PRESENT:

Frank Lindsay (President), and 33 persons as listed in the attendance book

VISITORS:

Dave Carlton, returned from the USA after 2 ½ years; Peter and Brenda Mills of Karori (no bees yet); and Kate Scott, a new beekeeper

APOLOGIES:

Claire Brown, John Burnett (late); Gary Murphy, Ernst Segessenmann. Moved by Andrew Beach that these apologies be accepted, seconded Peter Radcliffe, CARRIED

MINUTES OF THE MEETING held 11 November 2002:

It was moved by Frank Lindsay, and seconded by James Scott, that these Minutes be accepted, CARRIED

MATTERS ARISING:

Frank Lindsay advised that there is a lot of clover everywhere, though not necessarily producing nectar yet, but once the ground temperature rises the nectar will flow. Kamahi is flowering up the Coast but not down here yet. Rewarewa is just about finished.

An instance was sited where a swarm was united with a frame of brood, stayed three days, then left! This can be prevented if a frame of brood is added to the swarm when it is hived. Sheltered sites are doing well, northerly exposures not so well. However, generally bees are doing well, queens are late but the hives look like they will build on time. It looks like the honey flow will be the best for 5 years. Prices are still high.

Organic Honey: In response to a query about organic honey, Frank suggested that, ideally, you need to own a valley about 25km from anyone else, and know of what sprays are used within a 6km radius of the hives, no chemicals (including Apistan) or ground sprays around the hives.

Hive Swarming: If your hive looks like swarming, Demaree the hive – see page 3. Plastic Frames: Fritz Fuchs brought in two plastic frames fully drawn with drone brood. He advised that freezing and racking the frame doesn’t work with drone brood. Instead, hotwater has to be used. However, it is a lot easier to get the manuka out of drawn plastic frames. After cleaning the frames Fritz rubs wax over the face of the frame then uses a hair drier to spread the wax. The good news is that two local manufacturers are now producing plastic frames to NZ requirements.

Varroa Update: Frank found varroa in one of his original hives. His fumigator blocked so he ended up treating with Bayvarol.

Everybody should be looking at taking their honey off in February and then checking for mites.

Restricted area is Wingate to Trentham and across to Paremata. Unfortunately Frank anticipates that the "line" across the middle of the Island will be dropped next April when the funding stops.

James Scott reported instances of significant reinvasion in Auckland, with varroa increasing in previously acute areas.

Dave Carlton spoke of his disappointment at seeing the beauty of trees and flowers in bloom in America, but absolutely no honey bees. His experience in the Michigan varroa infestation was that after the re-infection stage (once the ferals were gone), the honey crop went up. If removing drone brood from the hive & not treating with hot water, freeze for perhaps 48hours – the mite cannot survive this then place back in the hive for the bees to clean out and reuse. An early treatment in Michigan was to use orchard sprays, though Frank pointed out that these would show in the residues. Initially the State gave the beekeepers strips, but after about a year they stopped financing these.

GENERAL BUSINESS:

Stainless steel mesh – has been ready for some time but requires 3-4 people to manipulate for the cutting. Amor Walter, Max and Fritz offered to assist Frank with this.

Decca Course – this weekend, 9 applications to sit.

NBA – James Scott queried what is going to happen to the NBA. Apparently there is a meeting of the Hawkes Bay branch tonight, to consider three options – sole agency, break up completely, or going with Federated Farmers. A special Meeting is scheduled for 19 December. The Wellington Club will not be disadvantaged if the NBA ceases to exist. We only have one vote per year, and Frank feels we can actually do more as a club through the politicians. Some of the South Island is going for the Federated Farmers option. North Island is a little bit different. If the NBA disappears MAF may take over the PMS and costs will rise accordingly.

Swarm Stories – Remember – you shouldn’t climb more than 3 m from the ground on a ladder!

Ivan Pedersen gave a couple of experiences of swarm collection, together with photos, which caused general amusement.

8.30pm – Frank declared the meeting closed, and this was followed by a Christmas Supper.

NEXT MEETING: No Club meeting in January. The next Meeting will be held at 7.30pm on Monday 10 February 2003.

Take a super of foundation frames. Take the hive apart and stack it on the lid. Remove 2 foundation frames from the centre of the new super and place it on the hive bottom board. Find the queen and take the brood frame she is on and one other of emerging brood and place these in the centre of the new super. Place a queen excluder over the super. Sort the remaining brood frames so that the ones with open larva are closest to the excluder and emerging brood on top of that. Position the remaining foundation frames one third in from either side of a honey super. Add two supers for honey and close the hive. Five days later go through all the brood frames above the queen excluder and remove all queen cells. Add more honey supers if required and close.

If you can't find the queen, take one frame of larva and one frame of emerging brood and place in the new super. Shake all the bees in the remained supers into the new foundation super and cover with a queen excluder. Reassemble the hive as above.

This creates a break in the brood development in the hives, as the bees have to draw out the new foundation before the queen can commence egg laying. The brood nest bees become field bees hence you tend to get more honey. This system work well for targeted honey flows that are of a short duration.

Tip: Always check the queen excluder before using it. Hold directly in front of you at eye level and look along the wires for bent wires or wires higher than the rest. Straighten as this small amount of deviation could let the queen through. Provide and upper entrance to allow drones to escape.

As soon as the honey flow ends, beekeepers should be doing the sugar shake test.

It has been a good season. Because of the lack of rain the honey is very dry this year and the bees are able to take the moisture content down further than might be the case normally. If you aren’t taking your honey off on a regular basis then it would be a good idea to under-super so the bees don’t think they are full up and stop production. Additionally, keep an eye on the hives in the honey flow to see that they don’t get crowded. A ¾ super could be practically filled in a good week, and if the bees are hanging out in front in a cluster then they are short of space. Check the 2^nd or 3^rd brood box where the outside frames could need moving up to be replaced with empty frames. The cluster will then go back into the hive. Better to have the bees in working hard than to have them out sitting doing nothing – they can’t pack a kilo a day if there isn’t room for it. And with rain and the clover coming away, there will be more honey.

World honey prices are remaining constantly high, so don’t undersell your honey. Our local flavours are wonderful, far superior to the shop product as they are extracted only once and therefore they lose only a small amount of etholalcohol, thus retaining a variety of flavours. And don’t forget – the club’s extractors are available for members’ use at $10 each. Ring MaryAnn Lindsay to order.

Ever wondered what plant that vividly coloured ball of pollen marching into your hive came from? Or what colour pollen is produced by a certain plant? Thanks to Rosemary Webby of Industrial Research, the Club has a copy of her report studying ‘the identification of floral pollens collected by the honeybee from hives sited throughout New Zealand’. A copy of the report will be available at the February meeting, while a few of her pollen colours are included here for members’ interest.

The following is a precis extract from a letter by Ivan Pedersen to the National Beekeepers Association, for their special meeting held 19 December 2002, and is included here for members consideration:

Lately I have received quite a number of documents concerning NBA and its perceived problems. And I have also been informed by many beekeepers that they are going to give up beekeeping altogether and deregister, just to stop this bureaucratic nonsense coming in – I can fully sympathise with that sentiment. I feel that the NBA should be focused in a different direction – that beekeepers should pay nothing, but instead the Ministry of Agriculture or the taxpayer pay to finance matters. The reason for this is New Zealand as a whole benefits much more from beekeeping than that the beekeepers do, and yet the beekeepers do all the work and the taxpayer does nothing.

The majority of beekeepers, in fact 90% or more, have less than 10 hives and only a small percentage of those four thousand and something attend meetings or seminars, and nearly all of them have little insight into how to manage their hives in the long term, when they become infected with Varroa mite. What is needed is proper hands on practical education of all hobby beekeepers at their place, on their hives, and with instructors that are absolutely certain that that particular beekeeper does understand how to manage a Varroa control programme. It is absolutely no good to arrange meetings and invite beekeepers to attend; only about 30% will respond and eventually the majority of hobby beekeepers will disappear because of the impact of the Varroa mite.

That in itself will also be somewhat irresponsible in so far that dying beehives cause reinfection in controlled hives.

The hobby beekeepers hives are spread throughout the country and almost all of them in permanent sites. Because of insufficient beekeeping in many cases, those hives also produce many swarms into the wild each year, which then become feral colonies. There are about 300,000 registered hives in New Zealand and it is estimated that there is an even greater number of feral hives. It is these feral hives and the hobby hives which in effect pollinate the whole of NZ’s millions of acres of pasture and hundreds of thousands of gardens that are of immense interest to NZ’s economy.

The white clover in particular is of interest in this debate, because it is totally dependent on the honeybee for self-seeding. All grasses growing together with white clover will benefit greatly from the natural nitrogen the white clover produces in its root systems. Without honeybees present – and this is permanently absent and not just for some weeks – there will after 3 or 4 years be a downturn in the number of stock that can be kept per acre of about 20%.

That comes off the farmers profit in the first instance, but will have a marked downstream effect on all NZ primary produce.

NBA’s task now and in the future when there are no more feral colonies which NZ can benefit from, is to ensure that there are enough educated hobby beekeepers with permanent sites spread evenly throughout the country.

That will cost millions of dollars and involve many ‘hands on’ travelling consultants.

The combined efforts of all commercial beekeepers and pollination of kiwifruit etc is of very little interest in the scheme of things and they produce only a fraction of benefit to NZ as compared to the benefit produced by feral colonies and hobby beekeepers combined.

All farms above a certain size, say 20 hectares (50acres) without a permanent managed beehive will be levied $100 per year. Just ask the nearest beekeeper to put a hive in the paddock and look after it, and then file a certificate accordingly, and the benefit to the whole nation will be preserved. The taxpayer pays, the beekeeper pays nothing but does the work, and everybody benefits.

Forget about everything else for the time being, or there will be nothing left to be concerned about.

EN Pedersen (Reg No H3470)

Extract from an email to Frank Lindsay: … I would like to describe the varroa treatment in Germany. After the last centrifugation each beehive is treated three times with formic acid (60%) once a week over a period of 21 days. It is best to use a moistened washcloth that you lay on top of the frame. Then you use a syringe to inject 3ml of the formic acid for each inhabited beeway into the cloth. The best time for this application is during the evening. The outside temperature during the following day should not be over 25C. The formic acid should be as cool as possible for the injection so that the evaporation starts slowly. The treatment can also be done from the bottom. It is important that the flight entrance is open during both kinds of treatment and that all hives of an apiary are treated at the same time because of the risk of robbery. It is recommended to treat other apiaries in the area as well in order to prevent re-infection.

In Germany bee colonies are made bred-free either by taking away the brood comb or by uncapping the brood comb with an uncapping fork. It is best to use a pair of sanitary gloves as used by doctors.

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