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

Present : Richard Hatfield (Pres.), Mary-Ann Lindsay (Treas.), John Burnet (Sec.), Bill Allan, Andrew Beach, James Scott and Vicki Alexander.

Deca Training - Committee agreed that the Club would meet attendance fees ($150 per person) for two members (i.e. Frank Lindsay & Andrew Beach) to attend the NBA one-day training course at Hamilton on Sat 2 Oct . Club would also meet petrol costs for one car and reimbursement of $30 per person for meal costs. Mary Ann has arranged private accommodation in Hamilton for both attendees for Fri & Sat nights

Photocopier - Committee agreed to purchase Les Solomon’s photocopier for $200 to enable continued production of Club’s newsletter without increasing cost.

Present: Richard Hatfield (Pres.), Mary-Ann Lindsay (Treas.), John Burnet (Sec.) and 30 members and visitors as listed in the attendance book.

Apologies : John Robson, Andrew Yung, Marie & Chris Christofel, Tony Buder, Terry Moore.

New Members And Visitors : Michelle Knight (Te Horo), Fred Bailer (Johnsonville with hives in Masterton).

Minutes Of Previous Meeting : Minutes of meeting held 12 July were read and confirmed.

Matters Arising : DECA TRAINING : Contrary to minutes of previous meeting proposed training and exam for club members will be held in Nov with another training and exam in March 2000. Both training courses and exams for Club members will be paid for by the Club however non members will be invited to participate on a user pays basis. Members were advised that Frank Lindsay and Andrew Beach would be attending the NBA training course in Hamilton on 2 Oct with the Club meeting the course cost, petrol for one car and $30 meal allowance. Mary Ann had organised private accommodation for Frank and Andrew in Hamilton.

General Business : SWARMS : Season appeared to have recently started and James Scott advised of the availability of a swarm at Haywards for any beekeeper interested in collecting it.

SEASONAL MANAGEMENT : Trees and shrubs currently in flower and attracting bees - tree lucerne, five finger, kowhai, gorse, broom, willow.

Presentation :

Frank Lindsay reminded members of the necessity to look for signs of disease when completing their spring inspections in particular AFB but also chalkbrood, sacbrood, nosema and paralysis.

Slides showing various bee diseases were shown to members and several AFB infected frames were produced to enable members to closely examine and familiarise themselves with AFB symptoms.

Meeting closed at 8.30pm with supper.

Do you have the odd bee that buzzes you every time you go to the clothes line or weed the garden? The ones that makes mowing the lawn difficult? Well some of this behaviour is genetic and replacing the queen may help.

If not, Ormond & Harry Aebi's book on "Mastering the Art of Beekeeping - Vol 2" (Chapter 5, How to Tame Bees) tells you how to get over this problem.

Their solution is to make a wave cloth. In other words, have a cloth (old dirty shirt) permanent mounted on a line or stand fairly close to the hive, which moves around in the breeze. The bees see the movement and investigate, but can't do anything about it and soon get used to the movement around them. Very soon you can happily move around your yard without bees investigating you. Try it - it works.

Incidently the book is very good reading - Aebi's hold the world record for the production from one hive.

When feeding syrup in spring to assist with colony build-up, you should use weak syrup composed of two parts of water to one part of syrup. Autumn feeding uses stronger syrup, but in spring, you should match the consistency of nectar to assist with brood rearing. Remember that syrup alone is not enough in spring - bees need pollen too!

Tips on health - if you are not used to being stung take some vitamin C tablets to boost your immune system. Have some sort of first aid (including anti-histamine) handy. Wash your gear after it has been used. Old stings on clothing attract stinging bees.

Don't store gear in or near living areas. Children take in the air-borne venom and can develop allergic reactions around puberty. At some time you can have a very bad reaction, even after keeping bees for many years - be prepared.

Beekeeping is full on at the moment and I'm a little behind in my schedule. I'm still replacing suppers showing signs of rot, inspecting hives, adding super to give room, feeding the odd hive, cleaning up apiaries and putting out bait hives plus making bottom boards when its raining, where I now should be making splits and requeening. I'm not complaining for it's been a pleasure working the bees as they are hard at work and take very little notice of my intrusion. Occasionally an individual will let you know her displeasure by biting and holding on to your arm (not stinging). A gently puff of smoke soon puts her and the hive back under control again.

When travelling between apiaries, it's interesting to see the contrast in conditions. Areas close to rivers or horticultural blocks have been stimulated by early willow flows. Some hives have collected three frames of honey and now have a full super of stores again. Newly drawn light yellow wax is evident along the top bars of the honey super and I found a hive that had actually drawn out comb in the top feeder (they should have had another super before now). Some have not had this stimulation and are still plodding along building up on reserves and the odd scoop of raw sugar I put in the top feeder as emergency rations. Old queens tend to be flagging now and you can really see the difference between a good and bad hive. (Hives headed by an old queen hives have lots of honey and tons of pollen and the brood is patchy).

The warm, mild conditions have brought the season forward a few weeks judging from the succulents in flower around the house. Around the city (Wellington) there's a profusion of flowers, some native, some ornamentals, and others are still flowering out of season. Apple blossoms should be open in the next few days. Along roadsides and in the bush fringes, Rangiora (Brachyglottis repanda) is going to have a massive flowering. Everywhere I go, I see the light yellow flowering panicles. Unfortunately this plant is restricted to the North Island and although the honey is light coloured and fragrant, it is mostly consumed in the brood nest, (perhaps not this year). All we need now is settled weather to allow the bees to collect it. Doesn't the native clematis (Clematis paniculata) look spectacular with its pearly white flowers pushing through the green of the bush?

October is the most important month in beekeeping. The eggs laid this month produce the bees that will bring in your crop. (à 21 days to develop à 21 days as house bees then out foraging). Nothing must stop the continuous expansion of the brood nest. If for any reason the hives become congested, swarm preparations are stimulated. This can be triggered when hives reach a population of about 40, 000 bees, (two full depth supers of bees is roughly 50,000 bees) and caused when the queen has very little room in which to lay, (i.e. when the brood nest comes into contact with the honey stores). It is also triggered due to a reduction in queen pheromone (an old queen) not reaching all the bees, disproportion of young bees and many other things coming together.

Solution, before all this happens is to reverse the first and second super so the main part of the brood nest is now against the bottom board. The second super will have brood half way down from the top and lots of spare space below and at the sides.

I also flick off any queen cell buds on the face and edges of the frames leaving those along the bottom. Its then easy to check the hives for swarming by tilting back the second super and looking along the bottom bars for queen cell development. This should be done every ten days from now on until the main flow commences. Once you see cells beginning to grow or an egg in one, swarming is on the way and you must artificially swarm the hive or you will loose your honey crop.

A word of caution. When you come across the first developing queen cell, put this frame aside and continue checking. Lots of time I have cut a cell out only to find it is the only one - a supersedure cell.

An easy method to reduce congestion is to swap the strong hive for a weak one, changing their positions in the apiary during the day. The field bees will go straight into the new hive without any fighting.

Some beekeepers equalise hives early in the season by removing one or two frames of brood and adding these to weak hives to give them a boost. Just make sure you inspect both hives before doing this. It can be the quickest way of spreading disease.

Another method to reduce bee numbers is by creating a nucleus hive and putting this on top of the original / parent hive. (I use my crown boards to separate the colonies as this saves extra bases and lids). Once established, work both hives as separate units and combined them back together when the flow starts (a two-queen variation).

How do you make a Nuc? (Nucleus Hive). How good are you at finding the queen? If she is marked, it's easy.

Take two frames of emerging brood (with abhering bees - without the queen) and two frames of honey and pollen and put these in the centre of a spare super (drawn frames on the outside of these) or a nuc box. Gently shake the bees off another one or two frames into the nuc so that there is a good covering of bees and pop in a new caged queen (candy end upwards or the best developed cell) into the middle of the brood. Compact the brood in the parent hive into the centre of the super. Add replacement frames to the outside of these and close up. Move the nuc to a different apiary or plug with grass so they are blocked in for a day or two. Leave alone for ten days so the queen settles into laying.

Note: If the hive doesn't have sufficient bees to add to the nuc, select some from and adjacent hive and shake them in. The field bees will fly off and the rest will united together ok. Watch for the queen and check for disease before hand.

If you can't find the queen it's a little more time consuming. Again take two frames of emerging bees and honey but this time; gently shake most of the bees off the frames into the parent hive so you know that the queen is not on the frames. Compact the broodnest in the parent hive and add replacement frames to the outside of it. Put a queen excluder on top and place the super with the four frames on top and cover.

Leave for an hour or so and the bees will come up from below to look after the brood. Replace the excluder with a division / crown board (or a base) add a new queen or cell and plug the entrance with grass. Sounds simple and it is the safest way to introduce a new queen into a colony. This is because the field bees know their queen and can detect a stranger. Younger bees accept a new queen more readily. Its also allows continuous brood rearing (no break) and if anything goes wrong with the nuc, you still have the old queen laying in the original hive as insurance.

After she is laying, kill the old queen (one of the hardest things you have to do) and unite the nuc and parent colony together by placing two sheets of newspaper between them. The bees will slowly eat away the paper and unit without fighting. (A little sugar syrup over the bees in both hives helps with uniting).

If you have to replace the queen in a strong hive the procedure is a little different. Kill the old and leave queenless for a day. Introduce the new queen but leave the candy closed off so she can't get out. In three days open the hive and look at the bees attending to the queen. If they are feeding and generally hanging around the queen, she can be hand released straight on to the brood comb. Keep and eye on her and see that the bees around her don't attack her or if your not sure then uncover the candy cap and let the bees release her. Before doing this go through the hive and destroy any emergency queen cells on the face of the comb adjacent new larvae, (those full of royal jelly). Close the hive and don't disturb until she is laying.

There are numerous ways of introducing queens:

Newly emerged virgins can be chased in at the entrance with a little smoke and will proceed to kill the old queen but this causes a break in brood rearing. (Good method for dark bees).

Queen laying at the same rate can be swapped between hives without them being killed. Brother Adam used to do this by swapping old queens with that of a nuc by simply placing them on the frame adjacent to where the old queen was - the colony must have a minimum of disturbance and little or no smoke used.

Beekeepers in this area used the "paper bag" method for a number of years. Use the small white sweet bags. Prick a dozen pinholes in it. Find and remove the old queen. Scoop a quarter cup of bees off the brood frames and tip into the bag, close and shake. Drop in the new queen and shake for another 30 seconds. (This distributes the hive smell all over the queen and confuses the bees). Turn over the top of the bag to seal in the bees and gently place this in the middle of the brood nest between two frames. The bees will eat their way out in an hour or so and will accept the queen.

The safest way of introducing a valuable queen is to use a push-in cage. This is a screen wire cage (or a bit of pollen trap mesh bees can't get through) about 100 mm square with the edges folded at 90 degrees. Move most of the bees off a patch of emerging brood and empty cells, (push then away with your finger) put the queen on the surface and push the cage thus enclosing the queen. As the bees emerge they will look after the queen and once she is laying, the cage can be removed.

Tips. Always remove the escorts when you are about to introduce a new queen. Do this inside a room or vehicle against a window. The attendants will fly out. If the queen moves to get out cover the cage with your thumb until she moves away.

You have a better acceptance rate if there is a flow on. The bees are busy. Create one yourself by sprinkling sugar syrup over the top bars of the nuc or hive. The bees are often too busy cleaning up the mess to notice the queen straight off.

Always recheck for queen cells after a hives has been queenless, for once started, they will not be pulled down and there goes your new queen. You make have to shake all the bees off the frames to find them all.

It's quite hard to requeen a black vicious hive (mellifera mellifera) with a golden queen as they are different races (well basically as one lot is the remains of early hybridization of the original imports and the lighter ones are the result of later imports).

Can't find the queen when you want to kill her on the second look through. Put a queen excluder between the supers and leave for four days. The super with eggs will have the queen. Move this away from the hive stand and leave covered for ten minutes. The field bees will fly back to the hive thus reducing numbers making her easier to find. Works well for vicious bees also.

If you requeen later in the season, be on the lookout for two queens in a hive. It happens a lot if the bees have a propensity to supercede.

When do you add another super? When you open the hive and find the bees covering all the frames in the top super, tilt back the hive and have a look along the bottom bars of the bottom super. If they are covering all but the outside frames and are down on to the baseboard, add another super on top. If they are not quite that strong but soon could be, (most hives have four to five full frames of capped brood) add another super anyway just to be safe.

If you only have foundation, take two outer frames from the top super and put these between a foundation frame in the middle of the new super. Move the next outer frames to the outside (providing they don't contain brood) and drop your new frames into the space provided. As an alternative, if the centre frames in the top super contain wet or capped honey, move these up and place you foundation frames in the centre, (inter-spaced between a drawn frame).

If you experience and early flow put on two supers.

Things to Do this month: Check feed (don't let the stores go below three full frames honey) and pollen (no drones or eaten out drone larvae indicates a pollen shortage). Check for disease and return you declaration. Requeen into nucs, practice swarm control measures, cull old frames and checked stored supers.

Reference material - Some Important operations in Bee Management by JSK & MP Johansson.

A fielday will be organised in November to provide the necessary instruction to members who wish to take their DECA examination. There is about four hours of training required, and this will be followed by an opportunity to sit the exam. More details at the meeting, and in the next newsletter.

Shortly we will be getting calls to pick up swarms again. Usually we contact the nearest beekeeper but if any members wish to collect these, please contact Frank or Mary Ann on 478-3367 so your name can bee added to the list.

To avoid too many calls, place a spare super or a nuc box with the entrance restricted to about 1 inch, on a shed roof or high up some where. Swarms are attracted to established apiary sites and usually find their way into spare equipment.

A list of all current members of the association is being compiled for distribution to members. If you are currently a member and do not want to be included on such a list, please advise James Scott on 565 0164 (editor@beehive.org.nz) before 30^th October.

Articles of interest to beekeepers in general and club members in particular are required. Please contact James Scott on 565 0164 (or editor@beehive.org.nz).

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).