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 42 members and visitors as listed in the attendance book.

APOLOGIES : James Scott, John Robson, Ray Baker, Wayne Wild, Marie Christoffel.

NEW MEMBERS AND VISITORS : Bernard Bouchereau and Nikki Snodgrass (Whitemans Valley), Jeff Pollard (Wainuiomata), Gary Murphy (Lower Hutt), Jill van Northwick (Akatarawa), Angela Chapman.

MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING : Minutes of meeting held 8 November as detailed in Dec newsletter were confirmed.

DISEASEATHON : 56 hives in 26 apiaries in Te Horo, South Manukau and Pekapeka were inspected by club members on 5 Dec. No AFB was discovered but many hives were obviously neglected. NBA’s policy on neglected, abandoned and unregistered hives was discussed.

DECA TRAINING : 3 of the 24 candidates failed the exam held 13 Nov - all in the photo identification section. Some questions would be rewritten to remove apparent ambiguity, confusion and double negatives. The procedure for remarking and recounting exam papers was discussed - details available through the NBA. It was pointed out the NBA was the first industry association to introduce nationwide examination testing with 85% expected to be the average passing rate nationwide.

MEMBERS QUERIES : Issues discussed -

• Resurgence of swarms recently due to variable weather conditions.
• Beekeepers can reduce risk of natural swarming by adopting artificial swarming i.e. dividing hives and introducing caged or replacement queens and then reuniting later in the season.
• Vicki Alexander produced some recently obtained unknown hive parts. These were identified as parts of a pollen trap.
• Frank Lindsay advised a new CD-ROM detailing all facets of beekeeping was now available. While made in Belgium, it was still very relevant to NZ and was available through Ekroyds at a cost of NZ$67.
• NZ manuka honey was currently being registered in Australia as a medicine because of significantly cheaper registration costs.
• A video on the importance of queen substance to the hive was shown.

Meeting closed at 9.10 pm with customary Christmas supper including Mary Ann’s punch.

John Burnet

January has just finished and from reports I have received from around our area, some beekeepers are pleased and some are a little down still waiting for a crop that has been quickly burnt off by the hot dry weather. Around here things are humming along. Manuka and Pohutukawa had a prolonged flowering. Four frame nucs made in October should produce two supers of honey. Clover is in the fields and with all the rain we have been having, it should continue to flower.

Now it's time to think about extracting honey. For the new beekeepers try and work with an experienced beekeepers for a few days to get the hang of it. It’s a sticky job and you'll only be able to mess up the kitchen once so get some experience and save yourself a big clean-up job.

First job is to get the capped supers off the hive. There are many ways to do this: shaking, brushing, blowing, fume-boards, or escape boards. Shaking bees off a frame is very slow, labour intensive and is used if only a few frames are being removed from a hive.

Brushing (using a goose wing) was the method used in the early days. Brushes are dampened, the super is put on a stand and the outside frame removed to make room to work. The side of each frame is quickly brushed to remove the bees while still in the super. This method is not recommended for urban areas, as some bees tend to get a little upset with this procedure.

Blowing is the main method used today by most commercial beekeepers. A stand is placed in front of the hive. The super is placed in a frame and a bar holds the frames in the super while it is turned upside down. Air from a fan is forced between the frames blowing the bees into the entrance of the hive. Some don't invert the supers, they remove a frame and as the frames are spaced, blow the bees out from between them. A very quick method but you do tend to get clouds of bees flying everywhere.

Fume boards are essentially a crown board with raised sides with a black metal covering. Paper or a cloth is held in place underneath. A repellent chemical is sparingly sprinkled over the absorbent material. Two or three boards are used to clear an apiary. Each board is left on the hive for one or two minutes only, just long enough to clear the bees from the top super. These work best on hot days but be careful not to splash the chemical on the frames or edges of the board as it could taint the honey. Also Benzaldehyde is combustible so the paper or cloth should be disposed of before storing these boards.

Most systems work well when there is a flow on but bees can be a problem once the main flow has finished as they will rob honey from exposed supers. Robbing quickly develops into a feeding frenzy with defenders stinging everything and everyone in sight. This must be avoided at all costs if you want to continue beekeeping in the area. Control of the bees is everything. Keep supers covered as much as possible. If you get into this situation, cover all the hive entrances with wet grass and if at home, turn the sprinkler on. The bees will quickly settle down and should be left for a day or two before trying again. Often is easier to work bees very early in the morning before they are flying. (Give some honey to the neighbours to quieten their nerves).

In fact this is the one thing that most upsets farmers. The beekeeper goes in, collects the honey and takes no notice of a few stinging bees. The beekeeper is out of there is a short time but the farmer has to carry on working in the area and is often stung. I have been offered several good apiary sites because a farmer is not happy with the way the present beekeeper is working the hives. Basically it's a communication problem and with a little time and care by the beekeeper, can easily be sorted out.

Select a nice warm morning to remove the honey. For somebody whose bees are away from a built up area and if the bees are working a flow, simply remove the supers, stand them on end and wait 10 minutes for all the bees to fly out returning to the hive. They can be hurried with a little smoke. While waiting, remove all the supers down to the brood nest and inspect the brood for disease. Depending upon your disease history and what you signed for your DECA, you'll inspect all brood frames or just a few. Shake off most of the bees so you get a good look at the capped brood. Look for the odd cell in the area of emerging brood that has a tiny hole in it or that looks different - sunken or off coloured. Flick off the capping and look at the pupa underneath. It should be white or in the final stages of pupation. Anything you not sure about, ask another beekeeper.

For those in urban areas, the best method is to use an escape board. Twice as much work but hives can be worked quickly with very little disturbance to the bees. Basically an escape board is a crown board with one or two, one-way escape device in it. Puff a little smoke into the entrance and under the lid and wait a minute. For some reason, the bees have been very bitchy when removing honey this year. You have to use a little more smoke than usual. However, be aware that too much smoke will taint the honey.

Lift the lid and place it on the ground beside the hive. Remove the honey supers and as you go select those fully capped or 3/4 capped frames to be extracted. Note, they must not contain any brood otherwise the bees won't leave super, (odd cells of drone brood should be scraped off).

Check the brood for disease, then reassemble the hive leaving one super of partially capped honey above the brood nest and any other partially full above this. Put on the escape board hole side up and then place the selected super/s above this followed by the lid. It's also important to make sure the supers are in good condition and that there are no cracks or open knotholes. These should be filled with foam plastic or other material or sealed over with tape. Exposed honey supers can be completely robbed out in a day.

Next evening, remove the selected honey supers and shake or brush out any bees that remain. Keep covered and remove to the honey house.

Not all escape boards work every time and you can return to find all the bees still in the super. Brood or the queen above the escape board will cause this. An escape can get blocked with burr comb or a drone can clog the escape preventing the bees going below. The springs in the porter bee escape might be too wide allowing the bees to re-enter the super/s or they can get propolised up preventing them from working. If this happens check everything and repeat the operation in a few days.

Just a little tip, scrape off the burr comb from the frames above and below where you intend to place the escape device. This allows free access for the bees.

If you can't extract immediately, supers of honey can be kept warm by placing them above a 60-watt incandescent light or in a warm room. Place an empty full depth super (or two 3/4 supers) on a drip tray and put a light inside it. Place a queen excluder on top and cover nearly all the excluder's surface area with three sheets of newspaper. This prevents direct heat from the bulb melting the middle frames but allows the warmth to go up via the edges. Cover the stack of supers with a crown board to keep the heat in. This works well for a few days but tends to dry the honey out if left longer.

What type of honey have you got? Most hives in urban areas will have a mixture while those further out into the country will have basically one or two different types (early and late flows). Try and extract them separately. Most honeys will extract easily except for Manuka, which will require a different approach.

Basic extracting consists of removing the wax cappings with a hot knife. (Heat a serrated bread knife in hot water, dry and saw down the frame with the knife at a slight angle so the wax capping drops off. This is easier than cutting upwards.

If you are using an electric knife, keep it sharp but don't dip it in water, (it's not a sealed unit). Prolong the knives life by turning it off when not in use. If the thermostat fails, wire up a stove simmerstat in series to provide just enough power to keep it hot.

Put the uncapped frames into the extractor, top bar to the inside of the wire basket and rotate in the direction of the bottom bar. Take half out of one side, reverse and spin all the honey out of the other side then reverse again and complete the extraction of the first side. If using a hand cranked model, take up the speed until the honey starts coming out and maintain that speed. Over cranking will split new frame foundation. Don't worry if the frames crack during extraction, as the bees will fix them when it's returned to the hive.

Manuka is a little different. Its thixotropic (jelly-like) and won't come out of the frames using normal extraction methods. It has to be agitated beforehand using a roller or a honey loosener. Even after this, some honey will remain in the frames. An alternative method is to scrape the frame down to the foundation mid-rip and then put the frames back on the hive to be drawn out again. A fork or a special plane is used to do this. European beekeepers use a press and wax the frames each year.

After extracting get the supers back on again quickly as the bees could fill them up again in a few weeks if the flow continues. Put supers on after dark in the city otherwise the bees get excited and will fly all over the neighbourhood causing alarm to the uninformed. If you make this mistake, dribble a little honey at the hive entrance. The bees set to cleaning this up and soon stop flying everywhere.

Filter the honey through fine nylon mesh filters designed for the purpose; a stocking or just leave the honey in a warm place and the wax will rise to the top and skimmed off (except for Manuka, which is hard to filter). A hair drier can be used to warm the last of the honey in the filter. Add a little starter (last years finely granulated honey) stir in, cover and store in a cool place. Stir twice a day for a few days until a bloom appears through the honey and then bottle. Commercial beekeepers have it easier. They just add started, turn on the re-circulating pump for a few hours, pot up and store for two weeks in a cool room at 14 Deg C. Result, nice fine-grained creamed honey.

Cappings can be put in the top of a hive or in a feeder where the bees will remove all the honey and you can recover the wax for recycling into foundation.

Hygiene is very important. You are processing a food. Clean overalls, cover your hair. Clean the extracting gear thoroughly and sterilise before use and wash your hands continually.

Honey is an acid and with it's osmotic effect (draws in moisture) will not support the growth of bacteria. The bees do their bit to keep it nice and clean but you will also have to do your bit. Don't put full honey supers directly on the ground. Cover supers when being transported to prevent dust getting into the honey. You will be surprised what a recent survey of honey in an American Beekeeping Magazine turned up.

If you are extracting honey for sale, it must be done in registered premises.

SWARMS: We are still getting late swarm calls. These are not much use, as they will not have time to store a reasonable amount to winter over on. Best to kill the queen and unite the bees with another hive.

TIP: Quite a few of these late swarms are headed by virgin queens and will not readily settle into a nuc box. All seems well but next day they will swarm again. Adding a frame of brood to the nuc box and shake the swarm in on top. The bees quickly settle down and will not leave the brood.

Another tip: What to do with the remains of a swarm. If they are put in front of a hive, they will be attacked as they try to enter. Spray air-freshener on the bees, into the entrance and under the lid and the bees will all be accepted as they have the same smell.

REQUEEN: Spotty brood, hive swarmed, hive didn't produce well? Now is the best time to requeen your hives while the honey flow is still on. Make a nuc or kill the old queen and introduce the new one. If the flow has finished, splash a little sugar syrup over the brood frames when introducing the caged queen. The bees set to cleaning up the mess and forget about the new queen. This isn't the best way, as sometime the older bees in the hive will kill the new queen. Best to get her laying in a nuc and then swap the brood frames between nuc and hive. If your not happy with this method, wrap the frames in a sheet of newspaper and put in the main hive. The bees take time to chew through the paper and mix slowly. Put the old queen with a few frames of brood and bees back into the nuc as insurance. The bees from the nuc will protect the new queen and she will be accepted straight off. If everything goes well, requeen the nuc again and carry it through the winter as a spare.

BEE HIVES AND NEIGHBOURS. Last month two hobbyist beekeepers have had to move their hives away from the city. Once the Local Authority receives a complaint, they must act and generally pick on the nearest beekeeper. Typical complaints are defecating on washing, house or windows. My child stood on a bee. I'm allergic. The bees are visiting my swimming pool and I got stung. Swarms keep coming into my garden.

Generally this happens when a new neighbour moves into the street. Things have changed. Backyards have got smaller, in-fill housing means neighbours are closer, people don't have garden any more and they don't appreciate what good the bees do. There are now 70% less beekeepers in Wellington City than there was 30 years ago.

What can you do? Neighbours should always be sweetened with honey. Offer to wash their windows. Ask them to put the washing out a little later. Complaints should always be challenged. If it's not a near neighbour, a feral swarm in a shed or house close-by could cause the problem.

Sometimes it's just the sight of a beehive that caused the complaint. Trellis them off. Plant climbing beans in front of the hive. Get them to fly high into the air before heading for their nectar sources. Place them well away from cloth's lines. Provide and alternative water source close to the hive. Chlorinate the water to stop the bees collecting water from the poolside. Work them when your neighbours are not in their garden, perhaps earlier or late in the day. Place a wave-wand (an old piece of clothing that moves around in the breeze) in your garden close to the hive so the bees get used to movement. Use a queen excluder between the first and second super so the hive's population doesn't get so big.

Requeen the hive every year with gentle stock.

We silenced one complaint by moving the hive away but left a stack of empty supers in the place. The complaints continue but nothing further was heard after the Council Officer was shown the empty hive.

If complaints persist, move the hive/s more than 2.5 kl away from the original site otherwise the flying bees will return and create a greater problem search for their hive. Keep your hive/s as the situation is generally a short term one and things settle down in a few months.

Frank Lindsay

Things you might not have know about honey (with acknowledgments from Burleson's Honey web site):

• English settlers introduced the honey bee to North America in the 17th Century
• Honey bees have been producing honey the same way for 150 million years
• Fossils of honey bees date to about 180 million years ago
• Cave paintings in Spain from 7,000 BC are the earliest records of beekeeping
• Many Egyptian tombs have drawings and paintings of bees
• There were migratory beekeepers in Egypt in 500 BC
• Man has collected honey for at least 9,000 years
• The Romans used honey instead of gold to pay their taxes
• Ancient Chinese completely covered small pox sufferers with honey to speed healing and prevent scarring

http://www.burlesons-honey.com/

Mid July in Upper Hutt there is going to be a 4 day science extravaganza and the beekeepers have been invited to participate. We will have to put a stand together on the "science in beekeeping" and get a number of beekeepers to man it on a roster. Unfortunately this coincides with the NBA Conference so not everyone can be there.

Frank has an educational CD that takes a person through beekeeping. We can also show cell construction, have an observation hive there, put together posters with lots of "did you know". This will be discussed at the meeting.

Family Picnic

A suggestion has been made that we should have a family picnic sometime this month. Details will be agreed at the meeting. Anyone interested in coming, but unalbe to attend on the 14^th, should ring a committee member (Richard - 528 780, John - 232 7863, James - 565 0164, or Frank - 478 3367)

Fritz Fuchs and Max Aston have offered to look after the library. Both are regular meeting attenders, so the books and magazines should be available on a regular basis from now on.