Nick Mawby, Author at BIBBA

August 2025 BIBBA Monthly

Varroa Resistant Colonies
The Wasps are Winning
EBA Update
BIBBA Videos

Bumblebees are among the most
endearing and familiar of our
garden insects. The sight and sound of bees, droning methodically from flower to flower, is a quintessential part of a summer’s day.

Different Types of Bee

Worldwide, there are four species of honey bee, although only one is native to Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia: Apis mellifera, known as the Western Honey Bee.

The honey bee (Apis genus, especially Apis mellifera) stands out from other bee species because it’s the only bee that combines all of the following traits:

Bitesize Beekeeping Topic List

Free-Living Bees: Nature’s Unmanaged Colonies Introduction When most people think about bees, they picture neatly painted hives in tidy rows, tended by beekeepers in protective suits. While this is the familiar image of beekeeping, it’s only part of the story. All over the world — including here in the UK — there are honey bee…

VR June 2025

Varroa Resistant Colonies The heritability of varroa resistant traits Conditions for queen raising have been ideal in the southeast of England so far this year, with lots of pollen and nectar in the hives to produce copious Royal Jelly, drones in abundance and long spells of good weather for virgin queens to get out and…

Varroa Resistant Colonies – June Update
Standing together for the Native Honey Bee
What’s in a name? The Case for the Dark European Honey Bee
Live@TheHive – catch the latest episode
CaSCA – What is it and how can you get involved?
Volunteers Wanted for Video Editing

Varroa Resistant Colonies – April Update
Early Swarms This Year
Another Successful BBKA Spring Convention
A Taste Of Honey – Sensory Analysis applied to Honey
Watch the latest Live@TheHive

Once a sustainable varroa resistant apiary is established, new queens and colonies can be raised quickly.
The varroaresistant.uk team has identified a strong heritability of varroa resistant traits through queen lines

Some treated colonies would be able to manage varroa themselves but their varroa resistant traits are bring supressed as the treatments supress the varroa for them. But the majority will be mite susceptible colonies that would perish without the treatments.