PRESENT: Andrew Beach, (Vice Pres.), John Burnet (Sec.) and 26 members as listed in the attendance book.

APOLOGIES: Frank & Mary Ann Lindsay, Pam McDowell, Ernst Segessenmann, Bob McGahan, Andrew Yung

(Acceptance proposed: Andrew Beach, Seconded: James Scott – CARRIED)

MINUTES OF PREVIOUS AGM: Minutes of meeting held 8 July 2002 were read and confirmed (Acceptance moved: Richard Hatfield, Seconded: James Scott - CARRIED)

Constitution Review: This review was still outstanding. Richard Hatfield offered to lead a working party to undertake this review and James Scott volunteered to assist. A draft of the amended constitution would be presented and discussed at a meeting in the near future, however section headings would be determined before next monthly meeting.

Hive Levies: The proposed levies as outlined at previous meetings had been rejected by the Minister of Agriculture due to lack of support by NBA. The AFB Pest Management Strategy was currently unfunded until structural concerns within the NBA were resolved. There were now two separate beekeeping organisations within the country both struggling financially due to insufficient resourcing and support and it was likely the existing NBA would not survive.

Varroa Update: The Hive Movement Control Line had now been redrawn through Cook Strait. Paul Bolger, MAF’s Varroa co-ordinator had reverted to his Apicultural Advisory Officer role as government funding for varroa control had now run out.

Varroa was now reported at Kelson and Hutt Valley’s western hills, Whiteman’s Valley and Kaiwharawhara, only 3km from Wellington's CBD. It was only a matter of months before the whole city would be infected. Re-infestation of hives will be continual problem until all wild colonies were destroyed.

PRESIDENT’S REPORT: In the President’s absence this was distributed and read to members by the Vice President (Acceptance moved by Richard Hatfield: Seconded by Amor Walter – CARRIED)

TREASURER’S REPORT: Copies were distributed by Secretary and various Income & Expenditure items discussed in detail. Secretary acknowledged that the bank balance should specify the general operating balance and the B/L fund separately – this will be rectified and advised to members at the next meeting. It was also noted that the Club’s stock of stainless steel mesh should be shown only on the Balance Sheet. This will be corrected immediately. Club’s financial accounts were accepted subject to these changes (Moved: Richard Hatfield, Seconded James Scott – CARRIED.

Secretary suggested it would be appropriate to agree on a satisfactory method of depreciating assets in future and it was proposed that all purchases were written off in full in the first year. These items would be recorded in an Asset Register and a new Equipment Officer position established who would be responsible for maintenance of the Register. All Club assets would be recorded in the Register including location held, also names & dates of all hirers (GPS & extractors), borrowers and recipients (cups) etc. The Register would be submitted to the meeting annually in conjunction with the Annual accounts. Incoming committee will appoint new Equipment Officer (Moved: Richard Hatfield, Seconded: Vicky Alexander – CARRIED with one member voting against the proposal).

President: Frank Lindsay Prop: Amor Walter, Sec: Wrae Duncan - CARRIED

Vice President: Andrew Beach Prop: Amor Walter, Sec: Cliff Hulston - CARRIED

Immediate Past President: Richard Hatfield Automatic appointment

Secretary: John Burnet Prop: James Scott, Sec: Vicky Alexander- CARRIED

Treasurer: Mary Ann Lindsay Prop: Ken Breden, Sec: Richard Hatfield - CARRIED

Committee: James Scott Re-elected unopposed

Vicky Alexander " "

Wrae Duncan " "

Vaughan Kearns " "

Auditor: Not now required. Depending on Club’s constitution, an independent review of accounts is all that is necessary.
Library: Fritz Fuchs, Max Aston Re-elected unopposed
Newsletter Producer & Webmaster:
James Scott & Vicky Alexander Re-elected unopposed

Newsletter Editor: Supper Organiser: Volunteers at each meeting
Almoner: Andrew Beach Re-elected unopposed

SUBSUBSCRIPTIONS:

SUBSCRIPTONS: Despite additional expense from varroa surveillance anticipated over the coming year, committee believed Cub’s existing financial resources were adequate therefore no increase in subscriptions was warranted. It was proposed that subscription was retained at $20 per annum with $5 being contributed to a separate B/L fund account in the Club’s books. A$5 discount would be allowed for receipt of newsletter by email only i.e. no printing & postage cost incurred. (Proposed: Richard Hatfield, Seconded Ken Breden – CARRIED)

B/L PAYOUT: No claims received this year (None had been received since 2000).

WEBSITE: Webmaster advised a cheaper Internet Service Provider was now available i.e. $38 p.a. in lieu of $65 and meeting agreed this alternative should be used provided there was no degradation of current service (Proposed: Richard Hatfield, Seconded: Amor Walter - CARRIED)

BANK SIGNATURES: No change required.

DECA COURSES: To be held in need – no requirement at this stage.

AGM GENERAL BUSINESS: Vice President proposed that the Stevenson Memorial Cup and Life Membership be awarded to John Burnet in recognition for his 12 years as Club Secretary and undertaking other general Club duties and responsibilities when necessary. (Moved: Andrew Beach, Seconded: Richard Hatfield – CARRIED)

Varroa: It was discussed and agreed that any treatment should be area co-ordinated to reduce likelihood of re-infestation.

- Bayvarol & Apistan strips should ideally be applied in spring.

- Oxalic acid could be applied to hives using a new procedure consisting of a an empty super acting as a fumigation chamber on top of the hive and this would hold a tea candle burner made of a flattened and rounded strip of corner Gib board bracing between two jar lids (top lid holding the oxalic acid). Eight minutes burning would be sufficient for each hive. A half super covered with fly-screen underneath the chamber will prevent bees being attracted to the flame.

- It was suggested the Club purchase a bulk supply of 25kg of oxalic acid and distribute to interested members. Andrew Beach will arrange.

- Chris Christoffel advised he had a full near new bee-suit for sale (size 102R) and leather gloves (small) - $100

Hi Guys

Just a note to thank all of you who assisted with the preparation of our bid to the FORST (the Government science funding body) to continue the varroa research programme that MAF and the Beekeeping industry initiated. Also thanks to all those who offered their support throughout the process. Unfortunately FRST has decided not to fund the programme, so that will probably be the end of most of the varroa research in New Zealand. Obviously it also has implications for the maintenance of the current honey bee research capability in New Zealand

Mark
Dr R.M. Goodwin, Hort Research, Ruakura, East Street, Private Bag 3123, Hamilton

Very sad but not unexpected. FRST likes to see a Commitment from an industry when it funds projects. We have to date relied on the Govt 2-yr varroa programme to fund our research. This has now finished and it up to us to see that the second half of the 4-yr varroa research project is completed.  If we cannot provide funding for this to carry on, we will have wasted $200,000.  Mark and his team require about $100,000 a year to carry on.  If we as an industry show commitment, maybe FRST will reconsider.

I propose that we as individual beekeepers donate money to shore up this research. Hobbyists could donate the equivalent of one of two queen bees ($15 to $30) and larger beekeepers can donate more.  This is a small amount when you compare how much you loose whenever a hive is lost to varroa (approx $256). I think the NBA could co-ordinate the collection of Hort Research moneys. I'll be making out my cheque for $250 to the NBA Research Fund and posting it off tomorrow. I hope a lot of you will do likewise.

Regards, Frank Lindsay

It’s a serious situation - and we have to move fast. It is very disappointing to hear that FRST - the government science funding research body, has declined an application from Hort Research for Varroa PMS further research. We think this is a very serious situation and deserves the immediate financial support of every hobbyist and commercial beekeeper. The Auckland Beekeepers' Club will give consideration as to how we can give financial support to the Varroa PMS so that Mark Goodwin and his team can continue their excellent work.

We also accept Frank Lindsay's point that FRST will be likely to look more favourably on funding applications from those industries who are prepared to help themselves - My thoughts are that we will make a donation from the club based on X dollars per member and then ask our members to make a voluntary donation back to the club to cover the amount of the club's donation either in whole or in part.

We would aim to average  $25 per member  - about $2500 based on our 100 members. If our members donate more than this, we will also donate the surplus to the continuing varroa research effort. However until the matter has been considered by the ABC's committee no guarantee can be given as to whether this donation can be made.

It would be nice to know in outline what Hort Research's plans are re Varroa research activities over the coming 12 months and I will copy this to Mark Goodwin in the hope that he can oblige with the information or tell us where to find it on the Web.

Ian Anderson, President , Auckland Beekeepers' Club

No doubt Frank Lindsay will tell us more at the Wellington Club’s August Meeting.

Incidentally, Frank has learned of a number of varroa treatments which, unfortunately, do not have official approval for NZ use. However, members may still be interested to hear of methods other countries successfully use in the mite combat zone. Be at the August Meeting!

By Craig S Smith (The New York Times – Europe – Paris Journal)

PARIS, June 25 – It is balmy in Paris and the bees are busy. All around the Palais Garnier, the baroque Second Empire opera house in the centre of town, couples are engrossed in the city’s most famous pastime: falling in love.

But atop the opera house, Jean Paucton, 69, is busy with bees in a more literal fashion. "Aaah, that stings!" he says, pulling an angry but mortally wounded honeybee off his neck. Mr Paucton is an urban apiculturist, a city beekeeper harvesting honey high above the grey pavements and the shopping hordes of Paris. He is also a bit of a sadist. "Here – put this on" he says, offering a visitor a battered black beret for protection as he pulls on his beekeepers’ hood and heavy canvas gauntlets. He signals for his guest to follow him up a spindly iron ladder and out a narrow glass door onto a parapet about two feet wide. There, with a verdigris roof sloping away to empty air on one side and the cracked panes of a skylight sloping up on the other, he begins doing what beekeepers do, in effect stealing the bees’ hard-earned honey. "It’s best to stay back of that hive in case they get angry" he says, indicating one of five weathered wooden boxes from which the bees crawl to launch themselves lazily into the warm summer air. His warning is prescient and well rehearsed, for he has entertained dozens of visitors on his narrow ledge over the years. Before long his guests are dancing wildly on the parapet, slapping and swearing at the furious creatures, who awaken a primordial terror in the minds of almost any unprotected human they choose to harass.

"They make an impression, don't they?" he says with deadpan understatement as the opera house's stone visage of Comedy laughs silently overhead. The cracked panes in the skylight are the result of past panics by visitors, he says. So far, no one has stepped off the parapet onto the wrong side. . ,

Mr. Paucton was trained as a graphic artist and spent his career as a prop man for the opera. He still points out props as he leads visitors through the dim maze of the opera's backstage. "Cosi Fan Tutti," he remarks, pointing to a bed used in the Mozart opera.

He studied beekeeping at the city's Jardin du Luxembourg where a school has been teaching Parisians about hives and honey for 150 years. Eighteen years ago, he ordered his first hive, which was delivered to him sealed and full of bees at the opera house. He had intended to take it to his country house north of Paris, but when his plans changed he needed someplace to store the humming box. Bees will survive in a sealed hive for only about 48 hours, he says.

An opera house fireman who had been raising trout in the building's huge cistern (a fire fighting reservoir and the inspiration for the underground lake in Gaston Leroux's "Phantom, of the Opera") suggested he put the hives on the roof where the bees would not bother anyone.

Mr. Paucton lugged the box up and out onto a seventh-floor roof at the back of the building and opened the hive. When he came back to pick it up two weeks later, he found it full of honey. "They can make more honey here than they do in the countryside," Mr. Paucton says.

He decided to leave the hive there and over the years has added more. He now tends to five of the wooden box hives on a 30-foot-square roof overlooking the mansards, steeples and domes and of his native city. He can collect more than 1,000 pounds of honey a year from his bees, about 75,000 of them, who fly as far afield as the Bois de Boulogne on the city's western edge about two miles away.

"They go to the chestnut trees 'in the Champs Elysee and the linden trees in the Palais Royal," says Mr. Paucton, his thick black eyebrows rising and falling as he speaks. He says the bees occasionally cause trouble when the swarm splits and follows a new queen in search of another home. He was once called to recoup a mass of bees from the opera house's bust of Charles Gamier, the building's architect and namesake.

Mr. Paucton packages the honey in tiny jars at home, each with a photocopied label that reads, "Honey harvested from the roof of the Opera of Paris - Jean Paucton." He sells it at the opera house's gift shop and at the gourmet shop Fauchon where a jar of 125 grams - about 4.5 ounces - fetches 11.50 euros, or about $13.

Thanks to the concentration of fragrant flowering trees and shrubs, his honey has an intense floral flavour that does not appeal to everyone, "Some people say it tastes like bubble gum," he says.

This month is Gizmos & Gadgets - your chance to show off interesting items invented or constructed to make your beekeeping easier. – bring along your most useful home-made item (or even an unusual commercial product) so that the rest of us can learn and perhaps adopt the idea ourselves.

In historical times, honey has been prescribed for baldness, eye infections, the removal of freckles, abscesses, the removal of worms and as a contraceptive. In the modern world, it has been used in India for eye diseases, in Nigeria for earache and in Ghana for infected ulcers. During World War I, Russian soldiers used honey to dress wounds to prevent infections and promote healing.

Honey is often used as a replacement for sugar – about two kilograms of honey per head is consumed every year in New Zealand!

Andrew Beech has supplies of oxalic acid (crystaline powder) available for purchase by club members. He has packaged it into plastic containers holding 500gm each. These will be available at the August Meeting (11th), at a cost of $4 each. Phone Andrew on 04-906 1434 if you are interested but are unable to attend the meeting.

Remember, oxalic acid can be dangerous, so if you intend using it you must understand the risks and use a safe method of application. Ask if you are not sure.

Membership of the Wellington Beekeepers Association runs from June to May of the following year. Subscriptions were due at the AGM held last month (July). It doesn’t matter whether you are a beginner or have years of experience – there are plenty of opportunities to learn from and to help others with similar interests.

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