PRESENT: Frank Lindsay (Pres.), Mary Ann Lindsay (Treas.), John Burnet (Sec.) and 33 members as listed in the attendance book.

APOLOGIES: John Robson, Bob Porter

MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING: Minutes of meeting held 9 September 2002 as detailed in the Oct newsletter were confirmed.

Varroa Update: President repeated US beekeeper Sharon Gibbons’ recent comment that NZ was 10 years ahead of USA when varroa first appeared there due to NZ Government department’s active involvement. US beekeepers did not receive any similar guidance or assistance such as the Varroa Control Handbook distributed free by AgriQuality to all registered NZ beekeepers.

NZ beekeepers had recently commenced lobbying NZ Biosecurity authorities to persuade them that the current hive movement control line should be retained despite the varroa incursions recently detected south of the line. Central North Island beekeepers had already discovered that cross infestation was a significant ongoing problem.

Club’s recent field day at Te Horo was briefly discussed and all those who attended generally agreed it was well worthwhile despite the adverse weather. This led to a general discussion among members over the advantages and disadvantages of the icing sugar shake versus Apistan.

• NBA letter received by all beekeepers concerning the PMS levy. President confirmed a beekeeper with one hive will be required to pay $20 + 47 cents + GST.
• Gulf Pacific letter received detailing their two formic acid evaporators for sale – Nassenheider ($18 + GST) and the Burmeister ($14.50 + GST).

• Trees and shrubs currently flowering – Tarata (lemonwood), Broom, Rangiora, Eucalyptus, Mahoe, Coprosma, Wild turnip, Broadleaf and some Manuka.
• Beware of starving bees – colonies were now building faster than food sources could often provide for – this was especially likely in prolonged wet weather.
• Feeding raw sugar to bees will hold them back while feeding a sugar solution will stimulate the colony.
• A spotty brood pattern indicates the queen is failing and should be replaced with a new one.
• The weather temperature must be over 20 degrees for drones to fly and queens able to be mated.
• Queen cell buds were now appearing however current cool wintry weather was not conducive to swarming.
• If swarming was imminent, a good delaying tactic was to reverse the brood boxes to give the queen more laying room.
• Queen cells can be detected easily using the "10 second swarm cell check". This relies on swarm cells being usually built on the bottoms of frames in the top box of a double brood chamber. Crack the two boxes apart, sliding forward and tilting the top box back sufficiently so you can see any queen cells. If they are present, a full inspection of all frames is required as there are likely to be queen cells elsewhere too.
• Swarming can be prevented by requeening annually or by using the Demaree process. Basically this procedure is: Put the queen together with 2 to 5 combs of capped brood into the middle of an empty box on the original site destroying all queen cells as you go. Do not shake off the house bees. Put in a frame of pollen and honey and fill the gaps with empty comb or foundation. Put on an excluder and put the rest of the brood with one good pollen comb, some honey and empty combs into a box above the excluder. Destroy any queen cells and position the brood in the top box directly over the brood below. Now the queen has been separated from a large part of the brood and the field bees can stay with her and work in the space provided. There is now plenty of room for the queen to lay and the supply of queen pheromones to the top box is also abruptly and virtually completely stopped.

Ivan Pedersen spoke about and demonstrated the use of his imported metal cappings scratchers. Ivan maintained for uncapping frames the use of cappings scratchers provided significant advantages over the use of steam knives or knives dipped in hot water. It was essential however that uncapping using this method was done on the same day i.e. honey was still at hive temperature.

It has been club practice for many years to alternate the starting times between 7:30pm in the winter and 8pm in the summer. However for members travelling from the Kapiti Coast, an 8pm start meant an unnecessarily late arrival home afterwards. It was therefore proposed and agreed that effective immediately, all future meetings would start at 7:30pm.

A video was shown to members showing Mike Stukey from Waitemata Honey demonstrating his two-queen hive system. This required use of a division board with an entrance and a cutout of a 2 x 65mm diameter hole covered with excluder mesh in one end of the board. This ensured the two queens never met as they are usually near the centre of each box. The new queen is kept in the bottom box and the one-year-old queen in the top box. A big feeder tray between the two boxes also helps separate the two queens’ pheromones.