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I’m a bit shell shocked. I was aware that the schools had broken up, but suddenly they were going back and it was September. The bees are glued down, surplus honey removed and varroa treatment ongoing. I last remember it being April and good weather! Now the year is sliding, with dry leaves rustling but with many plants flowering a second time. An odd year. Resistance to treatments comes later here so you can still use Bayvarol/Apistan strips, but it is now recommended that you follow this with another treatment like a thymol one eg. Apiguard, or a hive cleaner like oxalic acid in December when the brood is absent or minimal. Wasps have been buzzing around at home -small entrance makes it easier to defend - but I saw about four wasps taking turns to zoom in and pin down a bee at the hive entrance. I managed to squash two but they are too fast for me – the bees ignored us. Yesterday an odd sound by one hive made me bend down to investigate. Several tiny wasps were low level flying near the floor in a clear space surrounded by recent veg. growth. I squashed one and the rest disappeared but I haven’t found where they have gone to yet. I believe in live and let live in summer when most wasps are taking aphids back to their young but this year I presume they are fattening up their young queens ready to hibernate so are not yet confined to windfall fruit and I will defend the bees! I never had any bother at all with wasps until two winters ago when wasps killed off two hives at one site. This year three sites have them buzzing round. Despite the wasps and the rain, we are surprised to have had quite a good yield. We took several supers off mid-April – unprecedented so early. For most of the summer the bees were belting out whenever the rain stopped but they were using it. August apparently, although showery, was drier than average which explains why we took twenty supers from eight hives, leaving each hive with a super of uncapped honey. The Honey Section of the Southport Show had a very good entry (you get a free entry ticket if you exhibit) and it was a time of meeting beekeepers from other branches and swapping tales of the odd season. We bought a solid cedar wood patio set at a bargain price, plus a squirrel proof bird feeder! The Heather Meeting with Wirral Branch on the 8th Sept. had a bright, breezy day. It started with a convivial drink as we gathered at the Liver Inn, a long convoy up to the hives with an excellent talk and practical demonstration on very quiet bees by Mr Frank Taylor and a superb buffet afterwards at the Rose and Crown. A good day was had by all! The next Bee meeting is the whole of Lancashire County Honey Show on Sunday 14th October. After four years at Croxteth Hall, it moves now to Blackburn’s area to a lovely village just outside Clitheroe called West Bradford in the Ribble Valley (M6 to junction 31 onto the A59 and follow the signs to Clitheroe North – I enclose maps! Some schedules are enclosed for regular exhibitors but do contact me or Rob (Honey Show Sec.), see above, or John Zamorski from Blackburn (Tel: 01200 427661 or john @johnzamorski.wanadoo.co.uk ), for a copy or information. It will be a lovely day out, a good lecture on Beekeeping in General by Mr John Charlton, and cheerful company even if you are too timid to enter, but by entering you gain a lot of experience on presenting you honey etc. in the best way. This is followed at the same venue by the Lancashire Autumn Convention a week later on Sat 20th October. There is a fantastic programme for everyone with the star speaker, Prof Robert Pickard, hot footing it from the National Honey Show. He is an ‘A List’ speaker and not to be missed. Prof Pickard is Director-General of the British Nutrition Foundation, Emeritus Prof. of Neurobiology at the University of Cardiff and a member of the Consumers’ Assoc. Council (Which?). He is an international authority on the biology of the honeybees, former editor of Journal of Apicultural Research and President of both Cardiff Beekeepers Assoc. and the Central Assoc. of Beekeepers. Dr Juliet Osborne heads the research at Rothhampstead and is currently a leading expert on bumblebees and bumblebee behaviour. After the County Show the year winds down with our own Liverpool Beekeepers AGM and Honey Show on Saturday, 3rd November at Tarbock Village Hall from 1 pm. This is the opportunity for you to let the Committee know what you would like to see in next year’s events diary. More hive openings? More of one topic or several? What speakers? Social gatherings? Let us know. Also if you would like to know more about the Association, put yourself up for election to the Committee by two weeks prior to the meeting. Mr Bob Parsonage of Cheshire Beekeepers has asked me to mention the Cheshire Autumn Convention and Annual Honey Show at Frodsham Community Centre on Sat 6th October. Entry to the open classes in the Honey Show is £1 for any number of entries with £1.50, £1, 75p prizes. Tickets for the Convention are £10 (£12 at the door) and includes a buffet lunch with lectures from Mr Micheal Macgiollacoda (Ireland) and Julia Hoggard (Cumberland). I have six tickets to sell but can ask for more if necessary. We look forward to seeing you and Good Beekeeping Sheila
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