Let’s be clear about the scale of this “Global Honey Crisis”. The honey industry is facing a serious crisis. A staggering 60-90% of products labelled ‘honey’ are actually sugar syrup. Authorities at both national and EU levels are investigating this issue. Recent tests by the Honey Authenticity Network UK revealed that over 90% of samples from British retailers failed authenticity tests. To ensure you’re buying genuine honey, consider supporting local beekeepers or purchasing single source honey. Ultimately innovative, thinking and entrepreneurship will solve this crisis. If a contaminant can enter the food chain and left to circulate at this scale, it begs a question. Are technical leaders in the food industry playing their part, i.e. building supply chain resilience? Lucky the contaminant is an innocent contaminant.
Editor’s note: I raised this paragraph via the link below, but it did not respond in the usual way, and I was glad to get the above, albeit shaded version from it, as it emphasises the shameful nature of what is going on.
Here is some very sad news. The prestigious biennial Apimondia event has cancelled its honey awards because of the rampant adulteration of honey, world wide. Recent issues of the Newsletter have drawn attention to this appalling practice, but who would have imagined that it would progress to this?
… The awards are normally presented at the congress, typically held every two years, and attended by thousands of beekeepers, scientists and industry representatives. Dozens of entries in recent honey competitions have been rejected because adulteration was suspected.
About 45% of honeys were rejected at the awards in Montreal in 2019 for a variety of reasons, including suspected adulteration. At the Istanbul congress in 2022, 39 out of 145 honeys were withdrawn for the same reason. The awards also have other categories, which will still be judged at next year’s competition, including beeswax, mead, innovation and publications…
…An EU investigation published last year found 46% of imported sampled products were suspected to be fraudulent, including all 10 from the UK…
A summary of activities to Middle October reveals:
• 20 nests found in 15 locations and destroyed.
• There has been considerably more investment from APHA in the YLH eradication programme so analysis is happening later than 2023.
• 11 nests have already had DNA analysed and it is encouraging news that to date:
• No queens show relatedness to 2023 nests ( ie all are new arrivals not UK grown population)
• 3 recent nests (Great Maxfield in East Sussex, Shirley in Southampton and Dymchurch in Kent) had developed sufficiently to produce drones. These will likely be the focus of spring Queen monitoring activity.
• 3 of the 11 nests analysed to date show an entirely triploid colony, meaning the queen mated with 1 drone only, who was diploid himself. This reinforces the view of a weak population.
There’s more information at: www.NBU beekeeping-news/asian-hornet-2024-rolling-update/
Beekeepers Urged To Support AH Watch APP
One key statistic from Nigel Semmence’s Honey Show update was that the Asian Hornet Watch app had received 28,000 reports of Hornets or nests, it is concerning that only 50 of these proved to be Yellow legged hornets or their nests. That is less than 0.18% accuracy and is using up a lot of national resources. So much so that reports not including a photograph are not being triaged or reviewed.
“Whilst it isn’t sexy or brave to be encouraging the public to learn about YLAH in comparison to hunting hornets on a track and trace mission, it is a critical part of the defence of our county that we can all take part in,” says Helen Worwood, Surrey County AHAT Co-ordinator.
“I urge you to download the Asian Hornet watch app yourself, and encourage friends, family and honey customers to do the same. Talk to your divisional YLAH co-ordinator about keeping a few YLAH “credit” cards in your wallet or purse so that you can hand them out and improve the accuracy of reporting possible sightings throughout Surrey.”
Monitoring
During October we also secured 20 “Nestsweeper” monitoring stations which were distributed to divisions. We have used them with varying degrees of success and fed back to the manufacturer our thoughts about how easy they were to use. They remain with divisions and can be used by any verifier needing to investigate a potential sighting.
Developing our network
In his lecture about BDI at the National Honey Show Martin Smith spoke about Surrey’s use of the eR2 membership system to develop our network of Monitors and Verifiers. It had been noted that Surrey as a “medium risk” county had been using the system well. As a result it is likely that other associations will be encouraged to adopt eR2 based monitoring in Spring 2025.
“We still have many squares to ‘colour in’ on the map so please chat with your local team and join the team. ,” says Helen Worwood. “We continue to see the benefits of ‘together everyone achieves more’ approach and are increasingly admired for this way of working.”
Significant Find In Southampton
One of the biggest YLAH nests to be discovered this year has been destroyed. Following the capture and verification of a Yellow legged Asian Hornet worker in the Maybush area of Southampton on Thursday, 19th September there was an extensive search for its nest.
As is often the way, the hornet nest was located in the most awkward of positions. It was high up in a tree was in the old cemetery of Southampton Common. The large many branched tree was covered in ivy and surrounded by dense undergrowth littered with ancient graves.
It took National Bee Unit Inspector, Dan Etheridge, and tree climbers several hours to cut an access route to the nest. After the nest was sufficiently exposed, the team employed the latest long lance to inject double dose of insecticide into its depths After an hour’s break, it was safe for the tree climbers to cut out the nest and lower it to the ground.
The 75cm-wide (2ft 4in) nest – which could hold some 3,000 hornets – was declared one of the most significant finds so far this year. Alan Baxter, Hampshire BBKA’s AHAT Coordinator, who was present at the nest’s destruction, said the NBU, pest controllers and tree climbers did a fantastic job. Dan Etheridge said: “It was good to have the Asian Hornet Coordinator involved, and we hope that AHATs will continue to be a part of future operations.” You can listen to BBC Radio Solent’s interview with Alan Baxter here: YLH Nest in Southampton.
The 27 September report from the National Bee Unit shows that so far this year there have been 55 credible sightings of Asian hornets in Britain and 19 primary and secondary nests have been located and eliminated. Apart from two single hornets found inside buildings in March, almost all of the other sightings and nests have been in Kent and Sussex. The most recent sighting has been of a single hornet in a cemetery garden in Upper Shirley, Southampton, Hants – (and incidentally in Ambridge!)
In Surrey we have been holding back in using our supply of attractant bait until there is an indication that Asian hornet is in our area. Those of you who have some attractant left from last year can set up wick traps or open tray lures. A more general distribution of bait and the Bonne Maman jar traps will be organised if the need arises.
Everyone should be on the lookout for Asian hornets. Likely places to see them are around beehives and other places where there are aggregations of insects that they can prey on. These include wasp nests, fallen ripe fruit and any plants in flower that are attracting pollinating insects. At this time of year, ivy flowers are a good place to look for Asian Hornets.
Andrew Halstead
National News
AH Week Boosts Public Awareness
BBKA Outreach officer, Kirsteen Thorne, is sending a big thank you to everyone who helped to raise awareness during Asian Hornet Week (Monday 2nd to Sunday 8th September).
By sharing ideas, resources, social media posts, or contributing towards the media coverage – teams around the country generated a great deal of national publicity and discussion about the dangers of the insect invader.
One such collaborative effort involved teams from across Kent, Jersey, the NBU and central BBKA who contributed to a detailed feature “The Killer Hornets” which was broadcast locally by BBC South East on 6th September and then made available to audiences across the country via the BBC iPlayer. You can listen to the feature by visiting the BBC iPlayer and searching the-killer-hornets.
There were also interviews on ITV Meridian, BBC 5 Live breakfast and BBC Surrey (which included our very own Helen Worwood whose moment of fame starts 1:40 minutes into the following link). Apart from broadcast media, a large number of organisations, councils and online news sites and specialist media shared BBKA press releases and AH spotting sheet on their digital channels, and BBKA social media communications during the week were further picked up on and shared on a number of other external stakeholder platforms.
Rise In YLH Sightings
Unfortunately, there has been an increase in Yellow Legged Hornet sightings across the southeast, most recently a confirmed sighting in Southampton. A total of 18 nests have been found and destroyed this year.
The NBU Bee Inspectors have observed that the hornets are now feeding on fruit/fallen fruit and flowering ivy so an alert will be published on BeeBase asking beekeepers to lookout for insects feeding on this type of forage.
As ever, there’s more up-to-date information on the National Bee Unit’s Rolling Update.
The ID sheet that was designed for AH Week has now been amended for general use. It is attached to the email update, along with a couple of variations that may be useful when asking people to identify a suspected AH sighting. Please feel free to use it as you wish.
Positive Feedback and Local Shows
Beekeepers from Surrey Divisions continue to attend a number of local and county shows and promote awareness of the Yellow Legged Hornet.
Our thanks to volunteers from across the whole of SBKA who give up spare time (is there such a thing for beekeepers?) to attend these events. We always get great feedback from the public who increasingly value our input on everything from what to plant in the garden to support bees, to how to download the YLAH watch app, to why local honey tastes so much better than the stuff from the supermarket.
Appeal for Shows Committee volunteers
If you’ve enjoyed taking part in your local county shows and would be keen to engage with the public on a wider scale, the BBKA Shows Committee team are seeking more volunteers to help share the BBKA story and promote the importance and understanding of beekeeping to a wider audience.
The BBKA attend some of the biggest events around the country and the role can be incredibly fulfilling and fun, offering access to some brilliant shows – if you’re interested in finding out more, why not drop Kirsteen Thorne a line.
New YLH Co-ordinators
There have been some personnel changes in Surrey’s YLH Co-ordinator team. Helen Worwood has welcomed new members Alex Haswell at Croydon and Nick Fry at Epsom. Thanking outgoing team members Anna Slade, John Futcher and Jonathan Brookhouse, she said: “Your support getting us to the place where we are is much admired by our neighbouring counties, and we are really beginning to see the benefits of this “together everyone achieves more” approach.” Surreys AHAT Co-ordinators are shown in the table below. To contact one of them, click
