PRESENT: Frank Lindsay (Pres.), Mary Ann Lindsay (Treas.), John Burnet (Sec.) and 33 members as listed in the attendance book.

APOLOGIES: John Robson, Bob Porter

MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING: Minutes of meeting held 9 September 2002 as detailed in the Oct newsletter were confirmed.

Varroa Update: President repeated US beekeeper Sharon Gibbons’ recent comment that NZ was 10 years ahead of USA when varroa first appeared there due to NZ Government department’s active involvement. US beekeepers did not receive any similar guidance or assistance such as the Varroa Control Handbook distributed free by AgriQuality to all registered NZ beekeepers.

NZ beekeepers had recently commenced lobbying NZ Biosecurity authorities to persuade them that the current hive movement control line should be retained despite the varroa incursions recently detected south of the line. Central North Island beekeepers had already discovered that cross infestation was a significant ongoing problem.

Club’s recent field day at Te Horo was briefly discussed and all those who attended generally agreed it was well worthwhile despite the adverse weather. This led to a general discussion among members over the advantages and disadvantages of the icing sugar shake versus Apistan.

• NBA letter received by all beekeepers concerning the PMS levy. President confirmed a beekeeper with one hive will be required to pay $20 + 47 cents + GST.
• Gulf Pacific letter received detailing their two formic acid evaporators for sale – Nassenheider ($18 + GST) and the Burmeister ($14.50 + GST).

• Trees and shrubs currently flowering – Tarata (lemonwood), Broom, Rangiora, Eucalyptus, Mahoe, Coprosma, Wild turnip, Broadleaf and some Manuka.
• Beware of starving bees – colonies were now building faster than food sources could often provide for – this was especially likely in prolonged wet weather.
• Feeding raw sugar to bees will hold them back while feeding a sugar solution will stimulate the colony.
• A spotty brood pattern indicates the queen is failing and should be replaced with a new one.
• The weather temperature must be over 20 degrees for drones to fly and queens able to be mated.
• Queen cell buds were now appearing however current cool wintry weather was not conducive to swarming.
• If swarming was imminent, a good delaying tactic was to reverse the brood boxes to give the queen more laying room.
• Queen cells can be detected easily using the "10 second swarm cell check". This relies on swarm cells being usually built on the bottoms of frames in the top box of a double brood chamber. Crack the two boxes apart, sliding forward and tilting the top box back sufficiently so you can see any queen cells. If they are present, a full inspection of all frames is required as there are likely to be queen cells elsewhere too.
• Swarming can be prevented by requeening annually or by using the Demaree process. Basically this procedure is: Put the queen together with 2 to 5 combs of capped brood into the middle of an empty box on the original site destroying all queen cells as you go. Do not shake off the house bees. Put in a frame of pollen and honey and fill the gaps with empty comb or foundation. Put on an excluder and put the rest of the brood with one good pollen comb, some honey and empty combs into a box above the excluder. Destroy any queen cells and position the brood in the top box directly over the brood below. Now the queen has been separated from a large part of the brood and the field bees can stay with her and work in the space provided. There is now plenty of room for the queen to lay and the supply of queen pheromones to the top box is also abruptly and virtually completely stopped.

Ivan Pedersen spoke about and demonstrated the use of his imported metal cappings scratchers. Ivan maintained for uncapping frames the use of cappings scratchers provided significant advantages over the use of steam knives or knives dipped in hot water. It was essential however that uncapping using this method was done on the same day i.e. honey was still at hive temperature.

It has been club practice for many years to alternate the starting times between 7:30pm in the winter and 8pm in the summer. However for members travelling from the Kapiti Coast, an 8pm start meant an unnecessarily late arrival home afterwards. It was therefore proposed and agreed that effective immediately, all future meetings would start at 7:30pm.

A video was shown to members showing Mike Stukey from Waitemata Honey demonstrating his two-queen hive system. This required use of a division board with an entrance and a cutout of a 2 x 65mm diameter hole covered with excluder mesh in one end of the board. This ensured the two queens never met as they are usually near the centre of each box. The new queen is kept in the bottom box and the one-year-old queen in the top box. A big feeder tray between the two boxes also helps separate the two queens’ pheromones.

The Meeting closed at 9:45pm

1. Abandoning a nest or hive
2. ‘Her Indoors’
3. Stage of varroa mite infestation following acute state
4. Honey bee species present in New Zealand

8. A varroa detection method

11. An organic acid used as a varroa control
12. Honeybee disorder with symptoms closely resembling EFB & parasitic mite syndrome

(13) The dreaded lurgy

1. Plastic strip impregnated with fluvalinate (a pyrethroid) as a varroa control product

5. Behaviour of uncapping and removal of dead larvae and pupae by adult bees
6. Larvae laying out along the bottom wall of a cell in the 24 hours prior to pupation
7. Movement of varroa mites from an infested colony into a non-infested colony/robbing of a weakened or absconding colony

14. An organic acid used as a varroa control substance when sprayed directly onto bees

(15) A board coated with a sticky substance

Two young people who are interested in becoming beekeepers can have the woodware for two hives free. Ivan Pederson has been trying to give away two beehives for some time, but has not succeeded so far. The recipients would have to be new beekeepers, young people, who will then become beekeepers, and they would have to catch their own swarm to fill the hive. Ivan had two who showed interest, but sadly they never followed it up. Ivan feels that this would give a new beekeeper a start and with a couple of old frames to lure a swarm, this would be a good introduction to beekeeping. If any other existing beekeeper is able to make a similar gesture, on the understanding that it would create a new beekeeper – GO TO IT!

A member of our Bee club was recently able to track down two young offenders who had inflicted a large amount of damage to some of his hives. As a result of a "Family Group Conference", one of the offenders elected to pay for his share of the damage (at $1.00 down and a $1.00 a week!), but the other accepted our beekeeper’s offer of 20 hours ‘detention’ spent working one hour a week alongside the beekeeper with his bees. The one hour a week was determined so that the offender would see the changes and processes the hive went through over 20 weeks, rather than concentrating the detention over a very short time frame. The first 2-3 weeks went well, with the offender displaying great interest and enthusiasm. However, school holidays fell within the detention period, and although there are no holidays for beekeepers, the miscreant went off to Auckland to visit a parent, who then decided that Auckland was where the miscreant should live. Consequently, no seeing-through of the ‘punishment’, no potential new beekeeper, and an indeterminable time lapse waiting for the Department of Corrections follow up financial restitution instead. The miscreant who elected to pay for his sins, when last heard of, was still saving for the figure stated as the hive value – at his rate of repayment restitution should be made in about four years!

DID YOU KNOW that the Masterton beekeepers don’t have club premises, but instead have a regular monthly meeting at different member’s hives – if you knew your turn was coming up, it would be a good incentive to do some hive housekeeping (replacing dark frames with new, new woodware for old etc), and maybe a spruce up in the garden too? (paint the house, mow the jungle etc etc) Any takers Wellington Club?

DID YOU KNOW that in the 16^th Century the King of Denmark instituted a law whereby whoever caught a swarm could claim ownership, unless the beekeeper to whom it belonged did not lose sight of it whilst it swarmed. The beekeeper would have had to be on horseback to follow it, as bees, of course, don’t follow the road. This law still applies today – I wonder what mode of transport the Danish beekeeper uses to follow his swarm now? (quad, mog, Andrew’s 4wd van, tank …?)

Apparently in parts of Australia, and America as well, hives are permanently mounted on trucks which travel over 1600km and visit sites for a week or so at a time, extracting on site before moving on to another venue.

Wanted: Clean beeswax - $5.00 per kg; bulk honey – 20 litre pails (supplied) – price after examination. Phone Ivan 526 9180

FOUNDATION: Medium ¾ depth, 12 sheets for $10 – available at the November Meeting. Will those beekeepers who purchased at the October Meeting, but didn’t have their cheque books or cash, pay Mary Ann this month.

For those interested in the capping forks which Ivan Pederson had on display at the October meeting, and who didn’t take the opportunity to purchase – Ivan has ordered an additional 6 or so forks, so get in touch if you want to secure one.

SWARM CONTROL: Another method which could be worth trying is to remove a frame from the outside of the brood box – there is very rarely brood at the sides. Move some frames in this same box sideways, and put a frame with new foundation in the middle. If you use a drawn out frame, it won’t give the bees much to do – you need to occupy them to keep them from swarming. This would probably only prevent swarming if they had not already started building queen cells. You can remove these as well, but if you put a new frame in you can divert their attention from a previous lack of space. Additionally, replacing an old frame with a new one is good hive hygiene. (IP)

POLLINATION – should we be reconsidering the whole process of moving hives around the country for the pollination industry? What about the beekeeper who takes all care and responsibility in ridding his hives of mites, only to have a pollination truck move through the area, and infected bees invade? Should orchardists be paying beekeepers to stay on site? Should orchardists become beekeepers as well? 90% of beekeepers, or possibly even more, have less than 10 hives, but if these 90% are not regarded as important by the bigger beekeepers, they are being disadvantaged by hive movement. Should we be looking at insisting that hives are stationary, set a metre apart, no plastic frames and no four-to-a-pallet? What do YOU think?

VARROA UPDATE:

Frank Lindsay notes that numbers in his hives at Haywards are so low as to be indiscernible.