Top of the Posts

The last post of the year is one that almost no-one will read because they’re too busy unwrapping presents, overeating and enjoying seeing friends and family.

Or perhaps not 🙁

A socially distanced Christmas is an oxymoron, but is also unfortunately what many responsible people will be ‘enjoying’ this year.

I’m writing this as the government imposes ever-tighter restrictions in England, and the Scottish government imposes further preventative measures. Our long-suffering NHS is beginning to struggle …

Entirely predictable, completely necessary, but nevertheless disheartening.

At times like these it’s reassuring to have something else to focus on, a reminder of good times passed, and the promise of better times in the future.

The winter solstice

Long before Christmas became an orgy of overindulgence, before snowmen, robins, reindeer and religion, there were pagan festivals associated with the increase in day length.

The Romans celebrated dies solis invicti nati (“day of the birth of the unconquered sun”) just after the winter solstice, on the 25^th of December {{1}}. The winter solstice itself – the date with the shortest amount of daylight – varies a bit from year to year. This year, in my location, it was on the 21^st of December when the day was just six hours and 47 minutes long {{2}}.

Before the Romans, there’s evidence that the winter solstice was significant to much older civilizations. Maeshowe, a 5000 year old Neolithic chambered cairn on Orkney, has an entrance corridor directly aligned with the setting sun of the winter solstice.

With the benefit of atomic clocks and a proper understanding of the solar system we now know that the winter solstice can fall anytime between the 20^th and 23^rd of December. The back wall of Maeshowe is illuminated by the setting sun for a few days either side of the winter solstice. Do not let this detract from the wonder of Maeshowe or the, similar but even older, Newgrange in Ireland.

And, for beekeepers, the winter solstice is also of significance as many choose to treat their colonies with oxalic acid in the holiday period after the winter solstice, and before they return to work in early January {{3}}.

An opportunity for tasseographers?

But as I’ve discussed before … that may be too late. My bees in Fife, broodless in late October, are now rearing brood again. There’s ample evidence {{4}} for that on the Varroa trays left on the floor underneath the hive stands.

Scores on the doors

So, having already reviewed the 2020 beekeeping year last week, what was notable on The Apiarist this year?

The combined effect of furloughing {{5}}, isolated living and copious amounts of caffeine (on which, more later) – coupled with my natural tendency to prattle on a bit – meant that the average length of posts increased by 40% to ~2500 words.

Eight years of The Apiarist … and a 12,000-fold increase in visits

This extra effort didn’t go unnoticed, with a greater than 50% increase in both visitors and page reads.

Regular readers should realise I’m mixing correlation and causation here.

The increases in both readers and reading might really be because everyone is locked down and bored witless 😉

Comments

On average, most visitors only read a couple of pages and, of those, only 0.3% leave a comment. However, I’m very grateful to those that do. It allows me to clarify points that were garbled and to elaborate on topics dealt with in too little detail.

Or to answer a completely unrelated question 😉

As an aside, the server cunningly filters out spam comments from real ones. I periodically check it’s not being overzealous but cannot {{6}} look at all of them.

If you submitted a comment and it was missed it was either because it was:

• too short
• abusive {{7}} or full of irrational ranting {{8}}
• advertising fake RayBans {{9}}

The posts from 2020 that generated the most discussion were:

• Weed and feed – simultaneous mite treatment and autumn feeding of colonies
• Oxalic acid (Api-Bioxal) preparation – preparing solutions for trickle treating
• A June Gap – a discursive commentary in mid-season {{10}}
• Darwinian beekeeping – keeping bees with Varroa, at least for a while
• The gentle art of beekeeping – requeening a psychotic colony in midsummer

I almost always respond to comments, often simply by redirecting the reader to a previous post (or promising to cover the topic in more detail sometime in the future). Consequently, old posts still get read quite frequently.

Speaking of which … what were the most popular posts of 2020 and the most read posts of the year?

The most frequently read posts of 2020

I’m going to ignore the Google-promoted mid-June post I mentioned last week. That post, A June Gap, was notable for being read thousands of times on the day it appeared (and on the couple of days afterwards). Since then it’s been accessed just a few hundred times and has effectively disappeared without trace from current reading stats.

It’s what a statistician would call an ‘outlier’.

Other than that, these were the most read posts that were written in 2020:

• Swarm prevention (17/4/20) – an overview of why colonies swarm and how beekeepers can delay (and sometimes even prevent) swarming, before implementing swarm control. Also notable as it received far fewer comments than the majority of posts written this season.
• Queen cells … quantity and quality (22/5/20) – how many queen cells should you leave during swarm control? I also discussed the ‘features’ of a good queen cell.
• Oxalic acid (Api Bioxal) preparation (13/11/20) – an update of a post from several years ago about the preparation of Api Bioxal solution for trickle treating colonies in the winter. This post also discussed the differences in the historic oxalic acid concentration used in the UK, and those in the published instructions with Api Bioxal.
• Principles of swarm control (24/4/20) – an overview of how swarm control works, or should work if you do things correctly. As the title indicates, this post discusses the principles of the process and how it applies in several common methods of swarm control.
• The nucleus option (1/5/20) – how to make up nucleus colonies.

So, with the exception of the rehash of some recipes, an emphasis on the principles and mechanics of swarm control. This is something that many beekeepers struggle with, but can be reliably achieved by understanding what triggers the process coupled with an appreciation of the makeup of a colony and the development cycle of queens and workers.

The most frequently read posts of all time

In which ‘all time’ actually means since late 2013 when the first posts appeared online.

• Queen cells … don’t panic (15/6/18) – what to do when you discover queen cells during a regular inspection. This was little read when it first appeared, but became very popular this summer. I presume the 100’s still reading it every week this October/November are in Australia and New Zealand {{11}}.

Queen cells … don’t panic

• When to treat? (5/2/16) – in terms of presentation this post is showing its age. I’ll probably update it next year. However, the content remains as valid now as when it was written, emphasising the importance of protecting the winter bee population to successfully overwinter a colony. I think this is the most important lesson that new beekeepers need to learn.
• Honey pricing (4/10/19) – what they don’t tell you during your “Begin beekeeping” course, and often won’t tell you afterwards. Do not undervalue your honey. Every super or bucket produced is worth hundreds of pounds {{12}}.
• The nucleus method (22/3/19) – my favoured swarm control method. Totally foolproof if conducted properly. It was the only method I used this year and was 100% successful.
• Vertical splits and making increase (19/7/15) – how to do an artificial swarm using less equipment and less space. Another post that is, presentationally at least, showing its age and likely to be updated next year (if I remember 😉 ).

So, with the exception of the post on honey pricing, more articles on swarming and mite control.

You’d almost think that these topics were a particular problem for beekeepers 😉

Honey and coffee

I’m particularly pleased to see that the honey pricing post is popular. This is an important topic and beekeepers, like the general public, too often assume that supermarket prices are representative, or what they are competing with.

We should be aiming to produce a top quality product. It is made from the nectars available in ~8 square miles of land surrounding your hives. Aside from the fact it’s absolutely delicious, it’s also unique – a snapshot of a time and a place {{13}} – and should be priced accordingly.

Don’t compare it with £1 a pound supermarket rubbish, containing a “Product of EU and non-EU countries”. That could mean anywhere or anything (and increasingly actually means adulterated with rice or corn syrup).

A much better comparison would be with the price premium of a top quality wine or malt whisky.

I’ll be returning to honey pricing and provenance again in 2021.

Of over 40,000 ‘clicks’ on ~2,000 links embedded in the posts, 1% were to Buy me a coffee. I set this up in June after the old server fell over due to overwork, and I was forced to upgrade.

Flat white …

I am particularly grateful to the ~100 supporters who have ‘bought me a coffee’ to fuel late night writing marathons. It is you are largely responsible for the 40% increase in the length of posts this year {{14}}.

Thank you 🙂

Readers, readers everywhere …

Perhaps unsurprisingly, because of a shared language, the top 6 countries (of 193 in total) in the visitors list were the UK (53%), USA (24%), Ireland (4%), Canada (3%), Australia (3%) and New Zealand (1%). These figures make sense, but aren’t particularly trustworthy as you can be wherever you want with a properly configured VPN.

Finding your way to here

New posts are automagically promoted on my (otherwise totally neglected) Facebook page and via Twitter. Of the two, Facebook generates about four times more traffic than Twitter.

I don’t use either for two-way communication. I’m old skool and prefer email {{15}}, so don’t bother trying to reach me using either.

Don’t try using Pinterest either (does this even have a messaging function? I told you I was old skool 😉 ), which also generates quite a bit of traffic.

Subscribers receive an email whenever a new post appears, and if you submit a comment you can opt in to receive an email update when I (or someone else) adds further comments to a post. I restrict comments to the two years after a post appears. Therefore, if you sign up for comment emails they’ll stop when commenting on a particular post is closed.

Like page reads and site visitors, subscriber numbers have also increased significantly (~50%) this year … Welcome!

Remaining traffic arrives at this site from search engines like Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and Yahoo. Increasingly these encrypt the search terms so I only see about 10% of them and they don’t seem to be as amusing as they used to be.

Finding your way from here

When you visit a website the server records where you came from, both geographically and in terms of the last webpage visited.

When you follow a link in one of the posts the server also records which link you followed to leave the page {{16}}.

Other than links elsewhere on this site, the most popular destination was the equipment suppliers E.H. Thorne’s.

The regular links I make there are an example of pragmatism, not promotion.

There are many other good quality equipment suppliers. However, there aren’t any others 10 minutes down the road from me 😉 A combination of convenience and my dislike of P&P charges means the relatively few things I purchase these days come from Thorne’s.

2021, a fresh start

Of the links to Thorne’s, the most often followed was to this honey creamer … if you want one, mine is for sale 😉

One careful owner etc.

I’m in the process of planning for the season ahead. This includes reviewing things that are “surplus to requirements” and having a bit of a clear out.

There are going to be some very major changes to my beekeeping in 2021 (and 2022) which will involve an emphasis on making bees, rather than making honey.

But that’s for a future post.

Social distancing, online beekeeping talks and hand washing are going to remain the norm for 2021. Less than 1% of the UK population have received their first dose of the vaccine in the first fortnight after the vaccines became available. At that rate (and it will speed up) it will be 11 years until the population is all vaccinated {{17}}.

Enjoy your holiday/break from furlough/family-free time/oxalic acid dribbling (delete as appropriate).

I hope you’ll visit again in the New Year …

Happy Christmas 🙂

{{1}}: And Saturnalia of course, a week long festival starting on the 17^th of December.

{{2}}: Technically the winter solstice is the time when the North pole has its maximum tilt away from the sun (10:03 am on 21/12/20), but it’s usually used to indicate the shortest day. In 2023 the winter solstice is at 03:28 am on the 22nd of December.

{{3}}: The beekeeper … not the bees.

{{4}}: Tasseography is reading residues, typically tea leaves, but seemed appropriate here as well.

{{5}}: I wasn’t, but many of my research team were.

{{6}}: With up to 500 spam comments a day.

{{7}}: You’d be surprised. I was.

{{8}}: DIsagree lucidly … or not at all.

{{9}}: Do some market research … I live in Scotland. What use do I have for RayBans? Actually, any advertising is sufficient for a comment to be edited or (usually) omitted. I also don’t accept gifts/items for review. Everything that’s discussed here has been paid for by me.

{{10}}: I’ll include it here in the list of top comments despite omitting it in later lists … at least those who commented (probably) read to the bottom of the page.

{{11}}: Or are UK-based and simply dreaming of the spring …

{{12}}: Depending upon the size of the bucket of course.

{{13}}: It’s different this year from last year, and will be different again next year.

{{14}}: And the continued functioning of the hardware.

{{15}}: Via the bottom right hand corner of the page.

{{16}}: I’m not snooping on you … most web servers do this.

{{17}}: And even at 1 million per week, an unprecedented rate for the UK, it will take over 3 years.