It is to be noted that inclusion in these lists does not mean that WBKA endorse any product or service.
New Links
Beebase – Information resource for the beekeepers
BIBBA – Bee Improvement and Bee Breeding Association
British Beekeepers Association – The national association
EU Commission’s Rural Development Page
Honey Association – website packed with fascinating facts about honey
Local and Regional Associations
Airedale Beekeepers Association
Bradford Beekeepers Association
Harrogate & Ripon Beekeepers Association – including details of Claro Bees Apiary Supplies
Leeds Beekeepers Association – For news and views from another local association
Yorkshire Beekeepers Association – The county association
Local Sustainability and Environmental Groups
Climate Action Skipton (facebook)
Wharfedale Naturalists’ Society
Education and Course Materials
For those taking BBKA examinations, this site from Mid-Bucks BKA is extremely useful
Bumblebee Conservation Trust
Asian Hornet
Non-native Species Alert – What to do if you think you’ve seen an Asian Hornet
BBKA pages – BBKA information on the Asian Hornet
National Groups and Resources
Top Bar Hives and other alternative beekeeping systems
Warré Beekeeping – beekeeping using the hive developed by Abbé Émile Warré (1867-1951).
Introduction to Warré Beekeeping – a quick overview of Warré beekeeping.
The Barefoot Beekeeper – practical, balanced, treatment-free beekeeping in horizontal top bar hives.
For the Love of Bees – natural top bar beekeeping since the 1970’s
Rose Hives – instead of having two different size boxes (brood-boxes and supers), Rose Hives just have one size box which can be used for either brood or honey.
Sun Hives – based on the principles of bee-centred apiculture, the Sun Hive is an ideal conservation hive for our pollinating friends the honeybee.
Natural Bee Husbandry – A new quarterly journal for a new a era of bee centred beekeeping published by Northern Bee Books.
Treatment-free Beekeeping
Treatment-free Beekeeping Facebook Group – Connect with, and learn from over 12000 treatment-free beekeepers from around the world.
Research
Tom Seeley papers
Tom Seeley, author of Honeybee Democracy and one of the world’s foremost honeybee researchers, has made his research papers available online. For some of these you may need to register for a (free) Research Gate account.
The neglected bee trees: European beech forests as a home for feral honey bee colonies
Apicentric (or Bee-friendly) Beekeeping
The Science Behind Apicentric Practice
A searchable index of research papers which support the concept of Apicentric (or Bee-friendly) Beekeeping.
Beekeeping Practice
Neumann, P. and Blacquière, T. (2017), The Darwin cure for apiculture?Natural selection and managed honeybee health. Evol Appl, 10: 226-230. doi:10.1111/eva.12448
The authors point out that the role of beekeeping practices in honeybee decline has been largely ignored and that “Sustainable solutions for the apicultural sector can only be achieved by taking advantage of natural selection and not by attempting to limit it”.
Gloria DeGrandi-Hoffman, Fabiana Ahumada, Henry Graham (2017) Are Dispersal Mechanisms Changing the Host-Parasite Relationship and Increasing the Virulence of Varroa destructor (Mesostigmata: Varroidae) in Managed Honey Bee (Hymenoptera: Apidae) Colonies?, Environmental Entomology, Volume 46, Issue 4, 1 August 2017, Pages 737-746 A model that simulated varroa populations and bee interactions showed that natural swarming, which is suppressed in domesticated bees, keeps varroa populations down. That’s because swarming carries mites away from hives and reduces the number of bee larvae produced, shrinking the mites’ food supply. Furthermore, infected forager bees that raid other hives can quickly spread the mites when hives are close together.
Bee Behaviour
Borba, R. S., & Spivak, M. (2017). Propolis envelope in Apis mellifera colonies supports honey bees against the pathogen, Paenibacillus larvae. Scientific Reports, 7, 11429. http://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-017-11689-w Our results indicate that the propolis envelope serves as an antimicrobial layer around the colony that helps protect the brood from bacterial pathogen infection, resulting in a lower colony-level infection load.
Tribe, G., Tautz, J., Sternberg, K. and Cullinan, J. (2017). Firewalls in bee nests – survival value of propolis walls of wild Cape honeybee (Apis mellifera capensis). Sci. Nat. 104:29.DOI 10.1007/s00114-017-1449-5. Analysis of honeybee colonies in South Africa shows that they do not abscond from the nest when threatened by smoke, but retreat into the nest where they are protected by propolis firewalls. The consumption of honey when bees are smoked is most likely to make sure they can survive a period without forage after a fire has passed.
For more discussion of this research and some photographs see this blog post by the Natural Beekeeping Trust.
Videos
Video clip of ‘Honeybee Democracy’ by Thomas Seeley
Suppliers
Arden Books – suppliers of new, out of print and scarce books on natural history, gardening and botany.
Caddon Hives – based in the Scottish Borders
Honey Frame Packaging – a novel packaging system for honey sales
Northern Bee Books – specialist beekeeping bookseller (sign up to The Bee Book Paper, covering the very latest apicultural literature).
Peak Hives – a small business in Derbyshire producing quality National Hives in cedar and red deal
Solway Bee Supplies – manufacturer of high quality cedar hives and ancillary equiptment
Other Sites
BeeCraft Magazine (Digital Version)
BWARS – National society dedicated to studying bees, wasps and ants
Dave Cushman’s website – a huge resource that is considered by some to be the world’s most comprehensive and authoritative beekeeping website.