Meeting - February 1997

Frank Lindsay advised that plenty of swarms had been reported throughout the Wellington region. The season was generally considered to be about 2 to 3 weeks late, but good flows were now being obtained in sheltered sites.

Richard Hatfield advised members that he had 3/4 and full depth foundation available for sale at the meeting and was currently taking orders for supers.

In response to a question, Frank Lindsay outlined the funnel method for removing swarms from inside walls. It takes several weeks and will remove all the bees except the queen.

Presentation on Honey Extraction.

The club secretary demonstrated basic honey extraction procedures using the club’s four frame extractor. Always ensure the honey fames are slightly warm to ease extraction. The top bars on the frames should always be trailing in the extractor.

Extracted honey, and later cappings were filtered through two sieves with different mesh sizes into standard 20 litre buckets. The honey was then poured into suitable containers for storage.

Drained cappings were returned to a hive at dusk inside a rectangular plastic bucket. After a couple of weeks, the bees had cleaned them totally, and the remaining wax was removed for melting down to solid wax blocks.

A lively discussion followed with members asking questions or explaining their own extraction variations.

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