Meetings are held on second Monday each month (except January), at above venue

PRESENT: Richard Hatfield (Pres.), Frank Lindsay (Treas.), John Burnet (Sec.) and 38 members and visitors as listed in the attendance book.

APOLOGIES: Max Aston, John Robson, Ted Geddye, Chris Christoffel.

MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING:

Minutes of meeting held 14 September were read and confirmed.

MATTERS ARISING:

• President advised proposed Beekeepers Training under discussion with MAF Exec.
• Treasurer advised Club Diseasathon will be held Sat.14 Nov. in the Waikanae & Akatarawa areas. Club will have no regulatory powers and therefore access will only be by invitation from the owner.

• Doug Purdie described how his hives had survived a flooded stream which had risen half way up the bottom boxes.
• Ivan Pedersen produced a super which had been blasted by shotgun. Damage was minimal inside as the frames were end-on to the blast. He also demonstrated an elasticised hooded veil which he found was very quick to put on and take off compared with one piece suits. Ivan also produced an aluminium frame which he recently found in a second hand hive. Frank Lindsay confirmed this was an American design and was not uncommon there.
• Bill Allan reported on his problem of disappearing queens - it appears there are some beekeepers around who are not prepared to pay for their queens!

Frank Lindsay spoke on bee diseases in particular AFB, EFB, Chalkbrood and Sacbrood. Slides showing the various stages of each were shown and the NBA’s plan to eradicate all AFB from NZ by the year 2000 was discussed

Meeting closed at 9:15 p.m. with supper.

Further to the reported disappearance of Queens by Bill Allen, is a very worrying development for beekeepers in the Bay of Plenty. It has been reported that complete hives are being stolen up there, probably for pollination purposes. Several beekeepers report that they have lost about 350 hives in the Te Puke to Paengaroa area during the last year, with about 130 being taken in the last six weeks. The latest ones to go had boxes of new season rewarewa honey on. If anyone hears anything suspicious about hives or honey from this area, please pass the information onto someone for further investigation.

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).

I now have the apiary records from James (MAF) and will be contacting all the beekeepers concerned advising them that we would like to look through their hives. (Akatarawa and Waikanae area, south to Otaihanga including Reikorangi Road. All those interested in coming along for a fun Saturday, please contact me, Frank 478 3367. We hope to make up four teams. James Driscoll will be giving us a hand.

Unfortunately, we will be covering two areas so won't be able to swap notes until our next meeting. Bring your lunch, protective gear, smoker and hive tool. If wet we will arrange it for another time. (We had planned to use the 21 as a standby date if the 14th was wet, but as we are now off to Ashburton for a field day on this date, it can't be used).

I am compiling a list of queen breeders who are able to supply queens in small numbers to club members, and will circulate this next month. Here are some initial responses:

October 1998 will go down in history as quite a month. Constant rain resulting in extensive flooding, as well as persistent high winds. When it wasn't raining, it was blowing. I had hives on pallets completely turned over and some scattered down hillsides, three had died out. Another apiary was flooded but the damage was minimal, just a few inches of water through the bottom boxes on a few hives, so these were moved.

All this stormy weather has prevented the bees from foraging and now many are on the verge of starvation. I have been going around putting raw sugar in the top feeders as an emergency measure. Matings of new queens have been exceptionally bad with lots of queens blown away. (We are now looking for a breed that can mate in the rain and withstand 200 k winds as well as bring in a honey crop).

This when the whole bush is flush with flowers. Rewarewa, wineberry, kamahi, manuka, cabbage tree, hawthorn, buttercup, bush lawyer, whitey wood, ake ake and many more. In the urban areas, gardens are looking a picture. On the road edges clover is showing and in some hot sunny spots, the odd pohutukawa trees and bottlebrushes are flowering but the bees just can't get out to collect it.

In the mean time, one of our members in the centre of Lower Hutt has just removed six full depth supers of honey from her two hives. Makes you sick doesn't it.

For the rest of us mortals, keep the bees ticking over and prevent swarming. Reverse the brood boxes again this month to give the queen room to lay, (she tends to migrate upwards so this keeps the brood down). Keep checking hives every 8-9 days for queen cells, keep their food reserves high, and give them room to expand, (put a honey super on). The honey flow is just around the corner. If you find queen cells with larvae in them, artificially swarm your hive (make a nuc) or you will loose your honey crop.

We haven't had many swarm calls yet. Most have been around the Porirua area, which tends to be warmer than Wellington. Judging by the build-up in some hives, it's just about to happen around Wellington.

Please bring your questions to the meeting. No matter how trivial it may sound to you - ask. Sometimes these questions lead to interesting discussions where everyone learns.

See you at the meeting.

Murray McGregor, a beekeeper in Scotland, holds an import licence to allow him to bring in bees from south pacific countries including New Zealand. He is after good strains of dark bee to work in the conditions of Scotland. His preferred strain is carniolan, but he is aware that there are feral bees derived from mellifera stains that could also be ideal (despite their more difficult temperament). The yellow Italian stains are just too soft to work effectively and product a honey surplus.

Answers to questions published last month

1. False - The whitening of combs along the tops of frames in the brood chamber and honey supers it is an indication that additional honey supers should be added to the colony
2. False - Honeybees undergo complete metamorphosis, a life cycle that involves four developmental stages. The four stages are egg, larva, pupa, and adult.
3. True - The length of the egg stage is the same for all three castes, but the larval and pupal stages are shortest for the queen, intermediate for workers, and longest for the drone. Queen development normally takes approximately 16 days, workers 21 days, and drones 24 days.
4. False - Cappings on honey cells are much flatter than worker brood cappings. Worker cells are sealed with a low domed capping with some variation in the exact shape, a characteristic that is considered to be under genetic control. The flat wax cappings over honey are often wrinkled, the wrinkles extending across several cells.
5. True - The average time spent on cell preparation before a queen lays an egg in a cell following the emergence of a previous occupant is approximately 40 minutes, and involves from 16 to 29 different bees.
6. True - Good queens lay solid brood patterns with a brood of a similar age grouped closely together. Old or failing queens neglect to lay eggs in many of the cells.
7. True - The principal function of the larval stage is feeding. During this stage the larva gains an enormous amount of weight and grows tremendously in size. These two changes occur while the cell is uncapped.
8. False - Larvae have simple mouthparts which lap up large quantities of food placed in the larval containing cells by adult nurse bees. The larvae are even able to rotate within the cells to get to food not placed directly next to their mouths. The 3,000+ nurse bee visits are necessary to supply adequate supplies of food.
9. True - During the pupal period the larval body is reorganised to form that of the adult, using stores of the fat body and larval tissues to provide the materials and energy required for the change. During this change, all of the larval tissues are replaced by those of an adult.
10. B) 13
11. E) Thoracic salivary
12. D) 24
13. A) 6
14. C) 40,000

The time has come for the honey flow. It can be either a chore or a pleasant exercise. Be prepared - have all of your gear ready well in advance. Adding supers is not only important for honey collection, but also to relieve congestion in the hive, thus reducing the tendency to swarm. Honey supers provide the space required for the ripening and storage on honey. Remember that incoming nectar contains 50 to 80% water, and therefore requires more room while the bees are processing it, than when stored in its processed state as honey with a 18% water content.

Presuming you have done the last major brood chamber manipulation in mid November, by the end of November the queen should be moving up the hive filling the empty cells with eggs as she goes. But before she reaches the top it is likely the brood there will be all gone and the cells filled with honey. With nectar coming in faster the upper portion of the second super will not be available to the queen, therefore she has to restrict her laying to the bottom box, which is the last place the bees want to store honey.

This is an important factor, remembering that it takes six weeks from egg being laid, until the worker has progressed through its duties in the hive, to become a field bee. You need to keep in mind that eggs laid from the beginning of the flow will produce foragers. If the flow is practically over by mid January, these foragers will barely bring in enough to support themselves. In a poor season they will eat up honey already in the hive. They are more of a liability than an asset. New Zealand's main honey flow occurs over such a short time that good housekeeping is important to take advantage of what's available and to get the maximum crop possible.

For most of the larger operators, the first honey supers will need to be placed on the hives before the main honey flow starts, particularly if the area usually has a early significant honey flow. Putting supers on early (mid to late October in most regions), also helps to prevent swarming.

The first honey super should contain drawn combs if possible, as foundation does not provide the bees with any more room until the cells have been drawn. High temperature and a good honeyflow are required for this, and any combs drawn during an erratic honey flow will not be drawn out properly and are usually not attached to the bottom bar correctly, causing problems later on during extracting. Additional supers should be added before the bees require them. This maintains the momentum of the colony, and the additional space seems to activate the bees to gather more nectar. The old idea was that you added supers only once the bees have started white waxing the top bars. In fact white waxing is the latest stage that you should add supers. Ideally the supers need to be placed on the hive earlier than this in a honey flow, before the white waxing occurs.

Supers are usually added on top of the previous super. This is the easiest way to put on supers as less lifting is required and you can easily check the existing super to see if another is required. Bottom supering involves lifting one or more nearly full supers off and adding the new super directly above the brood nest. It demands a lot more work, which is only warranted if supering has been delayed and combs in the top super have been completely capped over.

It is almost impossible to state how often or how many to super a hive, as honey flows vary from year to year and region to region. A general rule is to add enough supers to last until the next planned visit. This may be one, two, or even more supers depending on the flow. In a good honey flow, strong hives can fill a super in one to two weeks, and even two days, though this is rare. Depending on the flow you may need up to four or five supers above the brood chamber. In the rare, once in a lifetime, situation, you may need to take a ladder and put on boxes six and seven.

If in doubt about how many supers to put on, be generous, as the bees cannot fill supers still in the storage shed. The hives will not suffer from having too much room during the honey flow. Some trials suggest that no harm is done if supers are added earlier and all at once, and that total crop yield are likely to be heavier if the bees always have large amounts of space available. Shortage of space on the other hand is an inhibiting factor. All that happens if the honey flow stops before the supers are filled is that you may need to rearrange some frames to get full boxes of honey.

For the smaller beekeeper, remember that the general rule is that the bees should never be using all of the comb available to them. As soon as they get to this stage another super must be put on the hive. Keep in mind that the aim is to draw the bees from the brood chamber into the super fairly quickly. If only foundation is available, the bees will often not go through a queen excluder to get to a super of foundation. This is remedied by putting the super on without a queen excluder (simply place the excluder under the mat or inner cover). At the next inspection, the bees should be established in the new super and drawing out the wax into comb. The queen can be found, and if she is in the super replaced back down into the brood chamber and the excluder put back in place above the brood chamber and beneath the super.

After the first year the beginner should have some drawn comb and be able to mix this with foundation in the supers. The drawn comb should be placed on the outside against the super walls and the foundation in the middle where the heat from the brood chamber is the greatest. This arrangement encourages bees to enter the super and the warmth gives those pulling the foundation considerable help.

Foundation is drawn out properly only on a good honey flow, so it is inadvisable to use it at other times unless you have now drawn out comb. Unless a honey flow is particularly good, supers of foundation should be baited when they are put on a hive. Pull out two partly capped honey frames from the top super and place them in the middle of the box of foundation, separated by a couple of new frames. Put two other frames of foundation down in the middle of the top super to make up the spacing. This stimulates the bees to move up more quickly to start drawing comb, and helps keep the moment of the colony.

What ever you do make sure that you keep records and you can compare the results over several years' different methods. Do not be deterred by Joe Bloggs 40 years experience. Often it is one year of experience repeated 40 times, with no records kept apart from memory. Remember also that one or two successes or failures do not establish a principle, they may be due to factors other than the method of supering.

Please advise Mary-Ann Lindsay (478 3367) if you are interested in collecting swarms this season. Remember that the mild winter means that swarms may start earlier than usual this year. Swarms have started already, but are expected to rise to a peak in the Wellington area shortly - refer to article by Frank Lindsay on page 4.

A diseaseathon will be held this year on 14th November. Areas to be covered will be Akatarawa and Waikanae. Come along, learn something new, and have a really fun day. Phone Frank Lindsay, 478 3367, for details if you cannot attend the November meeting.

The Wellington Beekeepers Association is over 50 years old. It would be really great to get some material or stories from the early days of the club to post onto our web site. If you have, or know anyone with any suitable materials or stories to tell, please contact James Scott (565 0164) or (editor@beehive.org.nz) to organise for the loan or recording of the information.

The committee is currently planning some interesting sessions for this year. Please mark these dates in your diary and come along.

Contact John Burnet on 232 7863 (or secretary@beehive.org.nz) with any suggestions.