Hi, I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to Episode 72 of my podcast, Beekeeping Short and Sweet. It’s July and the final month of our Summer nectar flow, the bees are busy filling Supers and we’ve been hit by another bout of CBPV. There are jobs that need attention for this month too, so keep listening for this week's updates.

Welcome back to another weekly podcast and we somehow find ourselves in July and what is for me the final month of our Summer honey production. I’ve moved all of the bees back to their permanent apiary sites and were in the process now of assessing colonies in preparation for the Autumn shutdown. It might seem a little early to be thinking of the coming Autumn and Winter but believe me, it will soon be here and if you’ve not got yourself prepared those precious few weeks in the late Autumn will become a panic as you try to treat and feed bees to ensure a successful Winter period.

If you're interested in submitting honey samples to the National Honey Monitoring Scheme check out their website here

There are, of course, jobs to do this month too but they all lead to setting up colonies to survive the darker months and ensure strong colonies for next Spring.

I was visited this week by a fellow beekeeper from Australia was explaining that they have active bees foraging for around 11 months of the year, imagine that! To have flying bees pretty much all year round and no really cold months seems on the face of it a perfect scenario but I’m sure it brings its own challenges. This past week has also brought some interesting beekeeping letters through the post, I recently signed up to the UK’s Centre for Ecology and Hydrology’s National Honey Monitoring Scheme, looking at their website for some details to share I found their introduction pretty much explains exactly what they are doing.

 The National Honey Monitoring Scheme aims to use honeybees to monitor long-term changes in the condition and health of the UK countryside. However, we need the help of beekeepers if this scheme is to work. Initially set up in 2018, the Honey Monitoring Scheme is a long-term programme that uses advanced analytical techniques to identify the species of plant pollen present in honey samples. This will tell us what bees are feeding on in different parts of the country and at different times of year. This information will help us identify possible threats to bees linked with floral resources.

The CEH website goes on to explain what the scheme will do:

• State-of-the-art analysis: using DNA metabarcoding and high precision mass spectrometry of honey samples
• Sample archive: for future research developing new analytics, such as disease detection 
• Provide feedback to participating beekeepers
• Generate robust scientific data to inform future policy decisions 

So I received a submissions pack which contains a couple of tubes that they need filled with honey samples and from that they can identify exactly the plants my bees have been foraging on. What’s is really exciting is that they will share this information with me onece the testing has been completed. Due to the size and complexity of the project I won’t get the results for some time but as soon as I do I will share them with you. If you’d like to take part in the National Honey Monitoring Scheme do check out their website www.ceh.ac.uk and look for the link to the relevant page, I’ll leave a link in the podcast notes to help direct you to their site.

The other letter I received was from a university student called Amy who is carrying out a third year dissertation project involving Varroa mites and was a request for samples. The project is looking into genetic diversification of Varroa and haplotypes within th

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