Montagu’s Harriers nests destroyed in Vienne, France.

Hen and Montagu’s Harriers have always been victims in many European Countries and France is no exception.  Historically they have been persecuted and killed simply for being birds of prey, something which affected many other raptor species until they were given protection in 1976 but unfortunately this wasn't the end of their troubles.

Both Hen and Montagu’s Harrier are birds that like wide open spaces, heath land and plains and it is in these habitats that they make their nests on the ground in low to medium height vegetation and this has lead them into trouble as natural open habitat has disappeared to be replaced increasingly with cereal cultivation. This wasn’t too much of a handicap when crops were more diverse, spring sown and the land was worked with small machines or by hand. The birds adapted to using wheat, barley and pea fields without too many problems, (other than the persecution), then the so called green revolution started, autumn sown barley and wheat crops were developed and there was the introduction of oil seed rape, also autumn sown in France. Farm machinery keeps increasing in size and crops are harvested earlier in the year which in most years will be before the chicks have fledged leading to large losses as they are chopped up.

Here in Poitou-Charentes we host more than 20% of the entire French nesting population for these species as can be seen from the maps and with this in mind Groupe ornithologique des Deux-Sèvres, the LPO Vienne, LPO Charente Maritime and Charente Nature participate in protection schemes funded by the EU, State and Region in the zones that are considered most important having been given Natura2000 status.  

Click on photos to enlarge. 

Map showing Hen Harrier nesting in France

Map showing Montagu's Harrier nesting in France

Both maps courtesy of Rapaces nicheurs de France ISBN 2-603-01313-0 

Huge amounts of time are spent building relationships with farmers attempting to convince them of the importance of taking part in measures to protect the nests and young on their land in return for modest financial compensation. Most of the day to day work is carried out by volunteers that observe the birds in spring to record birds that are paired and where the nest site is located. Initially this means observing mating displays and aerial prey passing followed later by males carrying prey in their talons which they bring to near the nest site for the female. She will either fly up and the prey will be passed to her or the male will place it on the ground a short distance away and she will fetch it. Having noted where she flies up from it is then possible to locate the nest and mark it with poles allowing continued monitoring with ringing or wing tagging of young birds in some cases.

Unfortunately this year between 25^th and 26^th June the nests of four Monatgu’s Harriers were systematically destroyed with the loss of 17 young birds. These nests had been fenced with chicken wire and there were no signs or traces left that would indicate any form of natural predation. As the Montagu’s Harrier is a fully protected bird the LPO will be lodging a formal criminal complaint against “X” (person or persons unknown).  Sadly this follows on from a very poor breeding years for both species in both 2012 and 2013 as a result of cold, wet weather conditions and a crash in the vole populations with many pairs simply not even nesting.

Destroyed Montagu's Harrier nest - LPO Vienne

Hen Harriers are more or less resident here in Poitou-Charentes with some birds moving to the south or to Spain in winter. Current estimates are for between 7,800 11,200 breeding couples in France.

Montagu’s Harriers migrate to West Africa for winter where they reside on Savannah and can form roosts in the thousands. Current estimates are for around 3,900 and 5,100 breeding couples in France.

Diet for both species comprises rodents, small birds, insects, amphibians, reptiles, rabbits.

LPO Vienne

Bussards . com

Montagu’s Harrier

Hen Harrier

Chris

In our fields recently.

It’s fair to say that our fields aren't the most exciting habitat in the region although they probably are the most species rich as a whole for the immediate area albeit most of the species are common, but then common doesn't mean there aren't increasingly reduced numbers at a local level – it all adds up and ours is probably the only decent size bit of proper grassland for many kilometres, everything else is cultivated or so called improved pasture which is really only one step up from a wheat field in terms of species usefulness.

Anyway this isn't about the surrounding area but just a small selection from some idle wandering here and there in our own fields recently with the camera just taking photos of anything that caught my eye and hopefully draw a little attention to the simple plants that can make all the difference.

Starting with a couple of plants that once introduced to grassland will soon establish and sort themselves out, Crown Vetch and Birds Foot Trefoil. These two along with other vetches and tares provide food for a large number of species in both the adult and larval stages. In the last week or so I have seen 6 Spot Burnet moth, (Zygaena filipendulae), 5 Spot Burnet moth, (Zygaena trifolii), Reverdin's Blue butterfly (Plebejus argyrognomon), and large numbers of Burnet Companion moth, (Euclidia glyphica), so called rather obviously because it is invariably found where there are Burnet moths.

Click on images to enlarge

Four different orchids, Greater Butterfly, Loose Flowered, Pyramidal and Bee have all been flowering in the grasses and although they are native species and quite pretty I’m never sure what other value they have. Contrary to popular belief bees and other insects rarely visit most species of French wild orchid and as far as I know they aren't used as a food plant by anything. Having said that I did manage to catch a honey bee on a Pyramidal Orchid in a time of desperation when there was little else available to forage although it quickly flew on and ignored the others.

Marbled White butterflies are out and about in their hundreds, uncut grassland is their number one habitat for successful breeding.

Meadow Clary and Rampion Bellflower are great providers of nectar for insects as is Ragwort; the latter is more or less the only plant that is used by the Cinnabar moth for its caterpillars. We have quite a large number of Ragwort plants and although it has a somewhat bad press from some quarters it's really a rather useful plant provided it doesn't form part of cut hay for animals. The Roe Deer do their usual trick of biting off the tops and then presumably don't eat them - let's face it most animals don't eat things that are bad for them if they have evolved alongside them. 

The Apiaceae (or Umbelliferae), which form the celery, carrot and parsley family are wonderful insect plants, many are the wild plants that have been selectively breed over time to produce the cultivated varieties we grow and eat or use in cooking and indeed many of the wild species are edible although great care needs to be shown with identification as some such as Hemlock are highly toxic and many can produce reactions on tender or sensitive skin when brushed against but of course this no reason not to have them on your land. With the right soil it's possible to have one species or another flowering from April until September. A couple of examples here, more later when I post something about the wider subject of pollinators.

None of these species, (and many, many more), were present here when we first purchased the property which shows a little of what can be achieved with a bit of wilding.

Chris

Honey bee populations in France – some facts and figures

It’s very difficult to get accurate information or an accurate perspective when it comes to the subject of Honey bee populations and this is for a number of reasons that are mostly obvious for anyone that is willing to take a dispassionate view or at least try.

The reason a dispassionate view is required is due to the simple fact that almost everyone involved with honey bees has an agenda, no doubt I have as well but I’ll try to stick to the facts in so far as they can be separated from the modern day myths that are taking over the world and try to be clear when I am speculating or perhaps expressing an opinion.

I find it quite extraordinary in this age of science and technology that far from diminishing the number of myths fed by disingenuous or downright stupid information sources is actually increasing at an alarming rate and the subject of honey bees has now become a gathering place for all manner of people to climb aboard without any real clue about the subject matter and who probably don’t know a honey bee from a hoverfly. Then there is the not so small matter of the gravy train that has been generated with so many people that have their employment dependent on there being problems with honey bees. Huge sums of money are sloshing around from all manner of sources with some of that coming from the pesticide industry. Even Avaaz an online petition provider is asking for donations to fund “an independent research program into what is killing our bees” but when you look you can see it’s anything but impartial and certainly not accurate. Put all of this together and the stage is set for a Whitehall farce of epic proportions with all manner of scams and vested interests at every turn.

From the outset when trying to assess the number of managed colonies in France we need to be realistic and accept that all we can hope for are approximate numbers as will become clear. This is in part due to how hives are registered here.

Before the 1st of January 2010 a person could have up to 10 populated bee hives without any registration or formalities what so ever.

From the 1^st of January 2010 with a view to better monitoring of bee populations it became a requirement to register all populated bee hives and their locations starting with the first colony.

Fiscally with up to 40 hives a person pays no social charges, (these are normally around 28% of income in agriculture), although you do have to declare the number of your hives with your tax return and some tax offices may charge an annual tax per hive, normally a few Euro for each hive per annum.

From 40 to 200 hives you are required to pay what is called MSA solidarity which is a reduced charge that provides no benefits such as pension contributions. It is assumed that people with this number of hives either have another income source or benefit from free healthcare.

Over 200 hives and you are treated as a full business and pay full charges via MSA which is the collector of contributions for health, pension and other State charges for people involved in agriculture which includes apiculture.

With human nature being what it is the system encourages keepers to keep their numbers of colonies restricted or perhaps even to under declare. In fact it is generally assumed by the inspectors I have met that as many as  50% of the hives in France aren’t declared and there are undoubtedly a number of people with less than 10 hives in rural areas that don’t even know that they should be declaring them now. All the studies that are available for the number of keepers, number of hives and production of honey per hive annually are in fact no more than broad estimations.

With all this in mind we need to look at the last 35 years partly because this is the period where we have the best records and it is also because this period has seen the most changes for Honey bees in France. Needless to say it’s complex with a number of important overlapping events and changes with little if any statistics until the early 90’s.

Basic figures.

Estimates put the number of beekeepers owning at least one hive in 2010 at 41,836 as opposed to 69,237 in 2004 and 84,214 in 1994 an overall decline of 50% in keepers; however the number of hives has only declined by 21% from 1,351,991 in 1994 to 1,074,218 in 2010. There has been a greater reduction in actual honey production of 28% due to reduced yields.

A third of all French bee keepers are over 61 years old with the majority of the remainder being more than 40 years old, rarely do young people choose the activity. Most people involved in apiculture in France have another income source that is often but not always in agriculture.

There are several possible reasons why the number of people keeping bees has fallen in recent years and we only have to look at the age groups above to realise it’s not something that younger people are flocking to anymore and this applies to agriculture in general.

It’s labour intensive and far from the easiest way to earn a living or even gain a supplementary income in the modern world and faces stiff competition from countries that can produce at a lower price especially since the Single European Market and the opening up of the Eastern European Countries plus the Countries that made up the former Yugoslavia.

The arrival of the Varroa mite in 1982 initially had some impact on increased colony failures which was in part compounded by over zealous use of pesticides and other substances in hives to control them.

Gaucho, (Imidaclopride), a Neonicotinoid, was introduced agriculturally as a seed treatment in 1992 mainly for Sunflowers and Maize and along with other Neonicotinoids in use since then have been widely thought to negatively impact honey bees, (currently banned in the EU since 2013 and not used with crops this year 2014).

Glyphosate, (often known by the trade name Roundup), a broad-spectrum systemic herbicide used to kill plants has also become the number one herbicide in both agriculture, communal areas and domestic gardens during this period. It also contains substantial added substances dependant on required use such as Surfactants which are compounds that lower the surface tension (or interfacial tension) between two liquids or between a liquid and a solid. Surfactants may act as detergents, wetting agents, emulsifiers, foaming agents, and dispersants. Regardless of any toxic effects these may have it’s clear that they have and are playing a major role in changing the nature of the habitat with a massive reduction in native plant species.

Throughout this same period we have seen the greatest change in crops and habitat ever with hundreds of thousands of kilometres of hedgerow and vast hectarages of heath-land and hay meadow removed to make way for larger and larger fields of Maize, Oil Seed Rape and other cereals. There has also been an intensification of the way that Honey bees are exploited such as to supply the luxury market with products such as Royal Jelly and pollen or the transportation of colonies from crop to crop to provide pollination for monoculture in the broad sense with some 60,000 hives being hired out and transported simply for pollination purposes each year. Transporting populated hives also takes on an increasing scale to produce more single nectar honeys that can be sold at higher prices. Overall there has been what I would call a trend towards industrialisation of honey bees in much the same way as we have and continue to industrialise and exploit our food production.

Additionally there has been a large increase in the number of honey bees imported either as Queens, packages or on frames with a corresponding loss of native bees. Any or all of these may be damaging to colony survival, Queen Longevity or honey yields although as the INRA studies have shown untreated and unmanaged honey bee colonies with local bees survive on average for about seven and half years.

Interestingly Organic apiaries more than doubled in the period 2004 – 2010 from 144 to 360 with 69,495 hives but some of these will use permitted treatments in their hives. Only 2.6% of French Beekeepers are known to use no treatments at all in their hives including the so called natural treatments.

Permitted treatments in France are:

AMITRAZ(E)

TAU-FLUVALINATE

THYMOL

I realise this is a bit lengthy but I’ve tried to keep it as short as possible whist at the same time highlighting the main features and facts and as it stands much more could have been included. We also mustn’t loose sight of the fact that it’s completely natural for bee colonies to fail at a rate that would more or less match their creation. Needless to say this is not a straight line and losses will vary from year to year as it does with other species.

Some other links which may be useful:

Bee Deaths Reversal

AUDIT DE LA FILILIERE APICOLE

Glyphosate

AVAAZ - Before the bees are gone
Neonicotinoid

Honey bees in France

Chris

Pesticides, Herbicides, Fungicides and GM crops all in the French news.

How the time flies when you’re busy and when the bees are swarming it doesn’t leave time for much else, especially if you are like me and are always leaving everything to the last minute. In this case it’s preparing enough hives and frames for the swarms to be housed in which I’ve just about kept up with, (about 25 so far). Then nature decided to lend a hand by dishing out the rather vile weather we have been experiencing for the last week which has prevented any more colonies from swarming giving me some catch up time. Unfortunately this won’t have helped the bees at all. Any colonies prepared and waiting to swarm may have had to tear down and destroy any Queen cells that were about to hatch and colonies that had already swarmed may have had problems mating their new Queens with all the cold wind and heavy rainstorms which seem to be an increasing spring feature of the weather in this part of France. The requirement to be around my hives for swarming does rather hamper my other activities at this time of year which is a shame, but back out and about soon with some interesting field trips penciled in.

Click on images to enlarge.

On the agricultural front there has been some good news recently in France with the total banning of aerial spraying without any exceptions. This has been an EU law since 2009 but individual member countries can derogate from this when and if they consider it’s required. In France this has been principally in the overseas territories of Martinique, the Antilles and Guadeloupe with certain of the vineyards of Mâcon, (Burgandy), in mainland France. No future authorisations will be granted. Additionally all use of land based sprays will soon only be permitted in the evening and night, not in the daytime although how this will work out and be enforced in practice remains to be seen.

Cultivation of Genetically modified crops has been totally forbidden by the French government which will please many people myself included although I’m sure the corporations will fight back again and again to try and get this overturned.

Back to the vineyards where it seems the river Charente between Angouleme and Saints is the most polluted stretch of river in France with the finger pointed firmly at the Cognac grape growing regions.  A study in 2011 by the highly respected CHU Poitiers showed a higher mortality rate for the population living in the Charente vineyards. Scientists found an over representation of Parkinson's disease (29%) and blood cancers lymphoma types (19%).  Atrazine, desethyl atrazine and the “worlds’ favourite herbicide” glyphosate have all been recorded in substantial levels. Dependence on chemicals at every stage of most French wine production is reducing it to no more than another industrial process, sad days indeed. Even now as I write this there is a report in the paper Sud Ouest of an incident on May 5th at a school in Villeneuve near Bourg-sur-Gironde surrounded by vineyards where 23 students from two classes of primary school and their teacher began to feel the same symptoms of pain in the throat, tingling of the tongue, eye irritation, nausea and headache in the late morning. Earlier, the director had tried to contact the mayor, Catherine Verges, who is also one of the two owners of the vineyards adjacent to the school, to stop the spraying that was underway but to no avail. These incidents are not uncommon and I have heard the tales of people feeling unwell in the vineyards since we came to live in France. The craziest thing of all is that Emmanuel Giboulot a biodynamic winemaker since the 1970s was summoned to the Criminal Court of Dijon this year for refusing to use a chemical product to control flavescence dorée, a bacterial disease of vines. On April 7^th he was fined €1000 following which Emmanuel Giboulot said “I do not feel guilty at all. I do not agree with the court's analysis and I still consider that it was not justified to treat the vines against flavescence dorée in the department of Côte-d'Or in 2013 when no outbreak had been detected.” He went on to say “that a product called Pyrevert that is based on natural pyrethrum, an extract of dried chrysanthemum flowers is permitted in organic agriculture but this insecticide is not selective and although it destroys the leafhopper which is the insect vector for the disease flavescence dorée it also destroys a large part of the auxiliary fauna on which I rely for regulating the ecosystem of my vineyard.”  Which is to my mind a totally logical attitude; if and only if there is a requirement to control something it should be targeted and proportionate.

Too much to mention everything in the garden but it hasn’t been good again for butterflies and I've only just seen a few Hornet Queens and Common wasp Queens in the last week and none of the smaller wasps. It does seem that the number of insects is decreasing year after year although I have no hard evidence for that but with the relentless expansion of the “green cereal desert” and given the massive levels of “cides” that are being sprayed here all the time, both agricultural and domestic, it wouldn’t be a surprise. However it isn’t all one way traffic, woodland species seem plentiful with lot’s of Violet oil beetles early in the year, lot’s of baby Bush crickets in our fields and the one butterfly that’s abundant this spring is the Southern speckled wood. All the common birds have nested well on our land and many have fledged their young such as Long tailed tits, Goldfinches, Blackbirds and Black caps. Nightingales are once again everywhere making their presence known with their almost non stop singing with Golden Oriole arriving here in the last week.

Enough for now, it's getting late,

Chris

Honey bee swarms and bees in houses.

It’s that time of year again when the bees are swarming and I’m busy collecting them or at least trying to in my own apiary. It’s also the time of year when the phone starts ringing, usually because people have a colony of bees that has taken up residence somewhere in their house and this is something I've been meaning to put in print for years.

To start I’ll provide a little simple background on what a honey bee swarm is and why they do it as it’s not something everyone understands or knows about unless they keep bees.

A honey bee colony is a group of bees made up of tens of thousands of individual insects that are continually dying and being replaced, the bulk of the bees are “workers”, (sterile females), with a smaller and more variable number of drones, (males), depending on the time of year and usually with one Queen, (there are exceptions to the latter but that’s not important here).

Being a colony or a functioning whole it has to find a way to reproduce itself, this is achieved by splitting into two and this is where swarming comes into play. It has to divide because in the same way that individuals die entire colonies will also fail, (die out), from time to time and balance needs to be maintained.

Following the winter and usually sometime around the middle of April until the end of May the colony population should have grown back to full strength – what this is in numbers will depend on the specific genetics of the colony and how much space they have but could be as much as 70,000 bees or even more.

At this point it is likely that the colony will prepare for swarming and then usually on a warm day, often between 11am and 3pm, the existing Queen will leave the colony with about 50% of the colony, fly a short distance and form a cluster hanging on just about anything, a bush, a branch, a fence etc. Mostly this will be comprised of young bees that have filled up with enough honey to meet the needs of the coming 10 to 14 days while they find and start to construct a suitable “new home”.

THIS IS THE TIME TO QUICKLY CALL A BEEKEEPER WHILE IT IS INTHE OPEN AND ACCESSABLE.

The swarm will remain suspended like this for as little as 20 minutes if they have already chosen a new home or for as long as a week or even more if they struggle to find somewhere but speed is of the essence in having them captured and collected !!

NOTE: It’s important to understand that only honey bees swarm and form large clusters.

CLICK ON IMAGES TO ENLARGE.

So if having failed to capture them for one reason or another they will in most cases quickly find somewhere to install themselves, move in and immediately start to make comb. Comb construction is rapid, it has to be because they have nowhere to put stores and nowhere for the Queen to put her eggs and new bees to be raised. They will always occupy an enclosed cavity apart from when exceptionally they fail to find somewhere suitable. These “cavities” can be almost anything, a hollow tree, a compost bin, an old discarded water heater or other drum, an old wine barrel, the list is endless but over the last 10 / 20 years they have been increasingly using peoples houses in rural France and there is a perfectly logical explanation for this connected in large part to the arrival of large numbers of immigrants, mainly from the UK.

These immigrants when they arrived from the UK immediately saw the potential for “renovating” all these old rustic stone properties which included converting the open greniers, (the upper floor), into living space. These open upper floors had traditionally only been used for storing food and other items and provided nowhere interesting for bees. So with these conversions and modernisations various new places for honey bee colonies have been created, notably in the space between the boards that support the roof tiles and any fitted ceiling that follows the line of the roof, any plasterboard dry lining that leaves a space between it and the house walls and in the space that is left when the outside and inside house walls are built up to the roof, (this space of perhaps 15 to 20 cm was traditionally left open), and in chimneys that have been fitted with a wood burner flue or with some other cap that gives the bees something to build in. Oh, and one more place particularly in houses that are left empty, the space between the window and the shutters if they are left closed.

Given that to remove a honey bee colony it’s necessary to gain access to the entire comb structure, AND DON’T LET ANYONE TELL YOU OTHERWISE, the practicality of removal will depend on exactly where it is. People will talk of “trap outs” and “bleed outs” but none of these removes the colonies and only traps the foraging bees leaving the Queen and colony core in place.

Starting with the relatively easy type between window and shutters this in my experience can usually be dealt with starting in the late afternoon and finished by dusk but may well take longer if well established.

In a roof requires removing a section of roof or interior ceiling, usually possible but not always straightforward depending on the exact situation, (I no longer go on roofs to remove bees although I have completed a large number of removals “from above”). It should be possible to complete in a day or two.

Behind plasterboard is the same, it requires removing a section of boarding, should be reasonably OK and maybe up to a day or twos work.

Same again if in any cavity formed at the top of the exterior wall if it’s possible to get at without too many complications.

Removal from chimneys as a rule is out of the question.

  

Now we come to pre emptive measures and solutions and obviously it’s best as with most things in life to prevent rather than having to cure.

As already mentioned should you see a swarm of bees clustered outside anywhere call a beekeeper immediately and without delay - LISTS HERE.

Should you notice bees congregating or flying around your chimney light a slow smoky fire and keep it burning throughout the hours of daylight and do this until all bee activity ceases, you can also try this during the first few days after a swarm has arrived with it has to be said mixed results. It won’t work once the colony has settled in.

Should you see bees congregating or flying around cracks or holes in your house walls or in your roof and providing it’s an accessible area you can stuff wads of kitchen roll or something similar soaked it cheap perfume, aftershave or deodorant into the crevices etc. this should deter them in most cases.

PLEASE DON’T START SPRAYING THEM WITH DOMESTIC PRODUCTS THAT YOU CAN BUY IN THE SHOPS AND THEN EXPECT A BEEKEEPER TO COME AND SORT OUT THE PROBLEM WHEN YOU FIND YOU HAVE A LOT OF ANGRY BEES.

Finally if all else fails and removal isn't a viable option I would suggest that you just live with them and be happy, consider it a privilege, large numbers of people do and if they are in a roof they soon forget they are even there. Contrary to many popular myths they don’t chew or eat their way through you building / ceiling or whatever. The honey doesn’t pour out and through you ceiling etc unless you or someone pokes the colony about – if honey fell out of the comb evolution would have changed it a long time ago. They won’t swarm all over you and sting you as long as you don’t get too close to the entrance to the colony which is unlikely if they are in your roof – they only get defensive about their home not when they are out and about foraging so it’s really no different from having a hive in next doors garden.

HONEY BEES IN FRANCE

SWARM COLLECTION

Chris

On the trail of Otters and Beavers in La Vienne

20 years or so ago it would have been impossible to find an Otter or Beaver in any of the rivers and waterways of the Vienne department of France, in fact the Otter was almost pushed to extinction in France and was only to be found in the Atlantic regions and the Massif Central by the 1980’s . Since then there has been a steady improvement with a continuous re-colonisation inland towards the east following the main river systems and their tributaries. In the Vienne department we have the rivers Charente which enters the sea near Rochefort and the Vienne which is a tributary of the river Loire. Both of these rivers also have numerous tributaries notably in the Vienne these are the Clain and the Gartempe which again have their tributaries.

The situation with Beavers is somewhat different following their extinction in most of France with reintroduction being required in many places.

The only river in Poitou Charentes where a reintroduction was attempted was the Creuse in Vienne where 4 beavers were released during 1970-1973 and this failed but this wasn’t the end for our region. During the period 1974-1976 13 beavers were released in the river Loir in Loir-et-Cher and during 1994-1996 another 13 were released in the river Loir in Loir both being successful. From the river Loir the Beavers have bred and slowly increased their range and are now present for us in the rivers Vienne, Creuse, Gartempe, Anglin, Salleron, Clain, Thouet, Argenton and la Dive du Nord.

One of the many tasks undertaken by the recognised Nature Associations along with the ONCFS (Office National de la Chasse et de la Faune Sauvage) is to research and monitor the presence and range expansion of both species and in the Vienne there are several days of research dedicated to this in most years by Vienne Nature along with a small number of volunteers. This requires the relatively simple practice of seeking out signs of their respective activity.

For European Beaver this is dam creation, small tree felling and small gnawed or stripped pieces of branch with their distinctive chiseling patterns.

For Otters it is spraints, (otter excrement), footprints and remains of prey, crayfish claws, fish heads and frogs/toads that have had their insides eaten. Great care needs to be taken with the remains of prey that could result from other activity, anglers in the case of fish and crayfish remains and also Polecat, (Poutois), for Crayfish and frog and toad remains.  Generally frog and toad remains, (known as “carnage”), should not be taken as concrete proof but are a good indication when spraints have also been found within a few kilometres.

With this in mind I set out with Miguel Gailledrat of Vienne Nature the other week for a day on the Boivre a small river that rises in Vasles, Deux-Sevres and enters the river Clain in Poitiers. Its name La Boivre is thought to be derived from the ancient French word Bièvre for Beaver and is today also called Rivière aux castors or “beaver river” although there is no evidence that Beavers were ever here and it wasn't Beavers we were looking for in this river but Otters although it's quite probable that they will colonise the Boivre in time.

I should mention that although the principle purpose was to look for signs of otters we would also record any signs of Coypu, Southern Water Vole and any freshwater clams or mussels and indeed anything else noteworthy but not plants although I’ve included a few photos! The idea is to look at all the bridges and ideally look for 150 metres or more either side of the river on both sides of the bridge if this is possible which unfortunately it often isn’t. When only one side of the river is accessible the use of field glasses may assist in viewing any flat surfaces on the opposite bank.

Click images to enlarge.

The Boivre is the last river in the Vienne dapartement where no signs of otters have been recorded and we were hopeful that we could change that and complete the map and remarkably the very first bridge visited produced spraints on the concrete re-enforcements on both sides of the river – what a great start to the day!

The rest of the day continued with some success with more spraints at different locations, one really fresh! Also found in three locations were toad and frog carcasses, plenty of traces of wild boar and roe deer, coypu excrement and some freshwater mussel, (Potomida littoralis), but for me another important and interesting discovery was some Southern water vole, (Arvicola sapidus), excrement on some rocks by a bridge, a protected species which is being recorded Nationally.

The situation with the Beaver in the river Clain is that traces of activity have been found in the northern part of Poitiers and it’s hoped that they will move through the city and out to the south.

Otter in France

European Beaver in France

Southern Water Vole in France

Chris

Honey bees and Oil seed rape

With the spring well and truly advanced and the Oil seed rape, (Colza), flowering in the fields locally I finally managed to get the last of the “honey supers” on yesterday and breathed a sigh of relief - just in time, always at the last minute.

Once the temperature exceeds about 15 – 16°C Oil seed rape produces sufficient nectar to create what bee keepers call “a flow” and at this point Honey bees will go totally crazy for it and will travel past all the other sources of nectar such as plum, cherry, apple and blackthorn to reach it, sometimes by several kilometres.

The introduction of spring flowering rape has been one of the major changes both in the French countryside and for honey bees in the last 20 / 25 years with production in 1985 of 1.4 million tons, 1995 of 2.8 million tons, 2005 of 4.5 million tons and 5.5 million tons in 2012.  The change is so great in the areas where it is grown that it has completely altered the behaviour of bees in spring and weather conditions permitting can provide a yield of 10 to 20 kg of rape honey per hive by the end of April and may also result in colonies swarming earlier in the season which is either desirable or not depending on the keepers point of view. Personally as someone that let’s their bees swarm, (and hopefully captures most of them), I think it’s beneficial and allows for a longer period of colony build up with correspondingly greater summer yields and colony strength.

One downside is that the crop itself can have moderate to severe health implications for some people ranging from breathing difficulties, coughing and sneezing to severe headaches.  Anyone that has been near the crop when it’s flowering will have been aware of the powerful perfume that fills the air.

The downside for the bee keeper is that due to the small size of the sugars in rape honey it sets rapidly becoming hard even in the hive and must be removed and extracted rapidly ideally before the rape has finished flowering, which brings us to something else. While the rape is flowering and temperatures are high enough the bees will work furiously and be generally very happy and pleasant natured, or perhaps just too busy to waste time with any human interference. When the rape stops flowering and the flow finishes there is often something of a forage gap with little to fill it other than perhaps Acacia in a good year, consequently the bees can become quite bad tempered for a while.

Back to the rape honey, as mentioned it sets rapidly and is also very hard, however by stirring and remixing it will soften and is then sold as “creamed honey” or “miel crémeux” in French. If left hard in the tub or jar it is easy to soften with a knife when used. 

It’s also very pale, often almost white as can be seen in the photo; to state the obvious it’s the pot on the left.

Chris