DRY FOODS, FORMULAS & SUPPLEMENTS

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Ideal for species which, in the wild, consume a significant amount of fruits and seeds from oleaginous plants (genera Psittacus, Ara, Poicephalus).

Whilst this may sound excessive for a pot of honey, the medicinal benefits of bee products are becoming much more well-known. For decades now, ‘bee pollen’ has been the buzzword used by influencers and health gurus alike. Marketed as a ‘super food’ it is thought to have significant health benefits. While this may be true and tortoises certainly seem to love it (probably more because of its floral fragrance than its trending place on Twitter), honey is consistently being proven to do good. There’s a lot of evidence of the benefits of honey from a health point of view” explained Stephen. “It’s very interesting to look at it as an application to wounds. Honey contains a sterilising agent and growth-promoting agents, but it’s also waterabsorbing. So, when applied to a sore, it will dry that sore out, sterilise it and promote cell growth. There is scientific evidence for that. People are prepared to pay £40 a jar for manuka honey, but they get the same benefits from buying local honey from a beekeeper.”

Beekeeping, like all animal care, is an expensive pastime and one which demands constant attention. It also requires some wild space, which means it can be somewhat exclusive with most beekeepers living in rural communities and often retired. Of course, this is not the case for all keepers but developing the hobby from beginner to fully-fledged beekeeper requires commitment from day 1. Stephen explained: “If you’re starting off from scratch, you need to buy a whole colony. You can’t just buy a queen and hope she creates a colony. You need to start with a full colony and then from that, you can do splits to increase that number. If you do a split, you can buy a queen and put it in the split. However, we would encourage people to produce their own queens, it’s relatively easy. If you split the colony and have half with a queen and half with just bees and eggs, the bees will do it themselves and produce a queen from the eggs.”

Threats to beekeeping

The story of the ‘Asian hornets’ has been widely publicised in mainstream media for many years. Usually packaged as “life-threatening giant killer hornets are waiting to annihilate every man woman and child in the British Isles”, the headlines naturally gain attention. Although this is not quite the case, the threat of Asian hornets to the UK’s pollinators is very real. Already having a severe impact in France, Asian hornets are capable of destroying entire colonies of bees in just a few days.

Anne Rowberry is the Chair of the British Beekeepers Association and Event Organiser for the organisation’s ‘Asian Hornet Week’. She told Exotics Keeper Magazine: “I organise the Asian hornet week with DEFRA during the second week of September. The reason we put it there is that Asian hornet queens generally come out around May/ June time in England if they’ve been overwintering.”

“They are in Jersey, they’re already a big problem there. They’re also in Normandy, so they do come across by accident, in ferries, or caravans, or even rolled up in tents. They don’t have to adapt to our climate, they simply build a nest and reproduce. They initially build a small nest in a garage, a shed or a garden bush. Then, when they get to about 200 they will relocate. This is usually in a building or a shed. The time that this larger nest is building up is usually in August/September. Once they get to this point, they begin thinking about reproducing and creating their drones and virgin queens. We have a big week to encourage people to spot hornets and nests around the end of September. It’s only the queen that overwinters, but they can overwinter anywhere really. Compost heaps, piles of wood, etc and then they come out in early spring.”

The Asian hornet has already caused significant damage to pollinator numbers in France. Community outreach is important for the BBKA to help people identify and tackle the ongoing issue. “Our European hornet is very yellow and a sort of maroon-y colour” explained Anne. “The Asian hornet is just slightly smaller (a little bigger than a wasp), appears very black with a yellow face and just before its tail, towards the end of the abdomen, it has a yellow stripe. It has black wings and looks like it’s wearing rugby socks, so the bottom of its legs is yellow. Neither type of hornet is a risk to humans while they’re foraging. If you go too close to an Asian hornet nest or disrupt them, they will attack in numbers. There have been several deaths in France and Portugal because of it.”

Eradication efforts have stepped up a notch here in the UK. As well as specially designed apps and a huge media push every summer, researchers at several universities are beginning to develop new technologies to prevent non-native species from spreading. Anne continued:

“Peter Kennedy from Exeter University has worked on radio tracking, so now if we see hornets. When they come to a feeding station, we can put a little tracker on it and the hornet will fly off and he will radio track that to find the nest. It has been trialled in Jersey and France. The one in Southampton took him two hours to find, so we are getting better and better at tracking and tracing.”

“Last year we only found two nests, one in Ascot and another in Southampton. Both were fairly well developed and the one in Southampton was just at the point where the queens and drones could have left to set up nests of their own the following year. It was spotted in someone’s front garden, which goes to show how difficult they are to spot.”

As with all non-native species, a country or region needs to act quickly to avoid the species gaining a foothold. Whilst eradication attempts can work with some groups of animals, insects which are particularly seasonal and likely to breed prolifically can be more challenging. All members of the general public must remain vigilant to allow entomologists more time to develop strategies to address the potentially detrimental effects of invasive species.

The future of beekeeping

Beekeeping has seen a boom in recent years. As people seek to reconnect with nature in whichever way they can, even urban landscapes are hosting bee colonies. The Wildlife Trusts have this year launched a campaign to provide ‘bee-friendly bus stops’ across the UK’s cities. These bus stops have ‘living roofs’ to provide valuable forage for insects and are currently in use in several cities in over 40 locations. By the end of the year, over 150 beefriendly bus stops will adorn the UK’s urban landscapes, prompted by The Wildlife Trust’s report, “Insect Declines and Why They Matter”, which outlined how the UK has lost more than 50% of insects since 1970 and showed that 41% of the Earth's remaining five million insect species are now threatened with extinction.

As well as downloading the Asian Hornet Watch app, most members of the public are able to provide some level of bee-friendly forage to help pollinating insects. Even just leaving a small patch of the garden to become overgrown with wildflowers can support the UK’s inverts. Those that wish to take things one step further and keep bees themselves can receive support at training from the British Beekeepers Association website.

Readers can download the BBKA Hornet Week App for free by scanning this QR code: