1.0 MANIPULATION OF A HONEYBEE COLONY
The candidate will be aware of:
1.6 the importance of record keeping.
NOTES
Record keeping allows the beekeeper to keep track of the history of each individual hive and to compare this with other colonies and past years.
The effectiveness (or otherwise) of colony manipulations or disease treatments can be assessed.
Dates and events can be looked up rather than relying on memory.
Legally, any medicines given must be logged and records kept for 5 years since bees are considered a food producing animal under the Veterinary Medicines Directorate.
Common items that should be recorded include:-
- Age of queen, colour of marking, whether clipped and provenance (where she came from).
- Varroa count and date of count.
- Health problems and medicines administered with dates.
- Volume of syrup feed given.
Routine inspections should include notes on:-
- Queen seen or evidence of queen in hive e.g. eggs visible.
- Number of frames of brood.
- Amount of food stores.
- Amount of frames available for expansion – brood and super.
- Queen cells seen and whether they contain eggs or larva.
- Drones seen.
- Health or other problems seen.
Other useful information:-
- Temperament and behaviour of bees.
- Weather conditions.
- Pollen seen being brought to the hive or stored.