OKEHAMPTON Beekeepers’ third meeting of the winter programme, held on December 8, was attended by about 30 members and featured a new and unusual weapon in the beekeepers’ armoury for the ongoing fight against Varroa.

The meeting was opened by our branch chair, Marian. Many of us have heard of “The Bee Gym” but far fewer, I suspect have any idea what it is or how it works. Stuart Roweth, inventor and developer of The Bee Gym attended in person to present to us what it is and how it works.

Asian Hornets are now almost certainly present in the UK and beekeepers have been advised to put out traps in early February to try to kill queen hornets before they establish their own colonies.

One of our members, Richard Flenley had brought along an example of a home-made trap, made from a two litre plastic fizzy drink bottle, so that we could see the design.

Stuart Roweth comes from an engineering background and this has led him to consider a Varroa solution which physically removes mites from bees. The initial design was a modified hive entrance incorporating a thread under which the bees were forced to pass so that Varroa mites are removed from their backs as they go in and out.

Although this seemed to work it suffered from limitations. Mites typically attach themselves to the underside rather than the back of bees, where the bee is physically unable to scratch it off with its legs.

Also the hive entrance device does not help bees already in the hive. But the thread across the entrance did produce some interesting results. Counter to intuitive logic, the bees appeared to deliberately use the thread for grooming rather than avoid it as an obstacle. Further investigative work followed, using devices based on mascara brushes, but these tended to remove excessive amounts of pollen, especially when deployed to the underside of the bee.

This led Stuart to consider the next stage, provision of an optional “grooming” device sitting on the hive floor, positioned within the hive itself. This “production” model, which is now being mass produced and marketed, is a small plastic rectangle incorporating wires, paddles and “scratching posts”. This sits a couple of inches in from the hive entrance.

Stuart is now working on further developments of the Bee Gym, little plastic panels that will attach to the comb itself within the brood area. The plan is for this type of Bee Gym to include maybe a dozen panels to be attached to several frames within the hive.

The session ended with a lively question and answer session. The evening was rounded off by enjoying seasonal mince pies and mulled wine, kindly prepared by Annie and Suzanne.

Our next meeting, on Thursday, January 12, will be a talk given by Bill Summers about the “Zest Hive”.

Will Pyne