Students get buzzy with Ron (From Swindon Advertiser)

Students get buzzy with Ron

11:34am Tuesday 9th May 2006

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HANG a potential worker egg upside down and you will create a queen bee.

That was one of the lessons learned by three students who picked up the buzz of beekeeping at Stanton Park on Saturday.

Course instructor Ron Hoskins, of the Swindon and District Beekeepers Association and three of a group of 10 learners spent the day creating their own queen bees.

"In the later part of last year they learned the basics of beekeeping," Mr Hoskins said.

"Last Saturday they were making their own queen, and next week they shall be turning them into new hives."

Mr Hoskins said queen bees lay both fertile and infertile eggs.

That's where the beekeeping alchemy begins.

"Simply by turning a worker larvae upside down in the hive, beekeepers change the whole destiny of that grub. Take a worker into a wax cup and put it upside down and it turns into a queen," Mr Hoskins said.

The funding for the course comes from a £6,000 Community First landfill credit grant.

Part of the money is to fund a programme to breed bees resistant to the Varroa mite that has wiped out two-thirds of Britain's honey bees in the past 14 years.

"We are trying to find out which bees can function with the mite," Mr Hoskins said.

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