This Sunday, August 25th was a day where I was surrounded by other beekeepers.
First I drove out to Kalmthout, where Belgium has a beekeeping museum. Unfortunately I didn't have time to visit the museum itself. I was there for an event with two speakers. All I got to enjoy was a hot tea outside the conference room:
The first speaker
was Rob Peulen and he addressed the relationship between the beekeeper, the beekeeping associations and the gouvernement. The topic was moulded on a more narrow platform, a better titel would have been : Beekeeping and Taxes. This did not make the topic any less interesting though! As I have started my own beekeeping enterprise I was interested to hear what he had to say. To keep it short; it comes down to this: As a beekeeper you don't need to report your expenses and income, as most beekeepers don't make a profit, but it is wise to keep records as if you would have a business.For myself I must remember that even if I don't make a profit, but start out as a loss-making enterprise, the tax inspection should accept my expenses! (Even though they'll likely protest)
The Second speaker
was Erik Goris, a beekeeper that is looking to keep bees in a more 'natural' way. He told us his story and musings on the topic as he's a 4th generation beekeeper that in one winter went from 40 hives to only 6. The occurrence was disheartening and Erik considered stopping his beekeeping activities altogether. But a it is with beekeepers, the call to work with bees was louder than the crying of his heart, so he picked up beekeeping again whilst looking for answers on what went wrong.He focused his attention on smaller cells and contacted several scientists toward this end. He was also interested in the nutrition, and why he found undigested pollen in the intestinal tract of bees. It was there that he heard that bees can't actually digest pollen, they need other mechanisms to start breaking down the egg-whites so they can digest them further themselves. It was there he made the assumption that by using acids or other chemical products we might destroy the very mechanisms the bees need to help them with their nutrition.
With this information he set out to keep bees without treating them, a work that kept confronting him with setbacks, very much so that he was about to throw in the towel and stop beekeeping yet again on the premise that his bees didn't survive that winter. He now jokes he should have threatened his bees with stopping sooner, since all but one hive survived that winter. A loss, but an acceptable one this time.
His work included breeding bees with traits of sensitive hygiene. He was looking for bees that pull out diseased larvae, for bees that groom each other. He used artificial insemination to speed up the process of selection towards varroa tolerance.
Now he only treats the hives if he sees none of these signs.
I would very much like to hear for Erik again in a more in depth conversation some time...
The afternoon get-together
After the seminary I drove back towards my own region, a short drive of 1 hour and 30 minutes. Upon arrival I noticed I was on the late side of things... Roger Devos was already speaking to the members that accepted his invitation for a get together. He was going to replace a queen with another and demonstrated on how he cuts the wingtip of a queen.
Another member of the beekeeping association in Oudenaarde, Andre Boonaert, gave a crash course on how to use the Snelgrove Board and how he very much appreciates this method.
He also showcased a device that looked like a sphere with a mouth to put into a skep entrance. It looked ancient, as it was rusty. The sphere was constructed out of metal wire, spaced apart very much like a Queen-excluder. He instructed us it was used to put into the hive entrance at such a time where the drones left the skep, as the drones are larger than a worker bee they couldn't get outside the sphere, where the workers could. So instead of cutting drone-comb, this was the method to get rid of drones in skep-beekeeping.
Another device he has made himself and showcased was a swarmbox, with ventilation holes for transport and with a queen-excluder screen that could be closed off by opening the ventilation holes, preventing from bees to leave the box.
We had a drink afterwards and as I was getting ready to take my leave Roger asked me if I had seen his apiary. He transformed a horse-box into a 9m long apiary with a huge amount of storage space. All bees Roger has are Buckfast bees, and he advocates that 'brand' of bees to all that want to listen.
This was my beekeeping sunday!
See you next time!
Bob Out
