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

PRESENT: Richard Hatfield (Pres.), Mary-Ann Lindsay (Treas), John Burnet (Sec.) and 40 members and visitors as listed in the attendance book.

APOLOGIES: Ken Breden, William Hurley.

NEW MEMBERS AND VISITORS: Alma & Stanley van der Assen (Karori), Peter Radcliffe (Plimmerton), Frank Clark (Wainuiomata).

MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING: Minutes of meeting held 8 December 1998 were read and confirmed.

CORRESPONDENCE: Taranaki B/K Club newsletter dated Feb (available through Librarian).

TREASURER’S REPORT: Current account balance as at 29 Jan was $1,965.25.

GENERAL BUSINESS: Geoff Monk described and produced a sample frame from a sick hive with excessive drone brood - the experienced members diagnosed half-moon disease.

In response to a member’s query - a minimum of one super of honey should be left on each hive to provide the colony’s winter food stocks.

Pollen trap congestion was discussed.

Current season’s crop was discussed - varied from light to heavy depending on locality. A crop of 10 boxes was reported from one hive in the Wgton area. Generally poor to nil honey harvests were reported along western coast from Otaki to Waverley.

Top supering versus Bottom supering was discussed - bottom supering requires more lifting, encourages brood nest expansion but minimises traffic discolouration.

Abandoned and neglected apiaries, settled swarms and feral colonies should be reported to assist AFB eradication.

DoC use of 1080 poison was discussed and it was confirmed that apple not jam was used as bait to prevent any attraction to bees.

Mary-Ann advised that members Bernie & Lynn Long had left for a two-year term in PNG.

PRESENTATION: Richard Hatfield gave an entertaining presentation on Honey Extraction assisted and enlivened with plenty of audience input and comment.

Ivan Pederson outlined and demonstrated the manufacture of wax candles using a tin mould obtained from Bee Culture. As there were no instructions provided with the mould considerable trialing and improvisation was necessary.

Meeting closed at 9.40 pm with supper.

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

Bees are essential to the natural order and are a real benefit to your garden provided a valuable pollination service. Away from the hives, bees are not aggressive, busy visiting flowers gathering nectar and pollen during their short life of two to four weeks. One or two hives can be kept in an urban section without disturbing the neighbours.

Swarms: Swarming is a natural phenomenon that occurs between October and December. When a hive becomes overcrowded, queens cells a produced and just before these emerge, the old queen and half the population of the hive, takes off looking to establish another hive. Bees at this stage; have a tummy full of honey, are not aggressive and easy to handle.

Once the swarm settles on a tree or bush, they can easily be collected by a beekeeper. He / She simply cuts off the branch and puts the swarm into a box. That evening they will be set up in a new hive where they will build up into a productive unit. The Wellington Beekeepers Association provides a "swarm collection service".

Bees In The Wrong Place: If a swarm goes into a building, it eventually will become a nuisance. A beekeeper can sometimes get them out if contacted immediately after the bees have arrived. If bees are established in accessible place, it is best that they be destroyed as soon as possible. Get advice first. However they can be usually killed by applying a ten-second burst of fly spray into the hole, every thirty minutes for two hours, this will normally kill all the bees. Once dead, seal the hole so another swarm cannot enter.

If the bees have been there for some time, or the above procedure doesn't work, then a professional service will be required at a cost. After they have been killed, it is advisable that the bees and comb be removed and the entrance sealed.

Bee Stings: When a person is stung, the bee's sting mechanism is left behind and continues to deliver poison until removed. Remove immediately, pulling out, scraping out, it makes very little difference - get it out quickly.

All bee stings hurt - the pain can be reduced by applying ice, (frozen peas) to the sting area. Watch for a reaction. See following chart. If in doubt, or uncomfortable - seek medical assistance.

Bumble Bees: Bumblebees are semi-solitary bees whose queen's hibernate during winter and emerge in the spring to establish nests. The nests build up during the summer and about March / April, produce a new batch of queens and dies out.

They require a warm, dry place for their nests. Usually, old mice nest in the ground or compost heap, but increasingly they find household insulation (bats) to their liking. Although large, these bees are not usually aggressive and can be left to die out on their own. If in the wrong place, see advice.

WASPS: Like Bumblebees, wasps are semi-solitary insects. Queens over-winter, establish nests, produce more queens and then usually die out in the autumn. Wasp's make their nest in stream banks, rotten tree stumps, under compost heaps, under dry vegetation and increasingly in houses. If the nest is established in a warm place, (eg the roof of a house) they can sometimes over-winter and continue to expand. Once found - they are reasonable easy to kill:

Holes in the waste ground - "going down" - Push in a soft drink bottle (1.5 l) of diesel, into the hole at night after they cease flying. Leave in the hole for a day - the fumes kill the wasps.

Garden - compost - accessible places. During the day flick or tip, two tablespoon of insecticide powders (wasp killer, carbaryl, derris dust etc.) into the hole. Approach from the side so that you are not in the flight path. TREAD LIGHTLY (tiptoe) as vibration alerts the wasps to your approach. Withdraw fairly fast after administering the poison.

House Ceilings - try a borer bomb but contact the fire service before you let it off.

Wasp's stings hurt, if not sure - seek advice or contact a serviceman.

Table 3. Normal and allergic reactions to insect stings

I. Normal, non-allergic reactions at the time of the sting

• Pain, sometimes sharp and piercing
• Burning, or itching burn
• Redness (erythema) around the sting site
• A white area (wheal) immediately
• Surrounding the sting puncture mark
• Swelling (edema)
• Tenderness to touch

II. Normal, non-allergic reactions hours or days after the sting

• Itching
• Residual redness
• A small brown or red damage spot at the puncture site Swelling at the sting site

III. Large local reactions

• Massive swelling (angioedema) around the sting site extending over an area of 10 cm or more and frequently increasing in size for 24 to 72 hours, sometimes lasting up to a week in duration

IV. Cutaneous allergic reactions

• Urticaria (hives, nettle rash) anywhere on the skin
• Angiodema (massive swelling) remote from the sting site
• Generalised pruritis (itching) of the skin Generalised erythema (redness) of the skin remote from the sting site

V. Non life-threatening systemic allergic reactions

• Allergic rhinitis or conjunctivitis
• Minor respiratory symptoms
• Abdominal cramps
• Severe gastrointestinal upset
• Weakness
• Fear or other subjective feelings

VI. Life-threatening systemic allergic reactions

• Shock
• Unconsciousness
• Hypotension or fainting
• Respiratory distress (difficulty in breathing)
• Laryngeal blockage (massive swelling in the throat)

Before people learned how to keep bees in artificial hives, honey was collected from the wild, often destroying the bees and their nests in the process. The early Egyptians learned how to breed bees in artificial nests or hives made from interwoven twigs and reeds and baked mud. These were shaped like long cylinders and stacked together horizontally with the gaps between them filled with clay. Both the Greeks and Romans used cylindrical hives, made not only from clay but many different materials such as woven wattle, dung, cork bark, wood or logs. Horizontal hives are still used in many less-developed areas, such as parts of Africa and South America.

The first vertical hives date back to between 100 and 500 AD. The problem with keeping bees in this way was how to extract the honeycomb which was not as simple as removing it from horizontal hives. The usual method was to destroy the bees with sulphur fumes, or by drowning, to get at the comb, leaving just a few colonies to overwinter.

The earliest types of hive were made from woven wicker and the remains of one of these have been dated at around AD 200. This simple kind of hive, sometimes known as an ‘alveary’, was conical in shape and made from woven willow or hazel, like a tall pointed upturned basket. The structure was covered both inside and out in cloam (a soft daub made from lime and animal dung which hardened into a waterproof coating, keeping the bees safe and dry inside). A ‘hackle’ or bunch of straw, was pushed over the top of the hive to divert the rain from the sides. Examples of this type of hive were still being used up to 1885. The most popular image associated with beehives is that of the traditional straw skep.

However, the design created problems for the beekeeper: The bees filled up the entire inside of the skep with their wax comb, so the workers were not separated in any way from the queen and her attendant drones. Thus, in order to retrieve his honey, the beekeeper had to kill his bees. The design was improved in Medieval times: A separate chamber, called an ‘eke’ with the same diameter as the skep and about 10cm high, was placed under the skep. The bees built a new comb in the eke, which could be easily extracted as a unit without disturbing the bees too much, particularly the queen. The honey was then sliced off with a knife, and the eke replaced to be used once more.

Straw ‘skeps’ were made possibly as early as the beginning of the Christian era in parts of western Europe, and then became widespread throughout the whole of the continent. In Britain they were still being used up to the nineteenth century, even alongside modern wooden hives, and they are still used today by some beekeepers to collect swarms. The advantages of the straw skep were that the materials were cheap, and few tools were needed to make it. Straw was the commonest material, but in areas where it was scarce reed might be used. The straw was pushed through a hollow bone or cow’s horn to form tight rolls, which were then coiled spirally and neatly bound together with strong lengths of bramble stem. Skeps evolved and changed shape over the years becoming flatter rather than conical so that several could be stacked together. Their main disadvantage was that the straw could rot in a wet season, which meant providing some kind of additional shelter. A ‘bee bole’ was a niche, or alcove, in a house or garden wall where straw skeps could be kept out of the worst weather. In their most primitive form, the boles were often no more than spaces left in a dry stone wall, but in grander gardens and estates they were often built with care and attention to detail. Boles were most common in England and Ireland where they were extensively used in the 17th and 18th centuries.

In hotter countries such as Spain and North Africa, bee walls - stacks of horizontal hives kept permanently in a long wall - were more common. In Germany, bee houses were used to keep multiple colonies of bees together. These were sometimes very elaborate permanent buildings made of wood or stone, with the hives facing outwards in all directions and room inside for the beekeeper to work and get at the hives. This type of bee house spread to eastern Europe. A few grand country houses in England had specially made bee houses, often in a style of architecture to complement or match the main house itself. Though practical, they were also important as part of the overall design of the garden and the environs of the house.

For centuries, in densely forested parts of eastern Europe, people kept bees in ‘barcs’, or hollowed-out trees. This method was still used up to the 1930s and it made good sense in these areas where trees were the bees’ natural habitat. Beekeepers selected old, wide-girthed trees and made one or more cavities, usually about 3 metres from the ground but sometimes up to 20 m above. A special board was fixed at the entrance to the barc and a long was left to swing in front of the cavity to deter bears from robbing the next. Honey was harvested once a year, after the honey flow had finished.

As beekeeping developed, it became clear that it was no longer acceptable to destroy colonies to get honey or to rob skeps of all the comb, so that the bees starved during the winter. By the mid-17th century skeps were ‘storified’, or stacked together, meaning that a box of combs could be removed without killing the colony. Various systems were devised to separate the bees when necessary and to isolate the honeycomb for removal. Professional and amateur beekeepers experimented during the latter half of the 18th century and the first half of the 19th, and the concept of removable frames became established. These frames could be built upon by the bee and easily removed, but the problem of the bees building between the frames and gluing them together remained unsolved.

The real breakthrough came in 1851, when the Reverend Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth from Pennsylvania discovered ‘bee space’. This was the space needed between the parts of a hive which was too big for the bee to fill with comb, but left enough room for them to move about freely. The Langstroth hive has been the model for most subsequent hives with the WBC, modern Langstroth, and ‘National Hive Design’ all based on the same principal. In 1857 a German, Mehring, had the brilliant idea of making sheets of beeswax imprinted with the hexagonal cell shape, which were fitted into the frames ready for the bees to built outwards. At roughly the same time, Abbe Collin in France invented the queen excluder - a sheet of perforated metal used in the hive to keep the queen in the nursery quarters and from laying in the upper chambers of the hive.

There are three classes in the competition as per last year:

1. Liquid Honey. This is the standard honey produced from extraction, and the emphasis is on quality of presentation. No air bubbles or particles, no granulation, and a suitable low water content. Cup (plus a minature) will be awarded for the winning entry.
2. Creamed Honey. The emphasis is once again on presentation, with the aim being to have a smooth and consistent texture to the honey.
3. Comb Honey. Entries to be a frame of honey which would be suitable for cutting and packing as comb honey. Emphasis is on the presentation of the frame. Please bring a complete frame.

Your honey sample (limit of one per member in each of classes 1 & 2) is to be presented in a clear glass 200g jar (coffee jar size) with a well fitting lid. No labels or markings on lid/jar please.

The Southern North Island Branch of the NBA is having a field day on 27^th March at Cheltenham (which is north of Feilding on the Kimbolton Road). It will be in the Cheltenham hall, starting at 10 am, running until about 3pm. Discussion will include the new (increased hive levy), the PMS and DECA arrangements, and the changed arrangements for paying ACC levies (affects self employed and small business operators).

Harry Brown and James Driscoll will be available to answer questions.

The Wellington Beekeepers Association has two extractors for hire by members. Contact MaryAnn Lindsay (ph 478 3367) if you wish to arrange to use one of these.

The committee is looking for interesting and relevant speakers for meetings this year. It is hoped that Andrew Matheson will be available to talk to one meeting. If you have any suggestions please contact John Burnet on 232 7863 (or secretary@beehive.org.nz).