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AGM 07/11/2024

EDBK Annual General Meeting

Held at Kilmington Village Hall on Thursday 7th November 2024

The AGM was efficiently run as all the reports had been circulated beforehand.

Election of President, Officers and Committee for 2024/25

A big thank you to the 54 members who attended the AGM and voted in your new Committee.

PresidentHilary Kirkcaldie
ChairAlasdair Bruce
TreasurerKeith Bone
SecretaryVal Bone
Committee membersJohn Badley, Mary Boulton, Marion Coleman, Ralph Cox, Rhiannon Hodson, Rosemary Maggs, Nick Silver, Stan Wroe
Delegate to the Devon ECMarion Coleman

In her Secretaries report, Val drew attention to the fact that Richard Simpson retires from the committee, and his post of Education Officer, this year. Val warmly thanked Richard for his many years of service organising Winter and Summer programmes, running the annual Beginners Course as well as helping exam candidates with the Basic and Modules. He will be replaced by Nick Silver.

Successful candidates in the 2024 Basic examination were announced; Andrew Bartlett and Rachel De Thample, with Andrew being the winner of the Craythorne Cup, for achieving highest marks in the group. Nick Silver was presented with his Module 6 and Intermediate Theory Certificates.

The Branch Teaching Apiary

Keith Bone outlined the future plan for the running of the branch Apiary. Both he and David Shale will be retiring from the post of Apiary Managers and the Apiary will be run by a team of volunteers.

For the second year running we had a very poor winter. Like many, not only in Devon but up and down the country, the branch apiary suffered considerable losses. The result was only eight Queen right colonies emerging in the Spring out of fourteen. Two or three hives were totally empty of bees, suggesting that they swarmed late and those left behind took refuge in hives close by. Plenty of capped stores were found in all the colonies, even in those which were Queenright. So much so that in the spring we took off and extracted 24kgs of overwintered stores. It was hoped to use this as autumn feed but some fermentation put paid to that idea.

The weather continued to be wet and cold and consequently the bees took time to build up. When one sunny summer day finally appeared, it served as the starting gun for swarm pandemonium. Queen cells appeared rapidly and artificial swarm control challenged the apiary team on and off for the next few weeks. By mid-summer we were up to eighteen colonies.

Surprisingly, 190lbs of honey was extracted in August – unusual for us – and still leaving plenty for winter stores. 

An increase in varroa presence was noted this year, requiring treatment. Feeding was with Invertbee syrup and the Team will be treating with oxalic acid mid winter.

East Devon Beekeepers attendance at Local Shows

Alasdair referred to our presence at many smaller shows this year. Honey sales, Asian Hornet awareness and general interest were up and, with our continued main event of the excellent Honiton Show, attending smaller village shows is clearly the way forward. 

East Devon were represented at Goren Farm Festival, Colyton Goose Fayre, Stockland Fayre and Dalwood Country Fayre. These smaller local shows seem to be popular with the public and allow East Devon Beekeepers to fulfil their remit of spreading the word about the importance of pollinators in the environment. They also act to recruit possible candidates for our annual Beginners Beekeeping Course.

Avoiding Fermentation – Honey’s Enemy No.1

After the formal business, Nick Silver gave a short presentation on avoiding fermentation of your honey crop.

Honey (England) Regulations 2015 state that:

  • No Additives
  • No Contamination, Foreign Particles, Chemical Residues
  • No Foreign Taste or Odour
  • No Artificial Acidity
  • No Excessive Heating/Enzyme Destruction/HMF Production
  • Fructose & Glucose > 60g/100g (Blossom Honey)
Fermenting oil seed rape honey
Fermenting oil seed rape honey

Avoiding fermentation is a challenge in the UK as we have wet springs and summers, and bees are slow to cap the honey. Removing the oil seed rape honey crop early for fear of the honey going hard can lead to unripe honey, and the tendency to remove the crop early in order to complete varroa treatment can also lead to problems.

Fermentation is often associated with crystallisation as this raises the moisture level in the remaining liquid honey, but it can be due to other causes such as poorly stored containers or excessive contamination by yeast cells.

The Triangle of Fermentation

Here we see the action of yeast on honey in the centre of the diagram, with the conditions at the points.

What do we have control of? Starting with Yeasts, these are collected with the nectar and although the quantity is variable, they are always present. So, little control here.

Temperature can play an important role, as low temperature will prevent or retard fermentation whereas higher temperatures make fermentation and crystallisation more likely. However, most beekeepers do not have specialist storage facilities.

That leaves Water Content as the best option for the beekeeper to take control of conditions.

So how do we know the water content of our honey? Help is at hand with the Honey Refractometer. These can be purchased for modest prices, well below the value of a bucket full of honey, which is what you would lose if it fermented. Two points to be aware of. The reading is temperature dependent, so ensure the sample and refractometer are at room temperature (20°C). Also, the device may need calibration at some point.

Refractometer

An affordable honey refractometer

Refractometer scale

View of the refractometer scale.

Water% scale

Water% scale

Click to enlarge

These images show a facsimile of the screen display. It looks complicated, but beekeepers only need to use the Water % scale. The maximum moisture content of legal honey is shown by the red line.

Keeping Honey Dry and Storing Honey

This list is not exhaustive, but will go a long way towards controlling fermentation in your honey.

  • Supers cleared in warm dry weather
  • Supers covered, kept warm, extracted immediately
  • Only extract capped honey
  • Extraction room as hot as possible
  • Extraction room as dry as possible (dehumidifier)
  • All liquid honey kept covered at all times
    • Less is lost if there is a problem
    • Easier to liquify later
    • Opportunity to blend
  • Buckets full to the brim
  • Stir the buckets thoroughly
  • Measure water content of each bucket
  • Store at 14°C until crystallised, then below 10°C

There were lots of questions and after the talk members were invited to test their own refractometers on a range of different honey samples provided by Nick. Judging by the crowd round the testing table this was a popular talk. Many thanks to Nick.