The Destroyer

Bees and beekeeping, like all things associated with the natural world, proceeds in cycles. Decisions taken today have their consequences weeks or months hence; what we observe today is the result of things that happened in a different season. So there is no clear and obvious start point or end point to the beekeeping year; no story to tell with a beginning, middle and end. This, then, is as good a point as any to declare the start of a new season, conveniently coinciding with the calendar year.

We do not normally open the hives during the winter. To do so risks chilling them and depleting or destroying the colony. Even if all is not well, there is little that can be done in the winter months; the colony must survive, or not, on its own resources. The single exception is one suitable day close to the solstice, when the weather is not too unkind...like today

Varroa destructor is a pinhead-sized parasitic mite, originally of the Eastern honeybee, Apis cerana. In the 1940s, when people took our familiar Western honeybees (Apis mellifera) to Asia, the mite jumped species to the new host. A. mellifera has no evolved behaviour to groom itself of these parasites or otherwise control them. In a hive, they multiply exponentially. They cause direct damage to their hosts by penetrating their exoskeleton and feeding on their inner organs but, more fatally, they spread viruses around the colony - like a mosquito spreading malaria - and colonies rapidly succumb to a wave of infection, often dying out completely over winter.

Varroa was first detected in UK in 1992. It is now present in almost all UK colonies, excluding some isolated extremities and islands, particularly in Scotland. Most beekeepers medicate their bees to control the Varroa population; we do so twice a year. In mid-winter, we use sugar solution laced with a small amount of oxalic acid (the acid found in rhubarb leaves). Using a 5ml syringe, I trickle a syringe full into each 'seam' of bees (the gap between two honeycomb frames), of which there could be up to 10 in each hive. No-one quite knows why, but this causes the Varroa to fall off the bees (to which they normally cling doggedly) and fall through the wire mesh that forms the floor of the hive. This is not homeopathy or herbal remedies, but the recommended practice of the sober scientists at DEFRA

The mid-winter date is when the queen slows her rate of egg laying to the minimum - often zero. So we hope there are few (ideally zero) young bees developing in sealed wax cells in the comb. Varroa themselves reproduce within these sealed cells, and the young mites are protected from the treatment by the wax. The less developing bees, the more effective the remedy

The image shows us drifting smoke over the top of the frames of comb prior to the treatment. This drives the bees off the top and down into the seams, so that as many individuals as possible get a dose. I'll rhapsodise about smoke in another Blip somewhen, but today I picked this one because the smoke adds a little drama