CONTENTS
- Resilience and Winter Losses
- An Old Technique to Increase Honey Yield
- Rethinking “Emergency” Queen Cells
- Cascading the CaSCA Message
- What Your Honey Can Tell Us About Bee Health
Resilience and Winter Losses
Steve McGrath
Winter losses are sad and frustrating, and in some cases they can be devastating. It will be a while before we have the survey data for the 2025/26 winter, but anecdotal evidence from multiple sources suggests that some beekeepers have experienced losses well above the historic norm, and in some cases catastrophic losses with entire apiaries wiped out.
Losses will never go away, they are a part of natural selection. They can be caused by a huge number of things: queen issues, starvation, pests and disease, conditions the previous summer, and the actions of the beekeeper, to name a few.
They should rarely be caused by the winter weather outside the hive. The wet or the cold is often blamed where there’s no other apparent explanation. According to the Met Office, some parts of the country experienced a very wet winter, with some counties experiencing the highest amount of rain on record. But other parts were dryer than average, meaning it wasn’t the wettest winter for the UK. The winter was mild for all of us. Some parts of the British Isles are continuously lashed with rain and bees survive and indeed thrive. They’ve been adapting to our highly variable temperate maritime climate for more than 9,000 years.
So where else could the blame lie if losses are much higher than average?
A commonly reported find in this winter’s dead outs seems to be a queen in the middle of a very small cluster of worker bees and very few dead bees on the floor, suggesting there were too few bees left to survive as an over-wintered colony.
Steve McGrathA common find in dead outs this winter?
The hive still has plenty of stores, either in frames or supplementary and there’s no sign of starvation.
Speaking with some very experienced beekeepers, there are a couple of reasonable explanations that could have contributed to this phenomenon, and both occurred in the early warm, dry spring and summer many of us had last year.
The early, dry spring and summer meant some of the main flow from forage such as blackberry and clover started earlier than usual and it was over more quickly than usual. That meant an early and protracted brood break until a very strong ivy flow kicked in. This could have had an impact on the laying of winter bees in some colonies.
A second plausible explanation is that vespids thrived in the warm, dry conditions with some beekeepers reporting wasp attacks on a biblical scale in some apiaries. They went on and on into the very mild autumn and indeed into winter. As well as depleting the hive of summer bees and hindering foraging, what impact does this pressure have on the laying up of winter bees? My own experience is of higher winter losses in apiaries that have suffered significant wasp pressures the summer before.
Varroa will also be blamed for winter losses when all other explanations fail, and in some cases could be the cause. It’s very important that beekeepers who have mite susceptible bees are keeping up with treatments, while those with varroa resistant bees must be keeping on top of monitoring and not get complacent after several years of low mite counts and survival. For those transitioning to varroa resistance, it’s critical to be very regular and consistent in your monitoring. Seeing uncapping is not enough - you need to see evidence of chewing out of infected pupae and you need to see a consistent low mite count across the season, and on an ongoing basis.
We’ll know about the scale of the losses and beekeeper’s thoughts on the reasons when the annual surveys are published later in the year.
For full disclosure, this author went into winter with 40 colonies across several sites on the Kent/Surrey/Sussex borders, and lost a total of 9, or 23%. One was a so-called "Mary Celeste” when the bees including the queen just vanish overnight, a few showed the aforementioned situation of a queen surrounded by a few bees, very few dead bees on the floor and a hive full of stores. Two losses were nucs, which is unusual for the author, but both were late season matings and the colonies struggled to get going despite heavy support.
For all beekeepers, the key now is rebounding from the winter losses.
- In terms of the bees, the survivors are key. They got through when colonies around them failed. They adapted to the local conditions and showed resilience. Those are bees we want and should raise new colonies from.
- Rushing off to buy more bees from a supplier when the last colony you bought failed to get through winter seems counter-intuitive.
At BIBBA, we have always tried to help beekeepers, their associations and breeding groups to breed locally adapted bees from their own stock. It’s simple to do. There’s no dark art. This year, it appears more important than ever. It can be as simple as donating a frame of eggs and young larvae to a beekeeper who has suffered heavy losses.
Steve McGrathA colony bringing in pollen in late February in Southeast England Picture: Steve McGrath
This season, take the plunge and raise bees from your existing survivor stock. You could raise more than you need. That’ll help you cover next winter’s losses, and you may have surplus to sell or donate to neighbour beekeepers who fared badly over winter.
We believe that the type of bees makes a difference. Our native bee, Apis mellifera mellifera, arrived on these isles after the last ice age some 9,000 years or more ago. They have had all that time to adapt to the climate and environment of the British Isles. Importation of bees from areas including the mediterranean and eastern Europe, which have very different climates and environments, have over the last 100 years or so heavily hybridised our stock.
But even these hybrid bees, with their mix of genetics, retain genes from our native bees. Over time they may become locally adapted and survivors may eventually succeed without the continual beekeeper manipulation and support required by non-native sub-species that are more suited to a commercial situation and rely on heavy feeding and treatment. These are the bees we need to build resilience for the future.
An action plan for rebounding from winter losses:
- Plan now for raising new colonies from your survivors. It’s simple to do, but you’ll need some nucs and spare frames. BIBBA has resources to help you raise new colonies simply. Choose a simple method and stick with it.
- Raise more than you need so that you’re going into next winter with nucs that would cover any losses next winter and potentially leave you with surplus that you could then sell locally.
- From a beekeeping perspective, was there anything you did differently for the survivors and those that didn’t make it through? Were colonies strong enough or should they have been combined? Did you leave them plenty of stores throughout the season? What can you do differently this season to ensure that your bees are as strong as possible going into next winter?
- Are your bees regularly having to be fed to get through winter, or do they survive with their own income? Bees that are frugal over winter are best suited to the UK’s winters, especially as it gets milder and the bees may be more active over winter.
- For anyone transitioning to varroa resistance, monitor mite numbers regularly and consistently and make sure you’re seeing both uncapping and chewing out. Uncapping alone isn’t enough. If your mite numbers start rising and continue rising, intervene. Don’t just hope for the best.
- For those who have varroa resistant bees, don’t let complacency creep in. Keep monitoring and observing and make sure colonies headed by new queens are as resistant as their mothers.
- Can you take extra precautions against wasps? Do you make sure the colonies are as strong as possible going into late July and August and narrow down the entrances to one in, one out? Wasps will take advantage of any weakness. Can you move any nucs away from an apiary that’s suffering wasp pressures to another site? If you are often blighted, have you considered using entrance adaptations?
- As an association, how are you helping members overcome winter losses? Is there a group within the association who might set up a breeding group to breed locally adapted bees and over-winter plenty of nucs for association members the following spring?
There will be many more questions we could ask, but over-wintering in a country where the beekeeping season lasts for no more than six months is a vitally important consideration for any beekeeper.
BIBBA has many resources that could help you rebound from winter losses and build resilience for future winters.
An Old Technique to Increase Honey Yield
Roger Patterson
Quite often, in presentations or in print, I mention things that are done elsewhere in the world or were done by beekeepers in the past, that are largely unknown to modern beekeepers. An example is that I often say that beekeepers in the past organised a carefully timed brood break to increase their honey yield. One of our Wisborough Green BKA members Joel emailed me asking for an explanation, that I briefly gave him. I thought it could be an article for the newsletter and another page for Dave Cushman’s website, giving fuller information than I gave Joel. This is a slightly modified version.
Many beekeepers in the past worked on the land and often did things with their bees that worked, but they may not have known the reasons why. What I am about to describe was common practice, but relied on knowing there was going to be a nectar flow and good weather for a couple of weeks in advance. They were both things that country folk knew by the signs and observation. This technique I’m covering was common before WW2, when there was no OSR, but fodder and hay crops such as sainfoin and lucerne (known as alfalfa elsewhere), but of course no varroa. Below, I give the basic principles, though there is some conjecture on my part. It would be useful to think it through yourself to understand why this worked.
- It takes roughly a cell of food to produce a cell of bee, so a frame of food becomes a frame of bees in 3 weeks.
- Many hives in the past were WBC or “Cottager” types, usually with 10 frames, not 11 as in National and almost always single brood box. They were well suited to the locally adapted bees many beekeepers used, where queens lay a BS brood frame in about 2 days.
- Worker brood is in the larval stage for about 5-6 days, so that is the maximum time it is fed for.
- If there is no brood to feed, incoming nectar is converted to honey and stored, as is pollen, though that income may decrease, with foragers diverted to nectar gathering.
- A brood box when full takes about 40-50lb of honey, so by confining the queen for 3 weeks, in theory there should be that increase in yield because of the saving, plus surplus honey the colony would have stored if there was the normal amount of brood.
- The two main ways of wearing out workers are feeding larvae and foraging, so if they aren’t feeding brood, they are progressed with their tasks, so forage earlier and because they are physiologically younger bees they should live and forage for longer.
- Queens were usually caged on a small area of comb with home-made cages made from wire mesh or old queen excluder. Workers need to access the cage, so those emerging from within can escape.
- The same thing would happen if you had a colony with a queen you wish to replace. Simply remove the queen. Leave it 9-10 days, remove all queen cells and add a frame of larvae from a good colony to allow the colony to build emergency cells, leaving one to head the colony. This will give a brood break of a minimum of 28 days, so achieving the same thing.
- Timing needs to be worked out by knowing the worker life cycle. After removing the queen, there should be no reduction in larval food for 3 days, then there will be progressively less larval feeding needed over the next 5 days. The queen should be caged 8-10 days before the nectar flow starts for maximum benefit, hence the importance of using natural signs for good timing.
- Bees always put honey at the highest point in the nest, so I think that several supers would have been added, otherwise the brood box would have been filled and sealed, leaving little space for the queen to lay in. Bees are reluctant to remove sealed stores, but will readily remove unsealed. I would certainly add more supers than normal.
- I suspect the maximum time the queen was caged would have been 28 days. That would have created a flush of younger bees for the autumn and winter. Too long a break and there may not be enough bees to nurse a rapid increase in young brood.
- This would be a good opportunity for drawing foundation, especially to produce good brood combs.
I am unaware of why this method went out of favour, but perhaps because the smaller scale beekeeper didn’t rely on honey for income as many past beekeepers did, where they sold honey at the garden gate to augment their low wages.
One thing I don’t understand is there will be an absence footprint pheromone, but perhaps the queen substance is enough to prevent the starting of emergency cells.
I have found some plastic cages online that I think will be a suitable alternative to the old cages and I hope to perform this technique during the summer. This article was written because a newish beekeeper wanted to know more following a chance remark about a little-known technique, that was once common practice.
This is an edited version of one that appeared in the April 2026 Wisborough Green BKA newsletter.
Rethinking “Emergency” Queen Cells
Why they are better understood as queenless cells — and why the label may be misleading us
Karl Colyer
One of the most common classifications used in beekeeping is the division of queen cells into three types: swarm cells, supersedure cells, and emergency cells. While this framework is useful for management, it may also be subtly misleading, particularly in the way it frames so-called emergency queen cells.
The word “emergency” implies crisis, scarcity, and compromise. It suggests that the colony has suddenly lost its queen, has few suitable larvae available, and must raise a replacement under poor conditions - resulting in an inferior queen. This assumption is widely repeated in beekeeping literature and conversation. However, closer inspection of honey bee behaviour, and of how beekeepers create queenless situations, suggests that this narrative may be flawed.
A more biologically accurate term for these cells would be queenless cells.
The logic of queenless cells
From the colony’s perspective, there are only two broad situations in which queen cells are raised:
- When a functioning queen is present (swarming or supersedure), or
- When no queen is present (what we currently call emergency cells).
In the second case, the colony is not responding to a single moment of catastrophe but to a condition: queenlessness. The colony’s goal is simple; to restore reproductive capacity. The means by which it does this is flexible, adaptive, and often more robust than beekeepers assume.
The idea that emergency cells must be inferior relies on two linked assumptions:
- That the colony has only a very limited choice of larvae, and
- That the colony raises only one brief batch of cells before giving up.
Neither assumption appears to hold up well in practice.
Abundance, not scarcity
In many queenless situations (especially those created by beekeepers), there is no real shortage of suitable larvae. A standard brood frame contains thousands of eggs and young larvae across multiple ages. Even in a colony that loses its queen unexpectedly, there will often be several days’ worth of eggs and worker larvae young enough to be converted into queens.
Rather than being forced into a single, poor option, the colony typically has many potential candidates. Workers can select larvae of different ages and continue to start new cells as long as suitably young larvae remain available.
This undermines the idea that emergency queens are necessarily raised from larvae that are “too old”. While this can happen, it is not inevitable, and it is likely to be strongly influenced by how the queenless state is produced.
Rarity of true emergencies
Truly sudden and absolute queen loss in nature, with no eggs or young larvae remaining, is probably much rarer than the term “emergency” suggests. Colonies are buffered against failure by overlap in brood stages, and by their ability to act over time rather than in a single moment.
Rogers’ work is particularly instructive here. It shows that colonies do not simply make one short attempt at queen rearing and then perish if it fails. Instead, they may continue to initiate queen cells over an extended period, provided that suitable larvae are available. This demonstrates that queen replacement is not a single desperate gamble but a process.
Seen this way, the colony is not making an “emergency queen”, but conducting queen replacement under queenless conditions.
Beekeepers and the creation of inferiority
If emergency queens are sometimes inferior, it is reasonable to ask whether this is always a biological limitation or whether it is often a management artefact.
Common practices that may contribute to poorer outcomes include:
- Creating queenlessness while removing or damaging young larvae,
- Repeatedly cutting out queen cells, forcing colonies to use progressively older larvae,
- Leaving colonies weak, chilled, or underfed during queen rearing,
- Inducing queenlessness in small nuclei with minimal brood choice.
In these cases, it is not the type of cell that is the problem, but the conditions under which it is produced. A colony forced to rear a queen from marginal or inferior material will most likely produce a marginal or inferior queen. The important point here is that this is not inherent to the queenless method itself.
Conversely, a strong colony made queenless with abundant young brood, warmth, and nutrition may raise a queen that is functionally indistinguishable from one raised during supersedure.
Implications for bee improvement
For bee improvement work, this distinction matters. If we assume that all emergency cells are inferior by definition, we risk discarding valuable queens and underestimating the colony’s own selective capacity.
Reframing these cells as queenless cells shifts the emphasis:
- From panic to process,
- From scarcity to choice,
- From inevitability to management.
It also encourages better experimental thinking. Instead of asking “Are emergency queens inferior?”, a more useful question is:
Under what conditions do queenless colonies produce inferior queens?
This opens the door to structured comparisons based on brood age, colony strength, nutrition, and temperature - all factors that beekeepers can influence.
Conclusion
The label “emergency cell” may be doing more harm than good. It carries assumptions that are not consistently supported by bee biology or by practical observation. Colonies raising queens without a resident queen are not necessarily acting in desperation; they are executing a recovery strategy that may involve multiple attempts and multiple larvae over time.
Inferiority, where it occurs, may be more a product of beekeeper interference than of the colony’s natural limitations.
Recognising these cells as queenless cells rather than emergency cells better reflects what the bees are actually doing. It also encourages us to focus on the quality of the conditions we provide, rather than the label we apply.
Cascading the CaSCA Message
During early 2026, Roger Patterson, Kevin Thorn (with invaluable help from his wife, Julie) and Karl Colyer held another six CaSCA events around the country. There were several purposes to hosting this programme again:
- The programme had been refined since the previous set of events
- BIBBA was experimenting with delivering free events to Members
- The last round of events provided very useful feedback and yet more feedback was desired to help steer the project forwards
Thank you to everybody that turned up on the days. Exploring the semi-commercial and commercial aspects of beekeeping is a niche part of beekeeping but it fully supports the ethos of being able to share produce from people that improve and breed their bees to the point where they are a sellable commodity, along with a whole range of other hive products.
The questions were excellent at every session. Indeed, several of the events took on an energy of their own and they even arranged amongst themselves to set up WhatsApp groups to continue to talk with each other! Obviously, there’s some strong enthusiasm there.
Karl Colyer
The BIBBA team needs to follow up on these attended events with the in-depth Zoom sessions, an email stream to refresh people’s memories on various items discussed during the day and more content to satiate the breadth and depth of demand from this year’s attendees.
We wanted to be inclusive with CaSCA but there were three subsets of engagement that seemed to appear from the range of attendees:
- Enthusiastic hobbyists; those that wanted their beekeeping to wash its face financially and, perhaps, only produce up to £1,000 of non-declarable income
- Semi- commercial beekeepers who wanted to produce a minority of their income or a small income from relatively few colonies.
- Commercial beekeepers who wanted to produce the majority of their income from bees but weren’t at the stage of wanting to call themselves Bee Farmers.
Some learning points for the BIBBA team include:
- Although we were trying to give a free benefit to members, it inadvertently attracted a whole new group of members to BIBBA who saw the £20 membership fee as excellent value to attend the day.
- We covered a whole range of subjects in some detail but there was a yearning for more detail and interaction. As a consequence, we’ve arranged a series of discussion groups via Zoom to explore existing and new areas in more detail.
- It obviously costs money and time to put on six events around the country but the dates and locations did not suit all people so we will explore the idea of having few actual attended events but properly film at least one of them and have those resources available in the Members area.
- We wanted to be inclusive with CaSCA but there were three subsets of engagement that seemed to appear from the range of attendees:
- Enthusiastic hobbyists; those that want their beekeeping to wash its face financially and, perhaps, only produce up to £1,000 of non-declarable income,
- Semi-commercial beekeepers who want to produce a minority of their income or a small income from relatively few colonies, and
- Commercial beekeepers who want to produce the majority of their income from bees but aren’t at the stage of wanting to call themselves Bee Farmers. - There was genuine interest on how each colony could produce over £500 of income each year from direct and indirect hive products. Indeed, the curiosity of attendees was so strong that people were asking about the pros and cons of harvesting bee venom!
Karl Colyer
What Your Honey Can Tell Us About Bee Health
by the Scientific & Technical Working Group: Karl Colyer and Paul Verrier
For this month’s review, we turn to a particularly relevant and encouraging piece of research: “Molecular detection of honeybee pathogens in honey from a UK citizen science program.” At first glance it may sound technical, but its implications for everyday beekeeping—and for organisations like BIPA—are both practical and significant.
A recent UK study has shown something quite remarkable: your honey can reveal hidden disease in your colony before you see any symptoms.
Using samples from the National Honey Monitoring Scheme, researchers tested honey for DNA from common bee pathogens. What they found has some clear, practical implications for all beekeepers.
The key message
Disease is often present even when your colony looks healthy.
- Chalkbrood found in ~13% of samples
- Nosema in ~11%
- European Foulbrood (EFB) in a small number—but importantly, sometimes without visible signs
In fact, laboratory testing picked up far more infections than beekeepers reported.
What should I do in my own apiary?
You don’t need a lab to act on these findings. The practical takeaways are about mindset and timing.
- Don’t rely on symptoms alone
If a colony looks healthy, that’s good but not proof it’s disease-free
Action: Keep up regular inspections, even when everything appears normal and be cautious about moving frames or equipment between colonies - Be extra vigilant later in the season
The study found higher disease levels from August onwards.
Action: Increase inspection frequency in mid–late summer and watch for subtle changes such as patchy brood, reduced vigour and slower build-up - Take hygiene seriously
Hidden infection means you may unknowingly spread disease between colonies
Action: Clean tools between apiaries, avoid swapping frames unless necessary and be cautious with feeding and robbing situations - Treat “minor” diseases as signals
Chalkbrood and Nosema are often seen as manageable—but they may indicate issues such as stress and poor nutrition.
Action: Review forage availability, colony strength and hive issues such as ventilation and damp - Be alert to the possibility of hidden EFB
Even though rare, the study detected EFB without symptoms.
Action: If something feels “not quite right” in your hive(s), trust your instincts. Take photos and contact someone for advice rather than waiting - Support and engage with monitoring schemes
This study only worked because beekeepers contributed samples.
Action: Take part in schemes like the National Honey Monitoring Scheme where possible. These programmes benefit both science and your own beekeeping
Why this matters
Most of us rely on visual inspections to identify issues. Our ability to spot concerns is affected by experience and pattern recognition.
But this study shows that many infections are asymptomatic at first and, by the time you see disease, it may already be established—or spreading
It also confirms something many of us suspect: disease pressure builds through the season, often peaking in late summer
The interesting bit: why honey works
Honey contains tiny traces of DNA from bees, pathogens and the hive environment.
As honey is a natural preservative, it’s DNA remains stable, making honey a simple, non-invasive diagnostic sample. This opens the door to future tools like:
- Routine honey testing
- Regional disease monitoring
- Earlier warning systems
Final thought
This research doesn’t replace good beekeeping but it does help sharpen it. Always remember that healthy-looking colonies can still carry disease and the best defence is awareness, good practice, and timely action.
Notes from the Scientific & Technical Team….
- Sample size was relatively (150 honey samples, drawn from a much 6,000+ sample archive
- Reliance on honey as the sampling medium introduces several uncertainties. Does detected DNA reflect active infection, or just environmental contamination? Could spores/DNA come from outside sources (e.g. drifting bees, robbing, forage contamination)? Does presence in honey correlate with colony health impact?
Implication: Detection ≠ disease severity. - Limitations of qPCR interpretation. Gene copy number ≠ pathogen load (precisely)
Implication: You can compare presence vs absence or seasonal trends within a pathogen but not reliably say one disease is “worse” or “heavier” than another based on this data. - Comparison with beekeeper observations is not a perfect “gold standard” comparison. The study contrasts qPCR detection vs beekeeper-reported symptoms but:
- Beekeepers may misidentify disease
- Some diseases are inherently hard to spot
- No independent clinical inspection (e.g. by inspectors) was used as a benchmark
Implication: the conclusion that qPCR is “better” is likely true, but the comparison is not fully controlled.
- Very low detection of EFB is too few to draw strong conclusions about distribution, analyse seasonal trends and assess risk properly
- Correlation vs causation is an important differentiation. The study identifies associations (e.g. higher pathogen levels later in the year) but it cannot prove that temperature, foraging, or stress caused the increase
Implication: these are plausible explanations, not confirmed drivers. - The study focuses on chalkbrood, Nosema and EFB but excludes viruses (e.g. DWV), Varroa-related dynamics and other bacterial/fungal diseases
Implication: this is not a complete picture of colony health—just a subset of key pathogens.
