But a word of warning – this is a right palaver!

The process involves 7 steps:

1. Wax selection and harvest
2. Rendering
3. Preparing the show mould
4. Cleaning the wax
5. Pouring the mould
6. Cooling
7. De-moulding

1. Wax selection and harvest

Wax should be gathered from hives where there is not much propolis as this can darken it. Only super cappings should be used and these should be the cappings from clean, freshly drawn frames preferably of  heather honey as these produce the finest whitest waxes.  Only the best frames should be used and select at least twice as many as required to allow for disasters. These frames should be uncapped into a clean uncapping tray and the cappings left to drain. The following day wash the cappings in rainwater then spread them out on paper to dry.  Or pile them into a pillow case, tie the neck and spin-dry!

When dry, you can pick through them for any foreign bodies or discoloured pieces. Be ruthless – if in doubt throw it out.

2. Rendering

First, render the raw wax down into a block using a Pyrex Jug in a water bath. Pyrex does not react with wax. The water bath can be as simple as a large saucepan. If possible, set the jug on low wire grid in the water bath to raise it off the floor of the pan. This is to prevent excessive heat at the bottom of the jug. Simmer gently to prevent splashes. Remove the wax as soon as it has melted and is runny enough to go flow through a fine cloth.

Finally run the wax through the fine cloth and pour into a mould or moulds.

You now have some relatively clean beeswax but it will contain impurities so those have to be removed and the cleaned wax cast into a suitable mould.

3. Preparing the Show Mould

A Pyrex or stainless steel mould is ideal and it should be carefully examined to make sure there are no flaws as these will show up in the cake.

The show schedule will give the required weight and any other criteria. So, you have the weight but how to get the right amount into the mould?

1. Wax and water weigh approximately the same.  Also, 1 fluid ounce of water weights 1 ounce 0r 100mls of water weighs 100g. So use a  measuring jug and pour the measured water into the wax mould.
2. Mark the water level in the mould on the outside of the mould with a waterproof marker or a little strip of duct tape;
3. Next, place empty the mould in a water bowl – perhaps a washing-up bowl and hold it down with one hand while you pour in sufficient water to come just below the mark from step 4. ;
4. Measure the amount of water in the bowl or reserve the water.

Next prepare the mould for casting by washing it thoroughly in hot water and detergent then dry it carefully on a linen cloth – linen being famous for being lint-free. Add 2 or 3 drops of both soft water and detergent (Padmore) or washing up liquid and glycerine (Williams) and rub all over the inside of the mould until it seems dry. Alternatively, spray with silicone – available from candle making equipment suppliers. Silicone makes everything slippery as fish.

4. Cleaning the wax

Dust, hairs, flies – all of these things will ruin your wax cake so be sure to exclude sources of these and set the time aside so you will not be disturbed. Turn off the phone. Exclude pets, children, nosy parkers etc. If you can, wear a white coat or at least an apron, and a hat too. Heat your oven to a low setting to warm your equipment.

• Start by re-melting the rendered wax in the Pyrex jug in the water bath.
• When melted, remove immediately and pour the wax through a very fine cloth into another clean, warmed Pyrex jug.
• Carefully clean the first jug immediately while it is still warm and keep it warm and dry. Or, if you are made of money, you could have a third Pyrex jug in readiness.
• Repeat, but this time run it through filter paper into the cleaned Pyrex jug.
• Each time you do this throw away the dregs as these may contain impurities.
• Cover the jug with cling film and keep it warm.

5. Pouring the mould

First heat the wax in the Pyrex jug in the water bath again, but not above 90ºC or the wax will denature. While you are doing this, heat the reserved water to about 66ºC and heat the mould and the glass lid in the oven until slightly too hot to handle. Use your imagination how to safely test this one!

You will be ready to pour when the wax is within 1º of 70ºC. Pour the reserved, heated water into the bowl.  Float your mould in it and make sure it is steady. Then wipe the outside of the jug and gently pour a steady stream of wax into the centre of the mould taking great care not to splash or to set the mould rocking which would cause the wax to lap up the sides of the mould. Fill to the level marked on outside of mould from step 4 – it should come to rest on the bottom of the mould. Now look for any air bubbles and if you see any, quickly prick them with a warm skewer. Finally, place the hot glass plate over the top or the mould. This will keep the top of the wax mould hot and give a nice smooth, glossy surface. For reference, let’s call this entire arrangement of bowl of water, floating mould of wax plus the glass plate – the ‘Kit and Caboodle’.

6. Slow Cooling using the Oven Method

Ron Brown in his book ‘Beeswax’ describes a method of very slow cooling using the oven! Slow cooling prevents a cracking or a rippled surface.

First check the oven is level and if it isn’t – level it.

At an appropriate time, take two clean housebricks and place them in an old baking tin and put it on a shelf near the top of your oven. Check there is space on a lower shelf for the Kit and Caboodle.

Heat the oven to about 100ºC for about half an hour to heat the bricks, then drop the temperature to about 70ºC till you are ready. When you have got your bowl full of warm water, poured your wax into the mould and added the sheet of glass, turn off the oven and gently place the Kit and Caboodle into the oven and go to bed.  But make sure you have turned the oven off.

7. De-moulding

In the morning, when the wax is completely cold, see if you can pursuade it out. If it won’t oblige, you could plunge it into a bucket of cold water and with luck the wax will float free although it might take its time. Or you could try putting it into the fridge, or even the freezer for a while.

When it does come out, handle it with great care. Dry it gently with a towel but do not rub the moulded side. The idea is to remove any loose bits and pieces that would otherwise come off on the judge when he is handling it without destroying the beautiful smooth surface.

Check carefully for any impurities, cracks, hairs or any other flaws. If it’s perfect give yourself a round of applause. Otherwise, prepare to do it all over again.

Transport to the show with great care preferably in a protective case and show on velvet (Williams).

Click here for how to render beeswax

Click here for the properties of beeswax

Click here for  how to make mead from beeswax cappings

Calder,M. Recipes using Beeswax. Northern Bee Books. West Yorkshire. U.K.

Brown,B. Beeswax. Northern Bee Books. Scout Bottom Ln, Scout Rd, Mytholmroyd, Hebden Bridge,UK https://www.northernbeebooks.co.uk/products/brown-beeswax/

Hooper,T. Guide to Bees and Honey. Blandford, London. 1991.

Lindsey,F. About the Apiary. Wellington Beekeepers Association. 2001.

Manley,R.O.B. Honey Farming. Faber and Faber. London. 1946.

Padmore,F. Wax for Show (No.3). ).B.B.K.A. National Honey Show Publication. https://honeyshow.co.uk/shop/index.php/product/wax-for-show/

Witherell,P.C. Other Products of the Hive. In The Hive and the Honey Bee. Ed. Dadant & Sons. Dadant & Sons. Hamilton. Illinois. USA.

Williams,R. Beeswax for Show. In Bees, Hives and Honey – The Beekeeper’s Companion. Ed. Eddie O’Sulllivan.FIBKA. Ireland. 2000.

Thorne,E.H. Beekeeping Equipment. Wragby, Lincs. 2002-2003 http://www.thorne.co.uk

… despite its complexity, bees cannot live on honey alone. While the sugars in honey supply their energy needs, in addition they require protein, minerals and trace elements. Pollen is the source of these but like all things dietary – bees need variety as well as quantity.

Importance of Pollen

The protein content of the pollen of different plants is variable but generally very high, containing amounts comparable with peas and beans (Witherell), or seeds and peanuts (Dietz).

Protein is important because it is the building material for growth and tissue repair. As a measure of the importance of the protein in pollen, it has been shown that the amount available to a colony influences the size of the emerging brood. In fact it has been calculated that the amount of pollen required to rear a bee – from the hatching of the egg to the emergence of the adult – is between 120 and 145mg.

But it doesn’t stop there because bees continue to grow after emergence. On average, emerging bees contain 13% protein (Witherell) but by the time they are 5 days old, the heads, thoraces and abdomens of young bees contain 93%, 38%,76%, more protein respectively than those of the newly emerged (Dietz). This huge increase is brought about by a massive consumption of pollen which is initiated within a very short time of emergence, perhaps as little as two hours, and rises to a peak at about 5-9 days old before gradually diminishing and eventually tailing off at 15-18 days (Dietz).

However not all this protein intake is used in growth of the bee or development of the hypopharyngeal glands because it is on about the 3^rd day after emergence that the bees are directly employed in brood rearing, an activity that continues up until about the 13^th day (Gary) and involves the passing on of pollen-derived protein to larvae in bee milk.

During brood rearing, a nurse bee needs to digest about 10mg of pollen to produce 4mg of protein per day in brood food which is produced in the hypopharyngeal glands. The more protein that is available to the nurse bees either by concentration in, or sheer bulk of, pollen the more larvae a bee is able to feed.

Principal constituents of pollen…

In addition to protein and lipids (fats) pollen contains:

• free amino acids;
• carbohydrates (sugars, starch and cellulose);
• minerals (calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, iron, sodium, potassium, aluminium, manganese, sulphur and copper);
• vitamins – pantothenic acid, nicotinic acid, thiamine, riboflavin, ascorbic acid and small amounts of vitamins D and E;
• enzymes and coenzymes;
• pigments xanthophyll and carotene;
• sterols (Witherell).

Because these ingredients are so variable between different pollens, it is thought that bees need a good mixture of pollens to be sure they are having a balanced diet.

Minerals and Trace Elements

Who knows what minerals and trace elements are now missing from the bees’ diets as a result of the decline in wild flowers and wild flower species.

We humans know the importance of a balanced diet with lots of variety to cover the full spectrum of our dietary requirements. Peculiar conditions like ricketts or scurvy can arise when small amounts of vital vitamins or nutrients are missing. Malnutrition also affects the immune system.

The likely effects of a shortage of pollen in late summer and autumn are…

…that the amount of pollen the bees manage to store will be insufficient to take them through to April and the start of the season proper. The significance of this is that the queen perks up and starts to lay, albeit at a slow rate, very early in the spring and long before fresh pollen becomes available in any sort of quantity. At this time nurse bees need to increase their pollen intake to kick-start their hypopharygeal glands so that they will be able to feed the emerging brood. If the required pollen is not there, it could mean that the colony will be unable to feed the larvae properly resulting in small bees and a possible late start into the season.

The bottom line of all this could be a reduction in colony strength especially if spring, and summer for that matter, are delayed, poor or cancelled altogether. A late start to the season could also mean them failing to make the most of the early flows such as dandelion. More generally it could leave the colony weakened and vulnerable to all of the assorted brutalities of nature.

This situation arose in the spring of 2013 which became very cold and continued forever. The effects of this were made worse because it followed the miserable autumn of 2012 where the bees failed to work the ivy to any significant extent. And of course the autumn of 2012 followed the most disastrous summer for beekeeping in history with record breaking queen failure because of the atrocious, striped weather. But don’t get me started.

It is advisable to keep a stock of pollen supplement or substitute for situations such as this. In that terrible spring it was impossible to buy supplement or substitute because of course everybody was in the same boat.

Some important sources of pollen…

… in this locality important sources of pollen include:-  Gorse, Hazel, Willow, Dandelion, Oilseed rape, Hawthorn, Apple, Sycamore, Horse chestnut, Clover, Raspberry, Lime, Blackberry, Thistles, Ragwort, Knapweed, Native Ling and Bell heathers, Ivy.

Reseeding

In addition are the many native wild flowers too numerous to list which are commonly known as ‘weeds’. These used to be common and widespread in agricultural pastures but unfortunately these species-rich meadows are rapidly being ploughed up and replaced with single species grasslands. To pollinating insects, these ‘improved grasslands’ are wilderness areas.  Clovers are being encouraged as a forage crop and soil improver but the cultivars popular with farmers tend to be large plants bred for rapid biomass accumulation and nitrogen fixing. The bees don’t seem to like them perhaps because the flowers are so big the bees tongues cannot reach the appropriate part but who knows when, or even if, these plants secrete nectar at all.

Scrub

The grubbing out of ‘scrub’, which includes important early spring pollen sources such as gorse, willow and hazel has further reduced availability locally meaning bees must fly further to forage leaving fewer bees to feed the brood. A shortage of nurse bees can lead to a chilled brood nest which can kill brood or lead to proliferation of brood diseases such as chalkbrood.

Hedgerows

Hedgerows of flowering trees such as hawthorn and blackthorn, blackberry, gorse and holly were once great pollen sources for pollinators. However, the relaxation of quotas and the mushrooming of intensive dairying has seen the removal from the landscape of thousands of miles of hedgerows. More have been decapitated and are ritually scalped year on year by tractors with flails so they can never flower.

Malnutrition and Disease

Anyone who has read Roger Patterson’s excellent article on Chalkbrood cannot but be suspicious of the possibility of malnutrition in the upsurge in chalkbrood. Here’s an exerpt:

“I will give details of one of my colonies (called “Rampion”) in 2013 that was a very cold wet spring, following a poor summer and winter. At inspections there was bad chalk brood and on 1st May I made a note to requeen the colony. It had built up very slowly. On 16th May the chalk brood was still bad with a covering on the floor, apart from one largely sealed comb that was very different from the rest. There wasn’t the “pepperpot” appearance of other combs and only a handful of infected cells. The obvious explanation is that this was a new comb, but it wasn’t, having been in the colony the previous year. I checked back and we had 3-4 days of good weather soon after that comb was laid up by the queen, so my thinking was the brood on that comb was fed better. An inspection on 7th June, after a spell of fine weather when the bees were doing very well, showed there was virtually no chalk brood in any of the combs. In this instance I think it showed the chalk brood was possibly caused by poor nutrition and was not genetic. In other respects the queen was good and I could have culled her when there was no need to. In the spring of 2013 chalk brood was bad in many colonies, so it would have been unreasonable to cull queens for that reason.”

Some serious research into the nutrition status of bees and other pollinators is needed urgently.

References and Bibliography

Dietz,A. Nutrition of the Adult Honey Bee. In The Hive and the Honey Bee. Ed. Dadant and Sons. Dadant Publications. Illinois. USA. 1979.

Gary,N.E. Activities and Behaviour or Honey Bees. In The Hive and the Honey Bee. Ed. Dadant and Sons. Dadant Publications. Illinois. USA. 1979.

Hooper,T. Guide to Bees and Honey. Blandford, London. 1991.

Witherell,P.C. Other Products of the Hive. In The Hive and the Honey Bee. Ed. Dadant and Sons. Dadant Publications. Illinois. USA. 1979.

 Click here for a gallery of pollen loads

Click here for Roger Patterson’s Chalk Brood article

Copyright © Beespoke.info, 2022.  All Rights Reserved.

Ingredients

Wet
100g tahini
2 tbsp water
60ml sunflower oil
45g thick honey
2 tsp vanilla extract

Dry
125g plain flour
120g sugar
130g chopped dates
75g jumbo oats
½ tsp salt
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda

Method

• Heat the oven to 180C (160C fan) or 350F/gas 4
• Line two large baking trays with greaseproof paper
• Put the wet ingredients in a bowl and give them a good stir
• Put the dry ingredients in a separate bowl and give them a good stir
• Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture and combine to make a thick dough
• Divide into 12, form into balls, arrange on the baking trays and flatten slightly
• Bake for 15-20 minutes, until well browned but the middle still soft
• Leave to cool for a few minutes
• Place on a wire rack to cool.

Click here for Benjamina Ebuehi’s ‘Carrot & Crumb’ blog

It’s also a good idea because when your catchers start to attract attention you can be sure some bees somewhere are having bad thoughts. Sprinke the scouts with a little flour and watch which hive they return to.

Points to consider when setting up a catcher hive are:

• Volume
• Entrance size
• Height from ground
• Aspect
• Presence of combs
• Number of options

1. Volume

When choosing a potential home, size matters.

When a swarm of bees moves into a new home, their priorities are to produce a viable sized colony with  sufficient honey to get them through winter.  It needs to be big enough but not too big. If it is too big, it will be draughty and cold, if it is too small there may not be room for the bees, their brood and their stores.

When studying wild bees, Tom Seeley found the smallest nest space to be 12 litres and the largest were about 100 litres with one outlier of 400 litres.  However, most of the nests he found were between 30 and 60 litres. A National brood box has a capacity of about 36 litres, which is handy. Native Irish bees tend to overwinter quite a small colony so this size – at the lower end of the range should be about right.

I’ve had a lot of success with nucs too but beware – they can outgrow them very quickly.

Speaking of draughts – always set up a catcher hive with a solid floor. Given the choice, bees won’t accept a hive with a mesh floor.

2. Entrance size

The entrance size and position is always important for bees for the following reasons:

• Defense;
• Thermoregulation;
• Ease of access in summer.

However their requirements vary with the seasons.

Winter

A small entrance is important in winter to prevent draughts.

• A draughty nest means bees have to consume more of their precious stores to keep warm.
• They also prefer the entrance to be below the brood nest because heat rises and would be lost through a top entrance.
• A small entrance will also keep out pests and predators like mice or rats although once autumn has given way to true winter, fewer of these are about the place.

Summer

In summer, a small entrance can become a liability.

• On a busy summer’s day, a small entrance is a hindrance to the crowds of excited bees struggling to get in and out.
• On squally days when hordes of foraging bees come hurtling home all at the same time ahead of pelting rain can result in large numbers being dashed to the ground because they can’t get in quick enough.
• On a very hot day, the bees might overheat if the entrance is too small.
• However, wasps or robbing bees from other colonies are more easily repelled from a small entrance.

In Information Bulletin 187 Bait Hives for Honey Bees, Tom Seeley suggests a circular opening with a 1.5 inch diameter, however this would admit mice and even a rat so unless your bait hive is out of reach of these rodents, the standard 4 x 0.25 inch slot found in a National or Commercial winter entrance block should fit the bill.

3. Height

The higher you can get your bait hive, the better. However, you need to be pragmatic. Are you going to leave the bees to their own devices or do you plan to remove and relocate them?

If the latter, get them as high as is sensible. If the former – the sky’s the limit.

4. Aspect

When looking for a new home, bees like to face in a  southerly direction. It is particularly important for them in winter.  Winter sun slanting in through the entrance will entice them out for cleansing flights and they must appreciate the warmth of the sun on the hive front.

However, in summer, bees can overheat, so shade from summer foliage becomes important.

5. Presence of Combs

When a swarm moves into a new home their priority is to get the queen laying. This is particularly important if she is an old queen and if there is a long period of shitty weather, not unknown out here at the wet end of Europe. An old queen might fizzle out  before the bees can draw comb for her then they are up shit creek without a paddle. They must either go back home or they might soldier on for a while with laying workers.

A few drawn combs in the catcher will allow the old girl to lay some eggs then if she does fizzle they can at least try and recover the situation.

The presence of some drawn combs  with some granulated stores will attract bees too, even if they rob it out they will note the place and may come back when they are in need of a home.

If you plan to remove the bees, it is best to equip the hive with a crown board and a full complement of frames even if only a few are drawn. The rest can be equipped with a starter or even left empty. You will be amazed at the speed with which a strong swarm with a laying queen can draw wax and fill it with brood. If you don’t put frames in, those combs will be of the abstract wild variety and they’ll be suspended from the crown board – or the roof if you omitted it. I cannot describe to you the mess that happens if you arrive late and unthinkingly prise it off!

Number of Options

It seems to help if you put up more than one catcher hive per location. I’m not sure why – it’s an observation.

The more options you offer, the more likely they are to choose one of them rather than a more tricky location:

Native Irish Honey Bee Conservation

This country has the lowest tree cover in Europe which means homes for wild honey bees are scarce. No harm then to put up a box, with good thick walls for warmth, which you will leave alone. We have borrowed the bees from the wild for long enough so perhaps it is a good idea to provide homes for wild honey bees where they can be left alone to live and evolve in peace.  In return, they will contribute their drones to the congregation areas and if they have evolved traits or behaviours which make the wild bees more able to tolerate Varroa and other diseases then we will all benefit.

Click here for more about swarming

Click here for how to hive a swarm

Click here for My First Swarm

Further Reading

Bait Hives for Honey Bees by Thomas D. Seeley, Roger A.Morse and Richard Nowogrodzki

HoneyBee Democracy by Thomas D. Seeley 2010 Princeton University Press

Copyright © Beespoke.info 2022.  All Rights Reserved.

Honey is a complex mixture of:

• water
• sugar
• acids
• proteins
• enzymes
• vitamins and minerals
• enzymes.

1. Water

Approximately 17-20% of honey is water. One of the most important steps in the process is to reduce the water content to below about 20% because it has the effect of making honey indigestible to micro-organisms.

The amount of water the bees can remove depends on:

• the amount or water present in a nectar in the first place;
• the weather;
• the strength of the colony.

The amount of water in a nectar varies with the species of plant and with the weather. For instance – dandelion nectar has a higher sugar content than that of apple which produces a nectar ‘runny’ by comparison.

Superimposed on this is the weather effect. Many flowers tend to point their faces to the sun; this makes them very conspicuous to insects but if it rains then the flower fills with water and the nectar is diluted.

When ripening honey, bees fan at the entrance to pull air through the hive and over the honey to evaporate water from its surface. The warmer and drier the air, the faster the ripening. The amount of air passing over the honey would also speed evaporation and this last is related to the numbers of bees available for fanning. So if the weather is cold and wet and/or colony strength is down then the job is much more difficult and the honey may contain more water than is desirable.

So far, honey contains what was in the nectar and minus a quantity of water.

2. Sugars

Of the solids in honey, that is if all the water was to be removed, 95-99.9% is sugar of one sort or another, from the simple to the complex. To understand the complexity, and the simplicity, of sugars and the actions of enzymes it is useful to know a little about carbohydrate chemistry.

2.1. Carbohydrate chemistry

Simple sugars are called monosaccharides. There are very many different species of monosaccharides but what they all have in common is that they are built from a number of carbohydrate sub-units. The basic formula of a carbohydrate is CH₂O or H-C-OH.  Each molecule of carbohydrate may be thought of as one of the vertebrae which, linked together, make up the spine of a simple sugar and to which, other chemical appendages may, or may not be attached.

Monosaccharides can have a spine of three, four, five, six or seven individual carbohydrates and are known as triose, tetrose, pentose, hexose or heptose monosaccarides respectively. Glucose and fructose are hexose monosaccharides and both are very common in honey.

In Figure 1 below, each C represents a Carbon atom, H is a Hydrogen atom and O is an Oxygen atom. The black lines between them represent the bonds holding the individual atoms together as a molecule. It is important to understand that the atoms illustrated here are not welded permanently into place – it is more as if they are held together by forces similar to magnetism.

Figure 1. Carbohydrate skeletons of 4 monocaccharides.

There are two ways in which each of the above molecules can assemble so that two forms of each exist which are essentially the mirror image of each other –  rather like a pair of gloves and they are known as L and D forms. D is for ‘dexter’ which is Latin for right, L is for ‘læve’, Latin for left – although these refer to the direction in which they rotate polarised light and not their handedness.

Sugar molecules, such as those above, in a solution such as in honey, tend to curl up into rings with an oxygen atom forming the clasp so to speak. There are two ways they can do this too, and they are known as a or bconfigurations (see fig 2 below). A solution of pure glucose will contain equal quantities of a & b.

                                                   a-D-glucose                                                  b-D-glucose

Figure 2 a and b-D-glucose.

There are many ways the different forms of the various monosaccharides can link up but a molecule made of two linked monosaccharides is always termed a disaccharide. Example of disaccharides would be

• sucrose which is made of a-D-glucose and b-D-fructose (see fig 3 below);
• maltose which is made up of two a-D-glucose molecules.

Figure 3. Disaccharide molecule of sucrose made up of a-D-glucose and b-D-fructose. Note carbon atoms are not marked but there is one at each otherwise un-labelled elbow or junction. Invertase is an enzyme which breaks the sucrose disaccharide into its composite monosaccharides but this diagram fails to show the inversion of D-fructose to L-fructose.

(From http://www.njsas.org/projects/light_polarization/sugars.html )

 When there are three monosaccharides the resulting sugar is known as a trisaccharide, four is a tetrasaccharide. Sugars involving two, three or four simple sugars are known as oligosaccharides. More than that and they are known collectively as polysaccharides or higher sugars. The structures of these become more and more complex with size.

After all that, the important bits to note are:

• the enormous variety of sugars that can be made;
• the dynamic nature of the bonds between monosaccharides and between the atoms of which they are made;
• The relative ease with which they can be either pulled apart and reassembled, or agglomerated into something bigger;

As such they can quite easily be broken up when exposed to stronger forces, such as an enzyme (see below) or if physical (e.g. heat) or chemical conditions (e.g. acid) weaken the existing bonds. It is these fluid chemical properties that make honey the malleable dynamic product it is.

“All is flux. Nothing stays still, and nothing endures but change.” Heraclitus (540-480BC).

2.2. Sugars in honey

Many years ago, it was thought that honey was a mixture of dextrose and levulose, sucrose and a vague carbohydrate known as ‘honey dextrin’. Dextrose is actually D-glucose and Levulose is another name for L-fructose, both are breakdown products of sucrose (see figure 3.).

Today’s powerful analytical techniques have shown that in addition to those three, honey is a much more complex mixture of some formidably named sugars such as:- kojibiose, isomaltose, nigerose, ab trehalose, gentiobiose, laminaribiose, meleziotose, maltotriose, turanose, 1-kestose, panose, maltulose, isomaltotriose, erlose, theanderose, and O-a-D-glucopyranosyl-(1->6) -O-a-D-glucopyranosyl-D-fructose… the list goes on through about 25 or more in total (White 1979). It is thought that many of these sugars are not present in nectar but are formed by the dual actions of honey acids and enzymes during ripening and storage of honey. There is a good chance that at least some of them are ephemeral pre-cursors to, or by-products of, on-going reactions.

Despite this though, it seems that after all that, those characteristics that make honey honey are due to the relatively simple disaccharides – dextrose (35%) and levulose (40%) (Hooper). Generally there is more levulose than dextrose and only in those honeys that are quick to granulate is there more dextrose than levulose.

Sugars and water together make up about 97% of honey (Hooper), the remaining 3% is made up of the following ingredients.

3. Acids

There are a multitude of acids present in honey. If expressed as a percentage of honey, all the acids together contribute between 0.31% and 0.82% of volume and this creates a pH of about 3.2 – 4.5 (White 1975). pH is a measure of the free Hydrogen ions that acids contribute a solution, the smaller the number, the more acid a solution. The acids present in honey fall into 3 main categories: organic, inorganic and amino acids.

3.1. Organic acids

The organic acid portion is made up of about 15 organic acids including acetic, butyric, formic, gluconic, malic and succinic (Hooper, White 1975). The most abundant of these is gluconic acid (White 1979) which is a by-product of the breaking down of the glucose in dextrose. An enzyme, glucose oxidase catalyses glucose to form gluconic acid and hydrogen peroxide. The latter is the main agent responsible for the antibacterial activity in most honeys. The antibacterial properties of honey are well known and have caused it to be used as a successful wound dressing (Hooper).

3.2. Inorganic acids

Phosphoric and hydrochloric (Hooper, White 1975) and Sulphuric (White 1975) acid are inorganic acids present in honey.

3.3. Amino acids

A total of 17 of the 20 amino acids have been found in different honeys but the average in any one honey would be around 11 (White 1975) including proline, glutamic acid and lysine (Hooper). Apart from contributing to the pH of honey, amino acids are the building blocks of all proteins – including ourselves.

4. Proteins and Enzymes

4.1. Proteins

A protein is a polymer, or chain, of amino acids linked together rather like the sugars above. Molecular attractions between constituent amino acid sub-units cause the chain to fold up into a convoluted shape which is specific, and generally useful, to the protein in question. Proteins are denatured by heat, cold and pH which can all deactivate them. Fortunately, or unfortunately, proteins make up a portion of honey so small as to make a major sortie into their biochemistry unnecessary. Proteins in honey include albumins, globulins, proteoses and peptones and are of mixed bee and plant origin (White 1975). Enzymes are a dynamic, chemically active family of proteins (see below).

4.2. Enzymes

Enzymes are large, complex, disturbingly ‘clever’, chemically active molecules of protein. The names of enzymes always end in an ‘ase’, the front part giving some indication of action they carry out. Invertase, for example, splits sucrose molecules then inverts the free D-fructose into L-fructose.

Each molecule of an enzyme can be imagined as being like a tiny pair of hands which, in the presence of its specific target molecule, will locate on, or curl their ‘fingers’ around the specific target molecule in such a way as to pull it apart. All this takes place spontaneously and is brought about by the changing attractions between constituent molecules in the enzyme and in the target. However, there is something unearthly about the way the very action of bearing down on the target molecule causes shape changes in the structure of the enzyme, perhaps bringing molecules that were outside each other’s sphere of influence closer together until they are close enough to either attract or repel each other in such a way as to cause the enzyme to tear the spine of the target. In the case of invertase, it gives sucrose a good old twist into the bargain. Enzymes can be activated or deactivated by changes in temperature or pH or by concentrations of target and/or resultant molecules.

Enzymes in honey are of both bee and plant origin and include:

• Invertase which breaks sucrose (see figure 3) to D-glucose and D-fructose then twists the latter into L-fructose. Invertase is added by the bees (White 1975);
• Amylase (a and b) – a amylase splits a starch chain randomly into sugars but b amylase breaks maltose from the ends. Amylases are thought to originate from pollen (White 1975);
• Diastase is a name that is applied to both amylases when its presence in honey is to be assayed as a measure of the amount of heat a honey has been subjected to. It degrades with heat (White 1979) so the degree of degradation (loss of activity) can be used as a measure of the amount of heat that has been applied. Diastase also deteriorates with storage;
• Glucose oxidase originates in the pharyngeal glands of bees and oxidises glucose to gluconic acid, a by-product of this is hydrogen peroxide which is an antibiotic. Before this discovery, the observed antibiotic effect was at one time attributed to the action of something named inhibine.
• Catalase and phosphatase are also present in honey.

4.3. Colloids

Colloids are included among the proteins because it seems they are thought to be tiny fragments of plant material or large molecules including protein (Hooper); however, they are in suspension rather than in solution like proteins and enzymes, but are just too small to be removed by filtration.

According to White (1979) they are gummy, noncrystalline substances consisting of proteins, waxes, pentosans, and inorganic constituents. Chambers defines a colloid as being any soluble substance that does not pass through a membrane when exposed to dialysis – from the Greek kolla meaning glue and eidos meaning form. Hooper elucidates by saying that colloids repel each other having similar electrical charges and that this repulsion slows movement and therefore adds to the viscosity of a honey. Dark honeys contain about 5 times as much colloidal matter as light honeys.

5. Minerals

The mineral content of honey is determined by analysis of the ash that remains if honey baked at high temperatures. Ash content averages about 0.17% of its weight but varies between 0.02% and 1.0%.

5.1. Mineral elements

In this tiny portion about 12 mineral elements are present including potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, iron and copper although they are present in tiny quantities. In even tinier quantities are the trace elements.

5.2. Trace elements

These too are determined from their presence in ash. About 17 trace elements are present in even tinier quantities – hence the name. These include chromium, lithium, nickel, lead, strontium, silver and even gold! (White 1975).

6. Vitamins

The vitamin content of honey is very variable between samples but honey generally is thought to contain thiamin riboflavin (B2), pantothenic acid, thiamine, pyridoxine and ascorbic acid (C). The vitamins found in honey are thought to be of little dietary significance bearing in mind the average consumption of honey.

7. Hydroxymethylfurfuraldehyde (HMF).

This chemical is thought to be formed by the decomposition of fructose in the presence of acid although there is also a small amount of HMF in honey in hives. It is produced naturally as honey ages but the process is accelerated by heating so HMF can be used, along with diastase, as a measure of the amount of heat that honey has been exposed to.

8. Aroma and flavour

Also present in honey are grains of pollen and aromatic chemicals from the various flowers visited and these all contribute to the aroma and flavour of honey. In fact the delightful aroma and flavour of honey is probably the reason bees have had to evolve the sting so as to defend themselves against predators. Somewhere in the jungles of south America, or perhaps Africa, is a species of honey bee that gets by without the need for a sting; instead it has evolved the practice of visiting putrefying corpses to the extent that their honey takes on such a repulsive odour nobody wants it. Of course there is always the danger that hyenas or vultures will evolve a liking for it because evolution’s like that.

9. Toxicity

If bees have visited quantities of poisonous plants the honey may have an element toxic to either bees or to humans or to both. There is evidence that too much red chestnut honey is bad for bees. Honeys toxic to humans have been reported as coming from Rhododendron spp., Egyptian henbane (Datura metel) deadly nightshade (Atropa bella-donna) and Arbutus unedo from Sardinia. Arbutus unedo is also known as the strawberry tree which grows wild in the south west of Ireland. There are many poisonous plants in Ireland but it is unlikely that any of them grow in such profusion as to poison honey.

10. The rest

There are other substances present in honey and more will be discovered as analytical methods improve but until then we will have to make do with these.

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References and Bibliography

Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary. London. 1901.

Fitter,R., Fitter,R. & Blaney,M. The Wild Flowers of Britain and Northern Europe. Collins London. 1985.

Hooper,T. Guide to Bees and Honey. Blandford, London. 1991.

Kotz,J.C. & Purcell,K.F. Chemistry and Chemical Reactivity. Saunders College Publishing. USA. 1987.

Salisbury,F.B. & Ross,C.W. Plant Physiology. Fourth Edition. Wadsworth Publishing Company, Belmont, California. USA. 1992.

White.J.W. Honey. In The Hive and the Honey Bee. Ed. Dadant and Sons. Dadant Publications. Illinois. USA. 1979.

White.J.W. Composition of Honey.  In Honey: A Comprehensive Survey. Ed. Eva Crane. Heinemann, London. 1975.

Links

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It contains everything you need to know about the Native Irish Honey Bee – from evolution to genetics and into the future with conservation and ‘how to’ sections from commercial beekeepers.

Includes a practical section with step by step instructions on queen rearing and bee-breeding techniques.

Click here to re-watch the book launch

Click here to buy the Native Irish Honey Bee Book

The header picture above is from the Bayeux tapestry and shows the Normans also drinking from horns (and cups) and appropriately captioned far right ‘HIC’

To see the entire, beautiful Bayeux tapestry online go to: https://www.bayeuxmuseum.com/en/the-bayeux-tapestry/discover-the-bayeux-tapestry/explore-online/

Mead making

If you are into making wine, you will be into foraging the ingredients for next-to-nothing and probably balk at the notion of purchasing several pounds of honey. Even supermarket honey makes mead-making an expensive proposistion – and who knows what is in supermaket honey. Probably not much honey I reckon.

But if you are a beekeeper who is into making wine, mead becomes do-able. So if you have some honey and feel inclined to give it a go here is a mead recipe I’ve used several times with a good rate of success. It’s from  C.J.J. Berry’s classic book ‘First Steps in Winemaking’ which is available here: https://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/first-steps-in-winemaking-cjj-berry-p-477.html

I suggest you don’t use ivy or heather honey.  I’ve tried both and the results were  horrible. Use a nice mild, light honey instead.

Cleanliness is next to godliness

Before you get stuck in though – I cannot stress enough how important it is to sterlise all your equipment thoroughly. I used to be a bit on the slap-dash and feckit side of cleanliness but the best results have been when I’ve taken the time to be clean.

thehomebrewcompany.ie have a range of sterilisers

Use an air lock to exclude air and fruit flies and to allow the escape of carbon dioxide. Fruit flies carry the bacteria which will convert alcohol to vinegar and this is why they are sometimes called vinegar flies. These are the little black chaps you might find rolling about in your beer or wine. They have a very short, neat life cycle which is one reason why geneticists like them so much. Another reason is that their genes are actually very similar to our own!

And remember: time flies like an arrow but fruit flies like a banana.

Dry Mead Recipe

Ingredients

• 2kg honey
• 1 orange
• 1 lemon
• 4.5 litres water
• Wine yeast and nutrient
• Pectic enzyme

Method

1. Mix the honey into the water and bring to simmering point and skim off the scum;
2. Pour into a bucket and allow to cool;
3. Add the juice from the orange and the lemon plus an all-purpose wine yeast, nutrient and pectic enzyme;
4. Closely cover the  bucket with a cloth and leave in a warm place for a week;
5. After that,  pour the mixture into a demi-john, fit with an airlock and leave until the ferment stops and the mead clears.
6. Siphon the mead off the sediment into a clean jar and leave for a year.

Mead from cappings

First wash the honey from the cappings:

• Place them into a large bucket and pour in enough cold water to cover genorously then roll up your sleeves, agitate the mess, cover and leave overnight.
• Next day, if you have two buckets so much the better, pour the contents from the first bucket into the second and agitate again.
• Keep doing this until you think you’ve washed most of the honey into the water.
• Now strain out the cappings.
• You should now have a bucket of murky looking water. This is your starting liquor – no harm to run it through a fine cloth.

Unless you are going to make cave-man mead you will need to know just how much sugar is in your starting liquor and for this you will need a hydrometer.  Too little sugar and the mead will be ‘runny’, too much and the yeast might not start at all.

A hydrometer is a simple piece of equipment which uses the viscosity of a liquid to indirectly assess its sugar content. They are cheap, easy to use and readily available here: https://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/hydrometer-p-94.html

Basically it is a glass tube with a scale printed on it with a weighted bulb at the bottom. You drop it into your liquor and after bobbing about a bit, it will come to a rest. At this point you can read off the number closest to the top of the liquid.   The more sugar there is, the thicker the liquor will be, the higher your hydrometer will float and the bigger your SG number will be.

The table below is from C.J.J.Berry’s book. It’s in imperial measures.

You can click this image for a full size table:

SG stands for Specific Gravity – you can google that if you like because I’m not going to get into it here.

• Locate your SG in  column 1;
• Column 2 will tell you the potential alcohol per SG;
• Column 3 will tell you how much sugar per gallon is in the liquor;
• Column 4 Ignore column 4
• Column 5 Ignore column 5

An important thing to note is potential alcohol content of your wine. Please note the word ‘potential’ is in bold there and the reason is that there is many a slip twixt cup and lip.  A ferment may stall early on or just not go all the way out. There are many reasons why that might be but that is outwith the context of this article. C.J.J. covers it in detail in his book.

So what I do is, I get my SG, look a the potential alcohol and the  amount of sugar per gallon. Let’s say the SG is 1070 which corresponds to 9.2 percent alcohol – I’d rather aim for 17% on the grounds that I’d be more likely to end up with 13-14%.

For 17% I’d need to have 3lb 4oz of sugar per gallon but at the moment there is only 1lb 13oz so I’d need to add 1lb 7oz per gallon to the liquor.

However, honey is between 16-18% water so you need to add another 20% of honey. 20% of 1lb13oz is about 6oz so I’d add in 2lb 3oz per gallon altogether and it won’t be far out.

Yeast

Lash out on a good wine yeast. These specialist yeasts have been bred by winemakers for centuries to start working at high sugar and to tolerate a lot of alcohol. Wild yeasts can out-compete wine yeasts if allowed in early but they will fizzle out as alcohol starts to accumulate and your ferment will fail.

Good luck and have fun!

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Most recipes will start you ‘grating’ your beeswax which is horrible – if one day your are feeling particularly smug or happy – grating a bit of beeswax should set you straight again. It’s also the best way I know to destroy every cheese-grater known to man not to mention fingernails and knuckles. The sharper the grater the more dangerous it becomes and fingernails and strips of skin do not add to the aesthetics of your wraps.

Also, many recipes use pine resin or ‘rosin’. This is a by-product of turpentine production and, apparently it gives the  wraps a slightly tacky feel so they will stick together when you parcel up your sandwiches or whatever. Unfortunately you’re unlikely to find rosin in the supermarket.  If you are a musician, you might have some or know where to find some – my Uncle used to apply it to his violin bow – I suppose the tackiness makes for a more satisfying screech.

But rosin is not essential – there are alternatives such as hairy string or rubber bands – which are widely available. Hairy string has rustic charm and makes for a very attractive parcel. Another alternative is to employ the ancient art of origami and fold your beeswax wraps into a novelty lunch box. A second one, slightly larger, can be used as a lid.

Time
About an hour

Materials
An old baking sheet
Tin foil
100% cotton cloth
Unwired beeswax foundation
Sunflower oil
A piece of string. Don’t ask how long.

Method

1. Preheat your oven to 100 degrees C;
2. Cover an old baking tray with tin foil – it needs to cover the base and go up over the sides with no holes or tears.
3. Tie up a length of string like a clothesline somewhere handy;
4. Cut some squares of cotton cloth – use pinking shears if possible to prevent fraying.  At about 10″x10″, my squares were a bit on the small side but there was just enough wax mixture for the 6. The size you use is up to you but they do need to be slightly smaller than the baking tray and the bigger they are of course, the more wax they will use;
5. Weigh 50 grams of unwired beeswax foundation and arrange it on the baking tray;
6. Sprinkle over 10 grams of sunflower oil;
7. Place the tray in the oven for 5 minutes or until wax has melted;
8. Take out the tray.  Give it a bit of a swirl to make sure the oil and wax are mixed then add your first cloth square;
9. Put the tray back into the oven for a couple of minutes;
10. Remove the tray and lay your second cloth square on top of the first – if there is space around the edges – off-set it slightly – aim to cover the whole baking sheet so the cotton can wick the wax out of the corners.
11. Then get hold of both squares together by one edge and turn them over so the fresh one is on the bottom. It shouldn’t be hot enought to burn you unless your oven thermostat is malfunctioning or you are a total wimp but be a bit careful about splattering wax everywhere.
12. Repeat steps 9 and 10 until all your squares are in the tin.
13. You will know when to stop because the wax will have been all used up and your last square will take time to get impregnated;
14. Remove the cloth squares one by one, hold aloft and gently waft for a few seconds then drape them over the string to set – it’ll only take a few minutes. If they start to stick together in the tin put it back in the oven for a bit.

Click here for how to render beeswax

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In this article I hope to pin down some facts about DCAs starting with the fundamental questions:

• • What
  • Who
  • Why
  • When
  • Where
  • How

What?

A Drone Congregation Area (DCA) is all about sex.

It is a place up in the air where drones gather together and to which queens are attracted. The drones are in search of sex and the queens are hoping to find suitable genes for their offspring.

Who?

So who are involved?

Drones are male honey bees and on the surface it may seem that their sole purpose is to find a queen and mate with her; they have other roles in the hive but we won’t go into that here.

Interestingly, of all 3 castes – they take the longest to emerge and mature. It would be logical to assume that it takes much longer to reconstruct a drone from the metamorphosal soup than either workers or queens because they are such big chunky chaps. They have those great big, meet-in-the-middle eyes and muscle packed thoraces to enable them to see, and fly long distances.  Or for a long time. There is a difference.

Queens

However, virgin queens – which are larger than a worker but smaller than a drone take the least time to mature. But then they are just egg-laying bimbos with pheromones. Or perhaps they are brighter than that.

Virgins are very svelte and streamlined with long wings and when freshly emerged they seem built for action.  Only when they are mated and in full lay does long distance flight seem unlikely. But how far do they actually fly?

Why?

Why go to the bother and risk of flying out from the safety of the hive to mate on the wing at the whim of predatory birds and squally summer weather?

Drone congregation areas are an evolved mechanism:

• to avoid inbreeding;
• to ensure the selection of the stongest drones.

Inbreeding

Here is an interesting fact – Gudrun Koeningen and her team (who did much research into this subject)  found that if they threw pebbles up into an overhead DCA, drones would form comets to chase the moving object but this chasing behaviour could not be observed outside the DCA.

Something about the DCA seems to switch on this chasing behaviour – and what it leads to – because drones do not seem to be interested in chasing things outside of the DCAs. Nor do they chase virgins round the hive.

A bit like young men at home – they don’t go chasing and mounting their sisters – or their mothers for that matter.   Quite apart from the threat of two-headed offspring, the urge doesn’t seem to arise, so to speak.

However, take them away from home and mix them all up together… the boys get competitive and they get horny.

Selection

‘Fitness’ in an evolutionary sense refers to those individuals best fitted to a given environment.

The drone comet is a competition or test evolved to select the strongest and fittest drones from the DCA – the winners get to mate with a queen and pass their genes on to the next generation. Such tests help ensure the survival of the species.  Critics of Instrumental Insemination see this as a vital  mechanism which is missing in drone selection. They have a point.

When?

Drones leave the hive after lunch on warm sunny days. Gudrun found that temperatures of 25 degrees C or above and when the weather was close, with thunder possible were most favourable.

Where?

Now here’s the crux.

Gudrun Koeniger seemed to have no difficulty finding DCAs in the Alps, given the right sort of weather she knew where to look. Mostly  she had the right sort of weather and lo and behold there were DCAs humming overhead. That’s continental Europe for you – large land  masses just tend to have more settled predictable weather. Islands in the Atlantic just don’t. In Ireland – the only predictable thing about summer weather is the unpredictability.

To find a DCA – strap a virgin queen to the end of a very long pole then walk her into a likely area. If there is a DCA – a comet of drones will come to her very quickly. Beowulf Cooper used to attend the annual Gormanston Summer Beekeeping Course in Co.Meath, Ireland and would often take to the grounds with a ripe virgin on a stick and locate a DCA there. Students were seldom disappointed – but as you will know if you attend Gormanston on a regular basis – the weather is almost always warm, sunny and dry.

In other parts of Ireland, despite the knowledge that DCAs persist over centuries, in this part of the world and in the the UK DCAs have been more elusive.

The Vicar of Selborne

England’s first Ecologist – Gilbert White, the Vicar of Selborne wrote the ‘Natural History of Selborne’ which was first published in 1789.

In it he described and recorded many observations of the wildlife of Selborne including  the presence of what had to be a DCA at Selborne Common:

“There is a natural occurance to be met with upon the highest part of our down on hot summer days, which always amuses me much, without giving me any satisfaction with respect to the cause of it; & that is a loud audible humming of bees in the air, tho’ not one insect is to be seen. This sound is to be heard distinctly the whole common through, from the Money-dells, to Mr White’s avenue-gate. Any person would suppose that a large swarm of bees was in motion, & playing about over his head. This noise was heard last week on June 28th.”

It can still be found today – over 300 years later – but only sometimes! Probably something to do with the weather.  To cope with the unpredictability of the weather here in ‘these islands’, the bees have evolved to sieze the moment. They will fly out into the landscape whenever and wherever the temperature, wind, topography and aspect interact to provide the right conditions. DCAs here at the wet end of Europe are moveable feasts.

How does all this work?

Fuel comes into it.  A drone fuelling up for a flight can only carry enough nectar to keep him airborne for 25-30 minutes. He cannot fill up from flowers – he has to be fed – so the distance he can fly from home is limited because he has to leave himself enough fuel to get home – in case he doesn’t get lucky and die. The chances of him accomplishing his mission are slim so he has to plan to return home. I should say here – he does no planning – this is behaviour that has evolved over millions of years.

So here if you look at his energy budget this tells us something about the distance a DCA can be from home.

Here are two scenarios:

• Say he flies out 10 minutes and 10 minutes back… that only leaves him 5 to 10 minutes cruising time. That doesn’t make much sense if you bear in mind that his chances of getting lucky are about as good as winning the lottery. Drones need to maximise their time in the DCA.
• Alternatively, if he flies out for only 5 minutes then his return journey is another 5 minutes leaving 15 to 20 minutes cruising around in the DCA waiting for a virgin to pass by. That makes more sense.

So it needs to be close by and if there are thermal currents so much the better – warm updrafts would help keep the drones in the air and conserve energy.

Mating Behaviour Studies in the Austrian Alps

Gudrun Koenigen et al intensively studied DCAs and honey bee mating behaviour in valleys in the Austrian Alps. During the course of their work the team got to know the location of all the DCAs in the study area and also all of the apiaries where bees were kept. They also perfected methods of netting drones within DCAs.

To find the origins of drones in the DCA was relatively easy – they would go to all the apiaries in the  morning – open the hives and mark drones – each apiary having a defining colour. Then, in the afternoons they would net drones in DCAs and count drones of each colour. This allowed them to conclude that drones would fly as much as 5km (3 miles) and only downhill (on the outward journey) – in the Alps anyway, drones do not fly uphill and that makes sense really – bearing in mind that honey bees are not creatures of the mountain tops.

In fact that makes sense here too – honey bees are not creatures of the hill so why go there. Assume then that drones fly out and head downhill along a linear feature such as a hedgerow or a stream. Where they go from then on must be evolved guesswork or is it something deeper, more intelligent, something which might explain why it takes so much longer to assemble a drone from the metamorphosal soup.

Who flies furthest, virgin or drone

Various experiments have showed that drones prefer DCAs closest to home but queens prefer the furthest away. So long as all drones and all queens employ the same strategy this is a mechanism which would avoid inbreeding but it raises the following questions.

Q. The queen has to get home but the drone doesn’t, so wouldn’t it  make more sense if she chose one closer to home and he went further away?

A. Once the queen enters the DCA of her choice – she is very quickly  serviced and can head for home. We know virgins may take a few mating flights so she can go back for another go if need be.

Q. The drone has all the muscle – couldn’t he fly further?

A. Drones may have more muscle but if they choose one closer to home they can stay there for longer.

Q.  A virgin must have to pass quite close to DCAs on her journey – might she get jumped?

A. Drones don’t chase virgins outside DCAs  and avoiding them might not be so difficult – we know there is a loud humming.

Finding DCAs

So, mark your apiaries on a map and draw 5km circles around them – that will tell you how far your drones will fly. Then look at the contours, think like a drone, fly down a line then follow your imagination.

In this modern world of ours there are things like roads, carparks and ploughed fields. All of them are dark surfaces. The energy of sunlight is reflected from dark surfaces as heat energy and warm air rises in columns from such areas as thermals. Thermals are utilised by hot-air balloons, vultures and hang gliders as an upwards boost against the downward pull of gravity. They are also chosen by drones for congregation areas.

A friend of mine once pointed to an area above a shimmering black carpark near his apiary and said there’s a DCA right there. How do you know says I. Dead drones all over it says he. You have to laugh don’t you?

Roads and carparks stay put but ploughed fields can turn up anywhere.  All of these modern features could draw drones away from what might be considered traditional or historic DCA sites and add to the reasons why they seem to be so elusive. An oversupply of thermal sites might also cause a situation where the numbers of drones per DCA are lower than they should be and could be yet another reason why poor queen mating is often such a problem.

There are theories out there that drones are somehow tuned into ‘Ley lines’ and that DCAs are often associated with prehistoric sites such as barrows or standing stones. That’s an exercise bone for the imagination if ever I heard one.

Barrows or standing stones are often on hilltops. Sunlight slanting in on the slope of a little hill can cause thermal columns to rise on a sunny afternoon. But try and imagine how prehistoric man might interpret such areas where, summer after summer, could be heard a loud overhead buzzing accompanied by sprinklings of large dead flies. That’s an exercise bone for the Neolithic imagination to chew on I think and you can imagine how it might result in the erection of large stone or circle of stones to ward off evil.

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Here are just a few of the things we say:

• It’s toxic to horses and cattle;
• It spreads like wildfire;
• Ragwort honey is vile and it’s toxic to humans.

Anyone who has read Isabella Tree’s book ‘Rewilding’ will have come across a chapter entitled ‘Living with the Yellow Peril’ where she goes into great detail about Ragwort – what is true and what is untrue.

Yes, it is toxic to horses and cattle but it has a horrible taste and they will not eat it in its green state unless there is overgrazing and they have nothing else to eat or when it is chopped up and included in silage or hay in which case it loses it’s obnoxious taste. But they need to eat a lot of it to experience toxic effects ie 5-25% body weight for cattle and horses.

It doesn’t quite spread like wildfire – or not in the way we are led to believe. Yes the seeds are carried on windblown fluff but most fall quite close to the parent plant. The fluff that can be seen blowing further afield tends to fly further because there are no seeds attached to it. However, the seeds can survive up to 10 years in the soil’s ‘seed bank’ and if the ground is disturbed – or overgrazed – and the soil surface is exposed then there can be a population explosion as many seeds all germinate at once. Overgrazing again.

Ragwort honey is rare. Only once in my 22 years of beekeeping have I seen a quantity of ragwort honey. It is easy to see because it is bright yellow and it is a bit vile, it’s got that obnoxious, rank smell and a bitter after-taste. They say the bitter taste fades in time and that might be true but I just gave it back to the bees. I sort of doubt ragwort honey is poisonous though.

But here is the good news:

There are 3 native species of ragwort in Ireland – plain ragwort, Buachalán buí (Senecio jacobaea), marsh ragwort, Buachalán corraigh (Senecio aquaticus) and hoary ragwort – Buachalán liat or (Senecio erucifolius). There is also the introduced Oxford ragwort, Buachalán Pheadair (Senecio squalidus). In Scotland they call it Stinking Willie.

For insects it is a most valuable plant – 7 species of beetle,12 species of flies, one macromoth – the handsome red and black Cinnabar (see below) – and 7 micromoths are entirely dependent on ragwort. It is a valuable source of nectar and pollen for 30 species of solitary bee,18 species of solitary wasps and 50 insect parasites. In total 177 insect species dine out on ragwort. These figures come from Ms Tree’s book which is about an estate in the south of England so they will be a bit different here in Ireland but the general message is clear – especially nowadays where we know that our biodiversity is shrinking daily and insect popluations are crashing – ragwort needs to be cherished a bit more and blamed rather a lot less. Perhaps we should instead be frowning on overgrazing and encouraging something less intensive.

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