by Tim Rowe. Tim, who started beekeeping in the beautiful West Cork, southern Island, has abandoned queen excluders altogether and uses a design of beehive similar to our National, but with all boxes a standard size – 190mm deep. So each Rose Hive box is about half-way between a National Brood and a National Super.

Baruch checked the brood nest in the big colony and having identified eggs to establish all was well, decided to close up the box.

The bees were beginning to get fed up with all the attention. It was approaching the end of the season after all and the weather was overcast and muggy – far from ideal conditions for opening a colony.

We then adjourned to enjoy a super tea that Tiverton Branch had laid on for us and also a good natter about bees! Our next meeting, the last of this summer will be at Eggesford on Saturday, September 15 where Neil Lamey will be our host and the subject will be autumn feeding to prepare colonies for the winter.

WP