Hi I’m Stewart Spinks and welcome to Episode 100 of my podcast Beekeeping Short and sweet. This week I’m starting a review of how to implement an Integrated Pest Management system in your apiary.Get the very latest Beekeeping podcast here

I’m really excited to be sharing my 100th podcast, I never thought I would reach the heady heights of 100 podcasts, it’s been a lot of fun, if not hard work, and I’m really grateful to everyone that tunes in and listens each week. This season my podcasts are sponsored in part by Honey Paw hives, the guys at Honey Paw have kindly set me up with a range of their equipment to demonstrate and I would ask you to take a look at their range via their website. I’ve used it for a couple of seasons now and I’m really enjoying the experience. I’ll leave links to their website in the podcast notes as usual.Honey Paw Hives - Designed by Beekeepers For Beekeepers

Before we get into this week’s topic I thought I’d round up how the week has been as usual. I’m still watching the weather, it’s a favourite pastime for most beekeepers I guess, waiting to see if the warmer weather allows the bees to get out and start building for Spring.

In other news, I lost my first winter colony last week and as I’ve said on several occasions before the biggest threat to bees over winter is the beekeeper. It was all my fault. So, the colony in question was a medium-sized nucleus colony in a BSHoney 2 in 1 nuc box, so that’s a six-frame poly box. The bees occupied around three seams previously and looked healthy enough. Listen to the podcast for more details.

An Integrated Pest Management plan is a great way to identify specific areas that you can control to minimise the risk not just from Varroa but from all pests and diseases.

And the great thing about a plan like this is you can adapt it to suit your beekeeping style, whether you’re happy to use chemical treatments or if you’re treatment free, there’s a plan that you can use to keep pests and diseases to a manageable level and allow your bees to develop into strong, healthy colonies.

I intend going almost treatment free in one of my apiaries this year, that sounds a bit daft but the plan is to use brood comb removal to reduce the loading of Varroa and all the other nasties lurking in the hives. I say almost treatment-free because I still intend using Oxalic Acid Sublimation over the Winer period but other than that I’m going to use no chemicals at all. I’ll explain more about this as we go into the new season and I’ve selected the lucky apiary.

An integrated pest management plan doesn’t have to be complicated as there are several simple steps you can take to get control of pests and diseases in your apiaries.

For instance, make sure you wash your bee suit regularly if you wear one and if you wear gloves use either disposable ones or washing up gloves that can be washed thoroughly between hive inspections. Likewise, always have a wash bucket with clean water with washing soda and a splash of washing up liquid in it to clean hive tools in between each hive inspection.

I’ll talk more about the integrated pest management plan as we get into the season and I can show you what I do around the apiaries to manage my risk as best I can.

I hope you have a fantastic week, the new season will soon be upon us so let’s do all we can to have a fast start.

Please do remember to check out my Patreon page where you can access lots more content, that’s www.patreon.com/norfolkhoney.

I’m Stewart Spinks and that was Beekeeping Short and Sweet.T's&C's for the competition can be found on my website at honey.co.uk/competition100">http://www.norfolk-honey.co.u