Wellington Beekeepers Association Inc. Our Next Meeting: When: Monday 9 OCTOBER 2006, at 7.30 p.m. Where: NOTE VENUE & Time Johnsonville Community Centre Meeting Room 2 (The Lounge) Meeting will be followed by a French DVD entitled OF BEES AND MEN, Wellington Beekeepers Association Inc. Monthly Newsletter October 2006 Page 1 This newsletter is available to members via e-mail using Adobe Acrobat v3 format. The reader software is available from Adobe free of charge. Contact editor@beehive.org.nz for additional details. Return Address: PO Box 11-089, Manners St., Wellington (Ph 565 0164)
Wellington Beekeepers Association Inc *$20/$15.00 subscription for the 2006/07 year, (July-June) Received from: Name: Address: Email: Phone: Enclosed:$20*/$15 Cheque/Cash Date: Receipt No:. *(If you would like to receive newsletters via email, you will be entitled to a discount of $5 on the membership fee. Please supply a valid email address.) MINUTES OF WELLINGTON BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION MONTHLY MEETING HELD AT THE JOHNSONVILLE COMMUNITY CENTRE ON 11 SEPTEMBER 2006 AND COMMENCING AT 7.30 PM Present: Andrew Beach (Pres), John Burnett (Treas), James Scott (Vice Pres), Richard Wickens (Sec) and 21 members Apologies: Karl Segessenmann, Richard Dormer, Vaughn Kearns, John Wallace Andrew moved that the apologies be accepted and the motion was carried unanimously. Visitors: Bruce Murdoch, Waiwhetu, Lower Hutt (No bees yet) Minutes of Last Meeting: No changes Andrew moved that the minutes be accepted and the motion was carried unanimously. Bottom Board Demonstration: PHOTOS: Any members with digital cameras who have or might take photos relevant to beekeeping, please bring to our meetings for display per the new projection unit the Club has purchased. The Data Projector will take: CD Roms (advance notice needed to John Burnet, ph 2327863, to bring a laptop.) DVD player Digital camera for movies and stills VCR videos (so long as we have a video player) Page 2 Andrew demonstrated for the instruction of members the latest version of the mesh bottom board that he had constructed. There is space for a formic acid tray to be inserted to deal with varroa mites. Spring Hive Management: Frank recommended that members carry out checks on their hives to ensure that they had sufficient honey stores available. If stores are discovered to be low, sugar syrup should be fed. The opportunity should be taken to carry out
a disease inspection, in particular for AFB. It is also an appropriate time to insert varroa strips. Chinese Fogger: The chinese had now developed what appears to resemble the Burgess Fogger. It is expected to be considerably cheaper than the American model. The Lindsays Travels: Frank showed slides of his and Mary- Anne s travels in the USA where they had a chance to check out the beekeeping scene. Making up Nucleus Hive: At the request of a member Frank explained how nucs are made up. As October would bring warmer weather, the making up of nucleus hives would not possible until then. The queens required a temperature of around 20 C before they would mate. However, if breeders were prepared to supply queens that had been fertilised in the previous autumn, then it might be possible to do so earlier. Demaree Procedure: Frank explained the procedure and its benefits. Recommended that it be carried out 3 4 weeks before the honey flow. Ivan Pedersen: Regaled members with a description of his recent travels in Denmark and Norway. Beekeepers that he encountered operated in a small way and seemed little interested in the practices of beekeepers in New Zealand. He also described how apitherapy was practised. Amor Walter: Showedsamples of the hive tools that he had made. He also talked about how he had made his own propolis capsules for the treatment of colds. Jesse Alsop: She had contacted John Burnet seeking a loan of old beekeeping equipment for use in a dramatic production being put together. She will pick up any equipment offered by members. Anyone able to help with equipment should send James Scott an email. Video: A segment of one of the Associations new videos was shown to members. The video demonstrated the lighting and use of a smoker, carrying out hive inspections, and confirming the fertility of queens from the laying pattern. Close of Meeting: The meeting closed at 9.00 pm and was followed by supper. HELP NEEDED: (Oct. 9 after next Bee meeting?) Grateful thanks and a gift basket will be showered on any stalwart souls willing to carry, down 17 steps in Crofton Downs, (ten minutes from Johnsonville), 3 x 2-high hives arriving from Otaki. About 9-9.30 pm, after the 9 October Bee meeting, the hives can be postitioned ready in a trailer at the top of the 17 Crofton Downs steps. If able to help, please tel Linda on 4793052 or email lindas-room@xtra.co.nz Page 3
FOR SALE: I can no longer keep bees and am very keen to sell the last of my bee gear. This is a really good price and I would love someone to take the lot. 50 assembled ¾ wooden frames (new) 1 black plastic roof lid 5 ¾ boxes (used) 10 unassembled full depth frames 20 ¾ frames 1 stainless steel work lid cover 2 hive tools 1 uncapping knife (only used twice) 36 ¾ depth drawn comb @ $2 each Some old ¾ frames used TOTAL $350.00 Annelies (04 293 1502 or LeHena@xtra.co.nz) Notes from the Southern North Island Field Day, held Saturday 23 September in Martinborough: Spring Checks (by Rob) Lift off the top box (usually most of the bees are in this) and place on the lid. Tip the bottom box on end and clean the floor. Place the bottom box back on the floor. Then work through the bottom box: Take every frame out and inspect. Carefully scrape the tops, bottom sand side bars if necessary. Do this every year and it will be a lot easier to work your hives over the season. Switch to the top box and go through the same process. Take the frame nearest you out and place to one side, then take the frames out one by one, shake the bees off into the hive don t forget to check for AFB. Reassemble the hive and feed even if the hive has a lot of food. Feeding the hive will stimulate the Queen. If the brood is in the top leave it there. Empty boxes below where they are confined means less air space to lose heat into. Another check about October/November when bottom box is being filled. Boxes can be reversed if necessary. Scrapings: Scraping serves to make the frames/hives easier to work and easier to use. Scrape Propalis off into a separate container you will be surprised at the value especially as this has just increased to $200kg. All wax should be scraped into a container and taken away, especially if there is an issue of AFB. Recording: Every beekeeper, whether one hive or 1000, should keep records. A suggestion is a Record Sheet per individual site for detail, and a chalk/white board in the Honey House with up-to-date info number of hives, whether on pallets or single sites, top nuc, date of visit, number of brood boxes on the site, etc etc Record whether and when hive inspected, whether pollen substitute fed, number of supers on site, when cell to be in the hive, crop (ie January = Crop 1), number of wet boxes (or dry) to be back on when honey taken off. Record when varroa strips are put in and when they are taken out. Record Page 4
new equipment taken to the site and equipment required. Quality of the Yard in general whether strong, medium or weak. PHOTOS: Any members with digital cameras who have or might take photos relevant to beekeeping, please bring to our meetings for display per the new projection unit the Club has purchased. The Data Projector will take: CD Roms (advance notice needed to John Burnet, ph 2327863, to bring a laptop.) DVD player Digital camera for movies and stills VCR videos (so long as we have a video player) Gary Milne s talk on Re- Queening (from the Field Day. Gary is from Southern Apiaries in Foxton) Re-queen in Spring for a failed or failing queen. Signs of a Drone Layer more than one egg per cell, a lot of drone cells drawn but no worker cells. Failing Queen an abundence of pollen. Yukky frames will encourage drone laying Making Splits to replace the Queen when queens arrive in their cage, first check there is a queen in it and that she is alive. For overnight best place to store cage for a day or two is the hotwater cupboard. Best way to kill a queen is to overheat her. Cold isn t so bad rather than heat. Make sure your house hasn t had insecticide used in it. Gloveboxes, truck cabs etc all bad places. If keeping for longer than 3-4 days check that they still have candy in the cage. If no candy left they will starve so replace it! Jellybeans will do as a temporary measure. Soft icing sugar/glycerine and syrup made with water to quite a firm consistency. Dry but not rock hard. Escorts will die first, queen last. If they are dying you need to re-escort. Open cage and put queen into a new cage. Go into a hive and pick up 6 or 7 bees and place in the cage. Don t take bees from the front of the hive as they will be guard bees and aggressive. If you are quick you can catch them by the wings. Grab them from the back from a nice quiet frame. A furious buzzing sound or high pitched piping from a queen means she is being attacked. Smoke to calm them down. Don t worry about water for the bees in the cage. There is enough water in the candy to keep them going. At the Hive: Smoke: if two boxes high take the lid off and put on the ground in front of the hive, put top box on the lid then work your way through the bottom box. Start at the side you are on and push them away from you then pull the first frame out. Smoke but be very gentle. Put first frame to the side and then work your way through from nearest frame to the other side. Each frame you pull back towards you and lift out being careful not to roll the bees (brush them on the side of the Page 5
box or adjacent frame and roll them off). Run your eye around the perimeter of the frame and across quite quickly; roll the frame over and repeat the procedure. Replace the frame in the box and take the next frame. Do the top box on the lid don t replace it on the hive. If the queen isn t found look on the lid or baseboard. If still not found either go home and come back another day or place a queen excluder over an empty box and shake the frames over this. The queen will usually pop up walking around on the excluder. Now catch your queen take your gloves off to do this. Either put her in a cage with escorts, or create a nuc with a couple of frames of brood just so you have got her in case the new queen doesn t work. New Queen: take your hive tool to open the tag at the candy end of the cage. Put cage in hive and bees in the hive will eat through the candy from the outside and the queen will emerge. This will take a day or so by which time the new queen s pheromone will have permeated the hive. Official Way: make sure you have two frames of brood together, cage goes in between the frames candy hole up, with breathing holes up and down (not squashed against the frames). This creates a large gap between the frames which the bees fill with burr comb. Breeder s Way: candy end up, jammed between brood, but flat against the frames. Doesn t seem to make a difference, and no burr comb. Cage is in: LEAVE IT ALONE for a week to 10 days. Two weeks is good. Come back and check she is out and that you have eggs in the hive. If you have, be happy, go away and leave it. 100% is a good success rate. 80% and you are doing something really bad. Don t put strips in at the same time as you put a new queen in, particularly Apistan which has a very strong odour and seems to completely confuse the bees the success rate of re-queening will go right down. OK if the strips have been in a week or so, or if they go in a week later. Queen out of the cage too fast will create a pheromone issue. Aggressive bees change the escorts to bees from the hive for which the queen is intended. Spray all with sugar syrup, aerosol, etc. Its all about confusing the bees. If you have a virgin in the hive, the new queen will be killed by the bees. If you find emerged cells, stop looking for a queen you should be looking for a virgin. Or just leave her to it. This is about a 70% success rate. Note from a Member: there is AFB in Whiteman s Valley about 6km past Russell s Road north. Page 6
SWARMS: When two swarms which have risen on the same day, and which you intend to unite, are each safely hived, leave them for the evening near the place where they lighted, remembering to screen them well from the direct rays of the sun; for the action of the direct rays of the sun is the usual cause which makes swarms run away after they are safely hived. After sundown the same evening spread a cloth on the ground, near where the hive stands which you wish to double; then take the other steadily in your hands away from its bottom board, and strike it with a smart blow upon the cloth; this will knock all the bees out in a mass; they will not take wing, but will remain lying on the cloth whilst you steadily and carefully place the other hive over them. Three or four pieces of wood must previously be placed on the floor where you strike the bees down, that they may not be crushed by the edges of the box which you put over them; then lap up the corners of the cloth, and your part of the work is done. You will hear a loud humming noise, and the bees whom you have dislodged will ascend into the new hive and peaceably amalgamate with the other swarm. Just at dusk carefully unlap the cloth, and if any considerable cluster of bees is gathered outside of the box, as is sometimes the case, brush them gently down with a feather, or with your finger if you prefer it, and guide them under the hive, for bees are tractable creatures, and gentle withal, if they are gently handled; When they have all gone up into the hive, put them quietly on their bottom board, and move them into your apiary where they are to stand, or else make this your first work the following morning. Give the double stock sufficient room, and they will set to work vigorously. Two contiguous hives in my apiary united themselves this year; one swarm deserting 4 or 5 combs which they had begun to build. It may be that they had no queen, for I found no grubs in the cells which they left. This double hive has since received a fresh accession of strength, a large portion of another swarm having joined them, going promiscuous like into the hive, where they were, to my surprise, well received. Had a single bee pokanoad into the hive, she would have been immediately seized, and put to death. And now this stock is the very best I have in my apiary, filling 4 boxes. 50 strong hives are worth more, and will give more honey to their owner, than 250 weak ones. Stocks may be united in this same way, though they do not swarm exactly on the same day. In this case you will of course knock the fresh swarm onto the cloth, and place over it the hive in which the combs are already begun. It is as well previously to turn up the latter hive (in the plane of the combs, remember), and give the cluster of bees a good sprinkling with syrup. The new comers will be at once Page 7
attracted by the small of the syrup; will mingle freely with the daubed bees, who have something else to think of than to repel intruders; they will help to set them to rights, by licking off the syrup; and though you may call it a selfish act of kindness, it will cement a friendship between those whom you wish hereafter to be peaceable inmates of one home. (from A Manual for New Zealand Bee Keepers by William Charles Cotton, St John s College, 1848) Thread the end of the wire Through small holes. I twang the wire to tighten it, Wind it around a small tack, Bang it home, bang a cockroach On the head. Wood creaks When I release the pedal. I pluck out a three-wire tune To test the tightness. Amy could do nine boxes, Ten frames each, in an hour. (from A Box of Bees by Emily Dobson) I drop a box of empty frames On the concrete floor To shake out the cockroaches Sometimes five or six big ones. I stomp on as many as I can. I put a frame on the bench, Push down the tension pedal, A dotted line down the centre of your landing board will ease traffic congestion when a flow is on (photo courtesy of the Interested Bystander) Page 8