Flood risk, and getting the apiary ready for water

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Check the map, once

England has a service for exactly this. The long term flood risk check reports the risk for an area from rivers and the sea, from surface water, from reservoirs, and from groundwater where the data exists. 1 It takes two minutes. Most beekeepers have never run it for the field their bees are in.

Read what it gives you, though. It reports the risk of an area rather than the chance that one property floods, and it leaves out causes such as blocked drains and burst pipes. 1 Your field is the area. Your hive stand is not.

The bands are percentages and they are worth knowing, because “low” is not “no”. High is a greater than 3.3% chance of flooding in any year. Medium is 1% to 3.3%. Low is 0.1% to 1%. Very low is under 0.1%. 2 A low-risk site still floods in a long enough beekeeping career.

That service is England only. In Wales, use the Natural Resources Wales flood risk check by postcode. 6 In Scotland, use the SEPA flood maps and postcode checker. 7 In Northern Ireland, use Flood Maps NI, which is what nidirect points you at. 8

Then write the answer down, for every site you keep bees on, including the one at home. That last part is ours rather than anybody’s guidance. A risk you checked once and forgot is not a risk you have managed.

The warning you will never get

This is the part that catches people out, and it is worth being blunt about it.

You can register for free flood warnings in England by call, text or email. Those messages cover flooding from rivers, the sea or groundwater, depending on your area. 4 They do not cover surface water. GOV.UK says so in as many words: you cannot get flood warnings for surface water flooding, sometimes known as “flash flooding”. 4

Surface water is the risk most apiaries actually carry. A site nowhere near a river can still sit in the path of everything coming off a hill, a road or a yard. So for a great many beekeepers, register and wait for the phone to ring is not a plan at all. Nobody is going to ring.

Here is what to do instead.

• Watch the five day forecast. The check for flooding service publishes the flood risk across England for the next five days, alongside river, sea, groundwater and rainfall levels. 3
• Use weather warnings. GOV.UK sends you to the Met Office for weather warnings, and those cover the whole UK. 5 A heavy rain warning is the closest thing to a surface water warning you will get.
• Ask the council. GOV.UK’s own answer for surface water flooding in your area is to contact your local council. 3 They hold the drainage history the national map does not.
• Go and look. House practice, and the only thing that has ever actually worked for us. Heavy rain forecast, wet site, drive out and look before it arrives.

Alert, warning, and how much time each buys you

England has three levels, and the difference between them is time. 5

• Flood alert. Flooding is possible, so prepare now. Usually issued between 2 and 12 hours ahead, and usually in waking hours where that is possible. 5
• Flood warning. Flooding is expected, so act now. Usually issued 30 minutes to 2 hours ahead. 5
• Severe flood warning. Flooding could be a risk to life and cause significant disruption. 5

Read the alert advice again, because part of it is written for you. The instruction at flood alert level is to move livestock and farming equipment away from areas likely to flood. 5 The things listed as at risk at that level are fields, farmland, recreational land and minor roads. 5 That is an apiary, described exactly.

Registering is free and takes a few minutes. In England you sign up online or through Floodline on 0345 988 1188, a 24 hour service. 4 Natural Resources Wales gives the same Floodline number and its own sign-up for Wales. 6 In Scotland you sign up through SEPA. 7 In Northern Ireland the flood maps are the check, 8 and flooding is reported to the Flooding Incident Line on 0300 2000 100, staffed 24 hours a day and seven days a week, where staff pass the report to the agency that has to respond. 9

What the ground tells you

The map does not know your field. The National Bee Unit asks five things of a site: good access in all weather, firm and well-drained ground, sun, shelter from heavy wind, and not a frost pocket. 10 Access in all weather is the clause that fails first on a wet site, and it fails on the day you most need it.

The same fact sheet is clear about what actually kills a colony over winter. It is the damp, rather than the cold. 10 A hive standing in a wet corner is losing bees slowly whether the field ever floods or not.

So walk the site in the wet. February tells you more than June does. What we look at, which is ours rather than sourced:

• Where the water stands after heavy rain. That patch is where it will stand in winter, deeper and for longer.
• Whether the apiary is in the lowest corner. Cold air and water collect in the same places, so this one question answers the frost pocket as well.
• Whether the ditch or field drain is clear. A blocked drain turns a wet corner into a pond in a single night.
• What has changed uphill. New hard standing, a ploughed field or a new track above you sends water somewhere it did not go last year.

The windy-but-dry compromise is usually worth taking. Wind has a strap solution. Standing water does not.

Get them up, and keep them up

Two of these jobs are in the fact sheet. Hives are best kept off the ground on suitable stands, and they should be fastened down, using hive straps, nylon straps or ratchet straps to secure them to the stands. 10 The straps are there for wind and for animals. They earn their place in water too, because a strapped hive is one object instead of four.

The height is ours. On any site with a wet history we set the stand so the floor sits at least 450 mm above the ground, which is roughly a stacked pair of concrete blocks. There is no official stand height and we are not going to invent one.

Be honest about what that costs. Setting up an apiary puts commercially sold stands at somewhere between about 150 mm and 250 mm, and sets the height by your back rather than by convention. Going to 450 mm raises the top of a loaded winter stack by the same amount, which is the lifting problem that guide is trying to avoid. It is a trade. On a dry site it is a bad one. On a site that has water history it is the right one, and it should be made deliberately.

Two details make the difference between a stand and a hazard. Put slabs under the legs, so the stand does not sink and tip as the ground softens. And load it before you trust it. A stand that is fine in September under an empty box is a different object in November under full stores.

Know where they are going, and when you go

If a site floods you will not have time to work out a plan. Decide it in September. All of this section is house practice except where a source is cited.

• Pick the destination and ask now. A friend’s garden, a farmyard, the back of your own house. Permission is easier to get in the dry.
• Sort out the distance problem in advance. Three feet or three miles is the rule of thumb, and moving a hive covers what to do about everything in between.
• Keep the kit ready. Straps already on, entrance blocks or foam, a barrow, and a vehicle that can still get in when the track is soft.
• Have a fallback that is not a move. If you cannot shift them, lift them where they stand. Blocks under the stand, or the hive onto a pallet on blocks, buys a few hundred millimetres. That is often the whole difference.

One thing can stop the move outright, and it has nothing to do with the water. If you have notified a suspected foulbrood, small hive beetle or Tropilaelaps, you must not remove any hive, bees, combs, bee products, hive debris or appliances from the premises. That bites from the moment you notify, before any inspector has been near you, and it runs until an authorised person gives notice or your samples come back clear. 12 A Standstill Notice from a Bee Inspector does the same thing and holds for a minimum of six weeks. 13

There is a way through it, and a flood is the kind of case it exists for. The Regional Bee Inspector can license a move to a new standstill site in defined cases, such as the landowner asking for the colonies to go. 13 Ask early, in daylight, on a working day. Not on the night. Moving a hive sets the restriction out in full.

Then the trigger. Ours is below, and it is ours rather than official guidance, but it is anchored to the three levels so you can see what each one gives you.

• Flood alert. This is the move. Load the van, ring the destination, and go if the site has form. It is the only level that reliably gives you hours. 5
• Flood warning. Last chance, and it may be 30 minutes. Go only if the route is already clear and it is light. 5
• Severe flood warning. Do not go. The hives are not worth it. 5

Waiting for daylight and waiting for a warning are not compatible. Pick one. We pick the alert, because an alert usually arrives in waking hours and a warning may not. 5

If they have been in the water

The recovery routine below is ours. The food safety part is not, and it is the part people get wrong.

• Do not open a hive standing in flood water. Move it out first, or leave it until the water goes.
• Stand it up, strap it, let it drain. Prop the floor slightly forward so water runs out of the entrance.
• Then leave it alone. There is nothing useful to do inside a cold wet hive in January. Wait for a mild calm day.
• Watch for damp afterwards, not cold. That is the thing that finishes a colony that survived the water. 10

Now the stores. The Food Standards Agency tells people not to eat food that has been touched or covered by floodwater or sewage, and to throw away food in permeable packaging, or behind screwcaps, snap lids, pull tops and crimped or metal caps. 11 Comb is permeable and a hive is not a sealed container. Honey that has been under flood water is gone, for you and for them.

If you sell any of it, you are a food business. The FSA tells flood-affected businesses to ask the food safety team at their local authority for advice. 11 Do that, and put nothing from that site up for sale in the meantime. Selling honey covers what selling actually commits you to.

The woodwork needs a word of honesty. The FSA says to throw away wooden chopping boards and wooden spoons that have been in contact with flood water, because wood absorbs contaminated water. 11 That advice is about kitchen items rather than hives, and we are not going to dress it up as beekeeping guidance. It is a fair steer all the same. Scrape, wash and scorch submerged boxes before they go back into use, and hive tools and equipment sets out the difference between cleaning and disinfecting.

One more thing, because people give up too early. Colonies come through this more often than you would expect. Do not write one off on the strength of a bad morning.

When the simple rule breaks down

• A surface water site. No registered warning will ever come. 4 The trigger has to be the rain forecast and your own eyes, which means the move happens earlier and on less information.
• Groundwater. Slow, weeks long, and it comes up from below rather than along. Warnings can cover it in some areas, 4 and the long term check shows it where data exists. 1 The national assessment leaves it out entirely, because of gaps in the evidence. 2 Raising helps. A ditch does not.
• Coastal sites. Alerts and warnings at the coast come off high tides, surges and strong winds at sea. 5 It is fast and it is salt. Go at the alert, not the warning.
• Reservoir risk. It is on the long term map. 1 There is no hive-level answer to it, only a relocation plan.
• Rented land. The landowner remembers floods the map does not show. Ask before you trust the postcode.
• A site under a standstill. There is no move to make until the Regional Bee Inspector licenses one. 13 Raising in place is the only option you have.

The short version

• Run every site through the long term flood risk check for England, or the Welsh, Scottish or Northern Irish equivalent. 1678 It reports an area, not your stand. 1
• Registered warnings cover rivers, the sea and groundwater. They do not cover surface water. 4
• For surface water, use the five day flood forecast, Met Office warnings and your local council. 35
• A flood alert usually gives 2 to 12 hours. A flood warning may give 30 minutes. 5 Plan the move around the alert.
• Hives off the ground on suitable stands, strapped to them. 10 Our 450 mm on a wet site is house practice, not an official figure.
• Decide the destination and the route in September. If you have notified a disease, nothing leaves the site without a Regional Bee Inspector licence. 1213
• Honey that has been in flood water is not food, and none of it goes for sale. Ask your local authority food safety team. 11
• Afterwards it is damp rather than cold that finishes them. 10