Anne Rowberry, Somerset AHAT member and BBKA Vice Chair writes:
"An Asian hornet sighting was confirmed in the Tamworth area of Staffordshire on  September 2, 2019. This is the first report since July, when a single hornet was confirmed in New Milton, Hampshire. In each case they were spotted and reported by a member of the public.
Since 2016, there have been a total of 15 confirmed sightings of the Asian hornet in England and six nests have been destroyed.
Nine of these sightings occurred in 2018; an individual hornet in Lancashire (April) and Hull, three in Cornwall, two in Hampshire, one in Surrey (all September) and one in Kent (October).
The risk of an active Asian hornet nest being found in the UK is negligible during the colder winter months, but higher during the summer. Asian hornets have already been spotted this year in countries close to the UK (France and Jersey) and a risk remains at all times of year of accidentally transporting an Asian hornet when returning to the UK from abroad.
It is crucial you report any possible sightings so our experts can take quick and effective action to eradicate Asian hornets."
Asian hornets are a notifiable invasive species and should be reported immediately, preferably with a photo:
Asian Hornet Watch app for iPhone  
Asian Hornet Watch app for Android or
asianhornet@somersetbeekeepers.org.uk 
the online recording form http://www.brc.ac.uk/risc/alert.php?species=asian_hornet  alertnonnative@ceh.ac.uk

Congratulations to Mark and Christine Gullick from Burnham Division who were awarded the Bronze Bee for winning the most points at Bristol’s Bee and Pollination Festival on Saturday.
They beat extremely tough competition to scoop seven firsts, five seconds, three thirds and one highly commended. Next stop: the National Honey Show! 

Student Amelia Threadgould, a member of Devon Beekeeping Association, is researching ecosystem services and honeybee foraging habits in rural and urban environments for a masters degree with The University of Warwick.
She is collecting data from local beekeeping associations throughout England and would welcome input from Somerset beekeepers.
The aim of the survey is to finding out what possible policy changes would be welcomed by hobbyist beekeepers, for example; subsidies, reduced tax on beekeeping equipment, funding for training etc.
She says the survey is completely anonymous and has been approved by an ethics committee. There are further details on the introduction page of the survey, along with a brief overview of the research.
 http://warwick.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dgnpAIKr7QKCVHn
​

BBKA General Manager Leigh Sidaway has asked us to share this info about their queen rearing courses.
The BBKA is organising courses for beekeepers, with at least three years' experience, at several venues around the country:
Somerset: August 3rd & 4th at Quantock Apiary near Bridgwater
Wales: August 10th & 11th at Gregynog Hall, Tygynon, Nr Newtown
Warwickshire: September 14th & 15th at BBKA Apiary, Stoneleigh
Cleveland: September 17th & 18th, venue to be confirmed
Details of other courses will be posted on the BBKA website when confirmed.
The whole course is focussed on the General Husbandry standard with the objective of each attendee going home able to run their queen rearing matched to their needs.  It will not be prescriptive and will enable the attendees to make up their own mind about the method they would like to employ.  It will not focus on grafting, although it is a method that everyone should at least have tried at some point.
The course will be theory plus time in the apiary when different methods of queen rearing will be discussed and demonstrated.   There will also be several queen related manipulations, again to the General Husbandry standard.
There will be a maximum of twelve on each course and there will be two tutors.  The lead tutor will be Sean Stephenson who has a lot of experience in queen raising and delivering courses.
The cost of the course will be £75 which will covers coffee, tea and biscuits but please bring a packed lunch with you.  The timing for the courses will be confirmed later but will start on Saturday morning and end on Sunday afternoon.
If you would like to apply for a place on the course please apply through the website shop:
https://www.bbka.org.uk/pages/shop/department/training-courses
or contact the BBKA office on 02476 696679.

In this month's SBKA newsletter, AHAT co-ordinator Lynne Ingram says public enquiries are coming in.
"The AHATs have been busy fielding calls or emails from members of the public who believe they have spotted an Asian Hornet. Most have been European hornets or hornet mimic hoverflies.
The Exmoor team headed out to check out a possible sighting but after a day in the area did not find anything. The photo in that case seemed to show a melanistic European Hornet with the yellow headband visible.
These almost all black European hornets have added to identification confusion, but they are distinguished from Asian Hornets by a having brown legs and a yellow ‘headband’."
Asian hornets (Vespa velutina nigrithorax) are slightly smaller than native European hornets and look like large black wasps with an orange face and yellow legs:

• An Asian hornet queen is up to 30mm long; workers are up to 25mm long.
• Asian hornets are dark brown or black with a velvety body and the abdomen is almost entirely black except for a yellow fourth abdominal segment. Legs are brown with yellow ends.

Asian hornets are active mainly between April and November (peak August/September) and are inactive over the winter."
If you see an Asian hornet, take a photo and report it on the Asian Hornet Watch app or contact asianhornet@somersetbeekeepers.org for further advice.

For the first time we're staging a second exhibit exclusively focusing on Asian hornets (Vespa velutina nigrithorax) at the Royal Bath & West Show which runs from tomorrow until Saturday (May 29-June 1) in Shepton Mallet.
We want to alert visitors to the imminent arrival of Asian hornets in the UK this season with huge banners, Asian Hornet Action Team co-ordinator Lynne Ingram's glass cases displaying pinned Asian hornets and other insects, leaflets and cards to take away and children's colouring-in sheets.
Our AHAT will be on hand to talk to beekeepers and the public about Asian hornets - how to identify them, how to report them, the threat they pose to our honeybees and other pollinators.
In Jersey 70 plus Asian hornet queens have been discovered already this year; in France, where Asian hornets arrived in 2004, honey production is down by 50 per cent which reflects the impact these hornets are having on honeybee numbers.
Asian hornets are a notifiable invasive species and should be reported immediately with photo using:
Asian Hornet Watch app
asianhornet@somersetbeekeepers.org.uk
alertnonnative@ceh.ac.uk

Somerset Beekeepers will be out in force at the Royal Bath & West Show starting tomorrow (Wednesday) at Shepton Mallet.
Our preparations in the Bees & Honey marquee are well underway - don't be put off by this photo which was taken on Sunday! What promises to be an attention-grabbing stand will demonstrate the invaluable role honeybees play in the pollination of the nation’s best-loved food crops.
Plus there will be our usual team of experienced beekeepers on hand to talk about the craft to visitors.
The feature is run by three counties - Somerset, Avon and Wiltshire - and includes a honey show, candle rolling for children, free honey tasting and advice about all aspects of beekeeping.
Plus visitors will have plenty of opportunity to see honeybees at work in observation hives, where bees are behind glass, and in the outdoor bee garden where beekeepers will demonstrate behind protective netting.
If you're at the Show, do come and hello!

‘A swarm in May is worth a load of hay;
A swarm in June is worth a sliver spoon;
A swarm in July isn’t worth a fly.’
And a swarm at anytime needs to be collected! If you can't help, don't forget to direct inquiries to the BBKA website where there is a useful resource giving information about how to identify the bees  and find a swarm collector based on postcode.
​https://www.bbka.org.uk/swarm

Did you see a group of Somerset beekeepers in The Times and the Guardian earlier in the month? Photographer Zach Culpin went along to an apiary session for Somerton’s beginners' group and took a series of colourful photos which he kindly shared with us. Great work Joe King, Stewart Gould and the new beeks! 

SW Regional Bee Inspector Simon Jones writes about the last season in his annual report - the good, the bad and the ugly! It provides a fascinating snap-shot of what has happened in Somerset and the region.
There is some good news for our county beekeepers - the number of colonies affected by EFB fell last year to 26, but that is still more than Devon, Cornwall and Avon put together. However AFB was not reported in Somerset but it is just over the county border in Devon.
"The 2018 season started late after a cold winter and spring. However colonies that were healthy and strong coming out of the winter were able to take advantage of the good weather that followed and gathered a good crop of honey. From my own experience the honey has been of a good quality with most of the combs fully capped with the extracted honey having a low moisture content.
The Bee Inspectors have had another busy season. They have been carrying out their usual programme of risk based inspections for European Foulbrood (EFB) and American Foulbrood (AFB). There has been an increase in the levels of disease in Cornwall but the other counties which make up the South West Region (SW) have showed a significant decrease with Avon having no disease at all (see graphs further in the report).
In partnership with the local Beekeeping Associations we have continued to deliver our ‘Bee Health Days’. This season the North Somerset/Avon Bee Health Day took place at the Langford Veterinary College, the Cornwall Bee Health Day was in Lostwithiel at the local community centre and the Devon Bee Health Day was hosted by Exeter Branch at the Kenn Centre just outside of Exeter.
I would like to thank all of the local association secretaries/training officers who helped us to manage the programme of Bee Health Days across the SW. We are also very grateful to the local beekeepers who allowed us to use their nearby apiaries for demonstration purposes.
The Inspectors also had a presence at the Somerset Lecture Day in February and Cornwall’s ‘Bit of a Do’ (BOAD) in September.
We have again been carrying out Exotic Pest Surveillance (EPS) inspections around risk points such as ports and airports to check for incursions of Small Hive Beetle (SHB), Tropilaelaps and Asian Hornet. With local beekeepers help we set up four Enhanced Sentinel Apiaries, two are situated near Avonmouth Docks and two near Plymouth Docks, both are considered to be very high risk points. These apiaries are inspected three times a year by the local BeeInspector and floor samples are sent into the FERA laboratory for analysis.
In addition to these inspections there are 18 Sentinel Apiaries around the region. This is where beekeepers that have an apiary near a risk point assist the National Bee Unit (NBU) by regularly monitoring their colonies for Exotic Pests and twice a year they send in floor debris samples to be tested. I am very grateful to the South West Sentinel Apiary Beekeepers for all of their help this season, they are an important part of the NBU’s surveillance programme.
Part of our work each season is to monitor imports of queens and package bees from the European Union (EU) and Third Countries (Argentina, Australia and New Zealand). Again this year we saw a large number of packages imported from Italy, some of which were bought by beekeepers in the South West (SW) region. These were inspected for SHB as they were decanted into hives and fortunately nothing was found (SHB was found in Southern Italy in 2014).
Throughout the season the SW Inspectors carried out enhanced surveillance for Asian Hornet in the Woolacombe area of North Devon to ensure nothing had been overlooked from the nest that we found and destroyed in 2017.
We were also in the thick of it again when Asian Hornet was found to be predating bees in an apiary in Cornwall."
For more a detailed report, please download the file below.