PRESENT: Doug Purdie (Pres.), Frank Lindsay (Treas.), John Burnet (Sec.) and 31 members and visitors as listed in the attendance book.

APOLOGIES: Ken Breden, Graham Lusty, Andrew Yung, Marie & Chris Christoffel, Wayne Wild, Karl Aageson

MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING: Minutes of meeting held 13 April were read and confirmed.

CORRESPONDENCE: Newspaper Death Notice concerning Ted Roberts MAF Apicultural Advisor Palmerston North.

Advice of Nomination of Nick Wallingford for NBA.

FINANCIAL REPORT: General Account $1419.27, B/L Fund $599.99

GENERAL BUSINESS:

Club’s free photocopying arrangement with Wang had ceased. Members expressed their appreciation for the work and support provided in the past by Richard Hatfield and Wang, and to Les Solomon who offered to do the newsletter photocopying in the future.

Ivan Pedersen demonstrated and explained his methods of producing section honey using aluminum sheets to separate sections. He also suggested beer cans were ideal for patching holed supers.

PRESENTATION:

Secretary John Burnet gave a slide presentation about the Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, a 250 hectare valley which was to be enclosed in a 8 km fence enabling the creation of a predator-free "offshore island" in the middle of Wellington City. Erection of the fence and removal of the predators would enable the natural bush to regenerate and the reintroduction of a range of threatened native birds including the kiwi, weka, kaka, saddleback, kokako, keruru as well as tuatara and various native frogs and fish.

Meeting closed at 9:30 p.m. with supper.

Cost $50 for the weekend. Any questions: Call P.J. (Buzz) 06-378 7632.

It would appear, that the aggressiveness displayed by a colony is significantly determined by the number of guard bees deployed (all other things being equal). If stratagems can be used to reduce the number of guard bees, then it would seem that the aggressiveness displayed by the colony can be reduced. One method I have heard of is to reduce the size of the hive entrance. Are there other ‘modifications’ that can be made to the hive structure to achieve this end?. I seem to remember something about increasing the distance between the bottom ends of the combs and the floorboard.

For a full range of Ecroyds Beekeeping Supplies

Phone 0800-5BEEHIVE (0800-523344)
or 06-324 8224

We will trade Honey, Beeswax or Pollen for Gear

Contact Marjorie or Kevin Kibby
for further details or to place an order

SH1, RD 3, Palmerston North (24kms north of Foxton on SH1).

Upper entrances may be nice in the winter but can cause your honey yields to take a dramatic drop and are not necessary even in the hottest and wettest locations but having said that they are fun and interesting.

If you want to do something to increase production increase the distance between the bottom board and combs by using ¾ or larger spacing on the edges of the bottom that the hive body rests on. This gives the bees clustering space and they ventilate the hive more efficiently; it actually reduces the temperature inside the hive and reduces swarming. It also keeps more of the guard bees inside the hive and reduces the aggressive behavior. Some put slated lath in the space to reduce brace comb to the hive floor but that just reduces the clustering space and these brace combs are seldom a big problem. Entrance reducers and guards may be necessary in the fall and winter.

Its fun time in the bee yard and bees can be trained to use upper entrances such as with "top" pollen traps. I had a hive one time that I trained to land between two hive bodies and march single file to a entrance in the back of the hive to the amazement of all visiting beekeepers and friends. They did well with an entrance that would only admit one or two bees at a time.

Because the bees place pollen as close to the entrance as they can, with upper entrances, even with excluders to keep the queen down, the bees will store much pollen in the upper hive body or super. But the rub seems to come with the nectar, which they also like to store in the super above the entrance and then work UP with it as the space is filled. With upper entrances they seem to give up and do not take the nectar down. So you can have nectar and even honey in the top box and the brood starving in the bottom boxes. Of course, without excluders the upper entrance will insure that the queen soon abandons the bottom boxes and moves to the top.

For years I used upper entrances in supers that had a small, one or two inch of clear plastic tubing that allowed the bees one at a time to leave but did not allow them to come back. This worked well without any negative effects.

Restricting or redirecting bees to a upper entrance can cause the bees to try to make a new entrance and any place that is thin or allows a small amount of light in the hive will become thinner and in time the bees will eat their way out. In any case they will depreciate that expensive wooden box to nothing in a season or two. They do this by actually wetting the wood and chewing it down. In old style bee boxes with deep handholds, it does not take much more then a season for the bees to make a new entrance.

Another interesting thing to do is to paint part of your bottom entrance white and another part black. The bees will leave via the white and come back in via the black. You can even do stripes so that the bees come and go from several areas of the bottom entrance. You can have fun with bees by painting a landing X or O above the entrance and the bees will land on the X or O like good little pilots and follow the black painted landing lanes to the entrance ramp. You can get them coming in by landing on the front or side of the hive and leaving by the white painted entrance lanes. This Bee Traffic Control is bound to increase production by avoiding those frequent bee collisions and traffic jams resulting in a 5% to 10% increase in production at very little cost.

No tricks to any of this except you should have well-established hives and a fair flow to get it working in a reasonable amount of time. There is also some difference in how yellow bees and back bees respond to all this. The yellow ones seem to drift to other hives when confused while the blacks can find their own hole no matter what you do. I have always suspected these black bees were used for so long in bee houses that they developed better homing senses or maybe they just were late in coming out of the bee trees to the bee hive.

I am sure none of this helped, but if it makes beekeeping more fun for someone then its worth the effort.

Wow, you are talking my language when you mention UPPER ENTRANCE. I think every colony in the world should have an upper entrance 365 days of the year. I am in my 65^th year of beekeeping, spending much of the last 20 years teaching beekeeping all over the world FREE OF CHARGE; and still do it in the U.S. in spite of being disabled by strokes.

I hate and despise drilling holes in my supers for upper entrances as a lot of people have done. I cut a piece of wood out of the front edge of the inner cover that leaves a hole 5/16" high x 1 ½" long into the top body, be it a super or brood body. Someone might say there is a shallow and a thick side to an inner cover and the shallow side should always be down. That is baloney! I put the

thick side down so there is about 3/8" of space between the inner cover surface and the tops of frames. Bees will only build burr comb there if they are short on super space - no other reason. So they stay in that position 365 days of the year.

What are the advantages: Primarily two, and both quite simple. Talk about summertime first. Why make foraging bees enter the front door, climb up through the congested brood nest to put nectar in the supers. A foraging bee’s only work is nectar gathering - it does nothing else! When it has an upper entrance (particularly if you are not using "Imirie Shims" between supers), the forager learns to leave and return through that upper entrance and not add further congestion to the brood nest. This results in more flights per day per bee and certainly tends to reduce the main cause of swarming - congestion of the brood nest!

How would you react on a cold winter night if someone poured freezing water on your bare back? When air is breathed into the lungs and than discharged out, one of the products is water vapor (clean your eye glasses by blowing your breath on them). This warm vapor goes up (everybody knows heat rises), and in the winter this warm vapor rises and contacts the cold inner cover where it liquifies into a drop of cold water. In time more drops of cold water accumulate and finally it rains of the cluster of warm bees below, and many freeze to death. If there is an upper entrance in place, that warm rising vapor from the bees breathing has a way to escape from the hive by going out of the entrance to outside. Lastly, sometimes (but not very often) the front entrance of a colony is covered by snow or sleet and the weather suddenly warms to flight weather for an hour or so. But the bees are penned inside by several inches of snow and sleet, which hasn’t melted yet. If there was an upper entrance, the bees can fly on a cleansing flight.

I have used Upper entrances on my 100+ colonies for at least 50 years, and just think everybody would be wiser if they used upper entrances too.

One method that works well, and which I generally practice, is to shift the first honey-super back a fraction of an inch, to leave a ~1/4" opening across the front of the hive. An opening is thereby provided at the upper edge of the brood-chamber. This was recommended to me by an old-timer who swore it would do much to prevent swarming. I’m not sure, but it couldn’t hurt.

This opening helps to get the hot stale air out of the brood chamber, aids in evaporating down the nectar, and the bees will use this space as an upper entrance as well. I should add, this is only done on strong colonies.

I have never bothered to shelter the gap from the weather, but the bees haven’t appeared to suffer any. No landing board required, and leave the regular bottom entrance wide open.

On warm evenings during a nectar flow, the bees will line right up along this upper entrance, fanning away.

Now there is an interesting statement.

Not that I disagree, but I would like to know more of Andy’s thinking on this. I’ve said similar things and gotten quite a bit of flack. Here’s are some of my thoughts:

Comb building will suffer in a hive that does not conserve heat due to being too large or too draughty. I’m curious about the ‘dramatic drop’ Andy mentions being caused by top entrances, how this can be proven, and how he has arrived at this conclusion (one with which I tend to agree, without much proof though).

Generally hives which lose their lids do not produce honey very well around here—even if there is no rain. A ‘no lid’ condition is definitely too much ventilation in our area. I wonder if Andy’s comments refer to the ventilation aspect of upper entrances, or some other factor such as loss of contact between workers and queen? The entry of light may be a factor here too? Drifting?

Hives which have upper entrances in a yard where other hives do not have them may pick up bees from those other hives over time, particularly if the yard is disturbed, say by removing/adding supers. Comparing two hives, one with and one without upper entrance holes may be difficult due to this effect.

My experience over the years has been that there is a correct level of ventilation and that the bees can manage the airflow in enclosures with many different configurations of holes and shapes during periods when they are not forced by cold to cluster. However there is a cost to this work and, moreover, some configurations—particularly those with excess uncontrollable air flow—can cause work to stop prematurely due to temperature drop in the hive.

I have been listening to the discussion about entrances etc with interest. Here in Tropical North Queensland, Australia any upper entrance is immediately propolised up. In fact one of the locals here uses flat boards only on top, no upper air space for bur comb etc.

With the discussion about upper entrances etc, has anyone tried the main entrance above the brood box at the base of the supers?

From the comments so far it appears that the bees go down to the brood as required and go up to store honey.

An entrance above the brood chamber will stop cold drafts and allow for some temperature regulation, perhaps better regulation.

If this is so then is there a need for a lower entrance for the removal of dropped bits etc by the bees?

Also what is the Australian experience with this? I have not heard much about upper entrances in Australia.

I am not saying that just a simple flight hole in the upper supers would do all this, but if that hole becomes the principal entrance to the beehive things begin to change fast and honey production is the first to suffer.

Every area has its little differences. In Central California the bees do not cluster as they do in the north and east, so if a hives lid is blown off in the winter but the hive is in healthy every other way, you can expect that hive or hives to maybe look terrible at the time. After exposure to the elements, the cluster is so tight that most beekeepers here would take them for dead. In fact I have brought them in only to have them revive in the warmth of the honey barn. These hives, in my experience always come out better in the spring, and I am sure it is from the winter chilling or maybe the complete lack of queen activity. Here the queens never stop laying even when there is little or no pollen, and the worker bees can not feed any eggs that hatch. I am sure the bees eat several pounds of brood each year on the average because they can’t feed it.

Bees fly to the light, so when light is intense enough they will leave the hive, sometimes even at night or in the rain if its warm enough and there a real

stinky flow on. The bees if left alone will do their best to control the light that gets in the hive if they can’t do it by nest or hive selection they will glue it up with plant rosins when available. Some areas don’t have any so road tar, grafting wax, any product with linseed oil such as paints or sealers and even beeswax from exposed combs or foundations will do in a pinch. The back side is when not having enough entrance light or total light in the hive the bees will enlarge the entrance or make a new one between the supers or any place the wooden hive parts lets in a little light.

Drifting and communication between hives is what has become the number one vector for the spread of disease, pests, and predator’s in commercial and hobby beekeeping. This was predicted long before any problems resulted because of the numbers of hives being placed many times for pollination in any one area.

Some hives do not drift, but unfortunately most of us do not have these bees and ours drift even under the best conditions. The bigger the beehive populations in each hive and each yard, the more they communicate. Sadly they do not use jungle drums to do this, but they exchange of bees from hive to hive. This has caused the spread of Vampire mites, and also to a lesser extent it can and does spread the mite chemicals from one apiary or hive to another and any other chemicals bad or good.

This is one area that causes me, when I read of so called controlled field tests using bee hives, to look with a jaundice eye at the results. Maybe because over the years I have learned how to control drifting in my hives but NO one to my knowledge has learned how to prevent drifting from hive to hive or apiary to apiary, and that includes feral hives. Field tests that allow free flight should not be relied on for the last word, especially with any substance put into the hive. Bees live or die by the stinky signals they receive in their environment, and most anything added to their hive can interfere with these leading up to full collapse at some later date with no visual cause.

When I say control or controlled drifting that means that the hives even themselves out in place of ending up at one end or both ends of the yard as is still common in many bee yards. This is done by not placing the hives in nice neat rows and in my case having used both placement and multi colored pastel paints on my wooden goodies not just because these paints were at one time cheaper. I know of some beekeepers in large pollination projects that have been able to use this knowledge of drifting to catch the drift from their neighbors bees and make tremendous crops of honey while their neighbors hardly make enough to winter. When you go into these pollination projects you should make yourself aware of such details as prevailing wind directions and speeds and get on the down wind side (or is it up wind). Anyway you want the bees that come in over-loaded to land in your hives no matter who’s they left from. I can’t tell all or I would not have anything to say later.

I always tell everyone who asks why I do this or that (mostly everyday thing), that "I do it because I glean 10% more for my labors". I mean what else are you going to tell people, they would think you are some kind of nut if you said you do things with your bees because you make more money keeping bees then you can spend on fast trucks, greasy food, and worn out waitress. In fact this is not the case, most of what we do is forced on us by experience as doing it some other way did not work out for us as individual beekeepers. I try to never talk down to what some else is doing because it may be the thing that works for him in his space, I just let em know what I have done and if it worked or not for me.

Shifting one of the supers back about ¾" leaves a ¼ - 3/8" opening along the front, at the top of the underlying super. There is no opening created at the rear of the hive, due to the thickness of the super walls. Never had any robbing with this arrangement. It is used during the height of the season, when the colonies are populous and forage is plenty. In some regions where robbing is a problem it might require some caution, but strong colonies such as these are not apt to be robbed anyway, and certainly not during a honey flow. This is sometimes referred to as "staggering the supers."

Several years ago one cool still morning I thought my hive in my back yard had caught fire. What appeared to be thin white smoke was pouring upwards and outwards from just above the bottom entrance - but of course it was water vapour. Moisture-laden air was issuing from the entire length of the bottom entrance (the only entrance) although a small patch of bees was fanning on one side only of the landing board. The plume rose to just above the top of the 4-storey (full-depth boxes) hive before dissipating, by which point it was about a metre across. Judging from the apparently very large volume of air being moved. it seemed to me that the bees would have no difficulty in rapidly evaporating large volumes of moisture from their hive. In the 28 years that I’ve had the hive in that spot I’ve only seen this phenomenon the once - and never from numerous other hives both here and in other countries.

Yesterday was a beautiful day in the eastern cape. The eucalyptus trees are flowering and supers filling noticeably despite the shortening days and pesty predacious birds.

Swarms are numerous from wild hives, and some of these had settled in the roof of an Anglican retreat in the mountains near my town. A number of San Franciscan monks are about to move in there so the sisters resident there now called me in to get rid of the bees as apparently the brothers heard about the bees and fear for killer bees.

Nevertheless, in shorts and T-shirt I sat on the rooftop of the chapel removing tiles and large honeycombs under the rather slack jawed stare of the local gardener (who had previously tried to remove the bees and ended up in hospital).

Once removed I smoked the bees out and they settled in the tallest tree nearby. The top section of the tree was quite thin, so after talking for a while with the relevant sister (in charge of the garden) I received permission to shoot the top branch of the tree of. Half a box of ammo later (.22) the swarm came down neatly and landed in a lump on the lawn and rapidly resettled. I trimmed the branch, put the whole lot in a microwave oven’s box (sent in advance by kind people from SF) and drove away in my car - leaving a gardener who could not understand what his ancestors were up to. (Xhosa people believe the bees are the ancestors - I am therefore on better terms with the gardeners ancestors than he is as I received no stings even although I probably put a few bullets through some of them!!)

Oh yes - in the distance I could see the light blue ocean with a few ships on it and a nice yellow beach. One of those days that stands out as being ‘special’.

The members of the Wellington Beekeepers Association would like to express their sorrow at the sudden and untimely death of Ted Roberts, Apicultural Advisory Officer for MAF at Palmerston North, and to extend sympathy to his family. Ted was a keen supported of our association, and has spoken to members on many occasions about all aspects of beekeeping.

Don’t forget that we will be having the club’s annual mead competition at the July meeting following the AGM. If you have some mead already made (or even in progress), then bring it along to show the rest of us how well you are doing. Remember that all entries need to be presented in clear glass bottles with suitable stoppers.

Mark this forthcoming Buzz Weekend in your diary now. Details are:

• When 14^th, 15^th, and 16^th August 1998
• Where Pohangina Valley Camp, Near Palmerston North
• Cost $50 – includes meals, accommodation, tuition

Additional details inside the magazine on page ??

Our secretary, John Burnet, is currently planning some interesting sessions for this year. Please mark these dates in your diary and come along.

If there are any topics of particular interest which you would like discussed at future meetings, or if you know of an interesting speaker who is able to talk about a topic of relevance to beekeepers, then please advise John Burnet.

Don’t forget when selling any used hive gear, the seller must inform MAF Palmerston North, so it can be tracked in the case of an exotic disease outbreak. Purchasers should sign the form supplied by MAF.