Another venue change for Beginners Session

Transcription

1 March 2018 Newsletter Next meeting Wednesday 7th March 2018 Where Main Hall, Johnsonville Community Centre, Moorefield Rd Another venue change for Beginners Session All members are advised that the Beekeepers Beginners Session scheduled at 6:45pm on Wed 7 March (normally held in the upstairs Trust Room) will this month be held in the main meeting hall. This is due to the building work in the Community Centre. Tea and coffee will be served as usual between 7pm and 7.30pm. Topics for March s meeting Beginners session 6.45pm in the main hall Topic: Protecting hives and wasp control Main session: 7:30pm Topic: Wasp and mite control Contents 2 Frank Lindsay a note from the President 5 Club Profile - Chris Baring 6 Things to do in March 7 TradeMe Trust and Safety Blog 9 Making mead with Jacob de Ruiter 10 Apiculture NZ Update 11 Camp Rangi Buzz Weekend Report 14 Interesting websites 15 Who can I speak to?

2 Frank Lindsay a note from the President We are now fast approaching winter. The sun is gradually heading further into the northern hemisphere, so we are receiving less daylight every day. Days will get cooler. Hopefully most beekeepers will have removed their honey and have extracted it. Return the wet/sticky supers back onto the hive they came off to clean out and repair any wax damage. It only takes a few days for the bees to clean these up. If you have the facilities, freeze each super for 24 hours to kill any wax moth eggs in the frames. They can then be sealed in a large plastic bag to stop wax moth from getting at the frames and destroying all the wax. If you can't do this, the frames should be stored in a light airy place on their ends as wax moth don't like light. If your hives were established late, it's now time to start feeding the hive a few litres every couple of days in the evening after all bee activity has ceased. Feed until the top box is full of honey. Don't spill any sugar syrup as this will attract robber bees which could then attack your hive. Hopefully you have all checked the laying pattern of the queen. Flick off a few capped cells where the brood is emerging and check for diseased larvae. Not sure? Ask another beekeeper for assistance. Also check the number of bees in the hive/s and the amount of honey and pollen, have some sort of varroa treatment in your hives. Any old wood ware which is beginning to rot should be changed. Hives should be up off the ground so there is an air flow underneath. I mostly use pallets to put hives on and keep the grass around them cut. 2 P a g e

3 December President s Report cont 2016 newsl If you have a normal wooden bottom board, the hive should have a 15 mm board placed under the back runner to tilt the hive forward so the rain runs off and not into the hive. Those with mesh bottom boards can open slightly to allow more air to flow through the hive. Entrances should be closed down to 100 mm x 9 mm so the bees can defend their hive against wasps and to stop mice entering at night. If you have robbing screens - use them. I place plastic bottles with three rodent baits in all my apiaries to kill any mice or rats so the hives are not damaged by them during the winter. To explain this further, the queen should have a tight laying pattern with few missed cells. All the larva should be the same age. If the brood has lots of missed cells order a new queen and make a nuc to put her in. Once she is laying, kill the old queen in the hive and unite the nuc on top with two sheets of newsprint. As a minimum we want bees filling the whole supers for a single hive or filling two supers for a two high hive. If you don't have enough bees by the end of the month, reduce the size of the box they are in. A primary School in Northland over-wintered nucs in full size supers but restricted the number of frames by placing expol insulation on the inside of the super. With the same stuff on the inner cover under the roof, the bees use less energy to keep warm and will winter well. It's a good idea to carry spare nucs through the winter to replace any hives that die and if not required, can be sold to new members in the spring. A couple of weeks after your mite treatment has been in the hive, shake 300 nurse bees into a container and test the varroa percentage by doing an alcohol wash. There's lots of references on the internet as to how to do this. We want mite numbers at less than 1% by the end of the treatment. 3 P a g e

4 President s Report cont There was a good attendance at the club hive field day last month. We replaced some of the queens immediately after making the nucs and the brood break allowed these hives to gather sufficient honey to winter without assistance. We have also had a generously donation of some nucs which we will feed up and over winter. It was a little surprising but most hives had replaced their queens and all had good brood patterns but the last one inspected was a stinger and will need the queen replaced. This is a training apiary and the bees should be gentle to handle so new beekeepers get confidence. Bring your questions to the meeting. Remember there are no dumb questions, we have all been through this ourselves. Don't be shy or fail to ask questions. Frank Lindsay 4 P a g e

5 Club Profile - Chris Baring My affair with bees started maybe four years ago now, after I was diagnosed with kidney disease and stopped working fulltime. Initially it was just a hobby, but it quickly morphed into an obsession, and now a business (Wellington Honey). I studied ants at university, where I probably spent more time drinking than learning about ants. I did however learn that ants are from the same family as bees (Hymenoptera), and that there are no ethics if you accidently kill your colonies. This was useful when one of my colonies of invasive ants escaped their prison, and rendered one the labs unusable. My study in this area was also useful as it helped me some years later when I worked with bee diseases at MAF/MPI. I started beekeeping with one nuc, and later a hive bought off an old work colleague. I pushed my first hive to the limit and almost killed it the first winter. I remember asking Jane from the club to come around to see whether it could be resurrected or not. I felt like a failure. Being part of the club was really important at this stage as it provided some reassurance that everyone is crap at beekeeping in their first year. 5 P a g e

6 Club profile Chris Baring..cont I spend a lot of time reading and learning about beekeeping. I mentor a number of new beekeepers now and teach/present to schools and various interest groups. This year I ve been bringing my girls along in my home made observation hive. So far it hasn t leaked (; I manage around 25 hives all throughout Wellington. After initially having around 7 hives at home, my wife has now recommended we only have one. I also have some hives over in the Wairarapa on a family block of land. Travel is a challenge/cost with this many different apiaries, but luckily my wife hasn t complained about that yet. Things to do in March Test for varroa mite levels and treat if necessary Extract honey Sell or store honey crop o Tutin test all honey removed after the 31 st December before it s sold or bartered. Store honey supers or return to hives. o return extracted supers back into hives over a robbing board so that bees clean them out. Do this late in the evening to prevent robbing Check for wasp damage o Requeen hives Add entrance guards to help bees guard against wasps 6 P a g e

7 Beekeepers required to disclose their registration number when selling hives Trust & Safety Blog posted on 21 February 2018 We recently met with Apiculture NZ (ApiNZ) to discuss concerns about the prevention and eradication of American foulbrood (AFB) in NZ hives. AFB is a disease of honey bee larvae and pupa. It s the most serious honey bee disease in New Zealand, the control of which is a major cost to beekeepers. As a result, we ve decided that when beekeepers list bees or hives with bees for sale on Trade Me, they must include their registration number in the listing body. By making this requirement, we can see that beekeepers are aware of their responsibilities and potential buyers can make informed choices. This policy will come into effect on 12 March which gives any unregistered beekeepers out there time to get registered. ApiNZ have kindly provided some guidance on how registration works: 7 P a g e

8 Trade Me Trust and Safety Blog cont If you re new to beekeeping and intend to purchase beekeeping equipment, there are some important legal requirements you need to understand. These include: All beekeepers must be registered with the American Foulbrood Management Agency. Beekeepers are required to register all their apiaries under their beekeeper registration number. Registration is a legal requirement and there is a small charge to the beekeeper which funds the National American Foulbrood Pest Management Plan (AFBPMP). This means that anyone selling beehives needs to be registered and you should be able to ask for evidence of a beekeeping registration number. These requirements are designed to stop the spread of the disease American foulbrood (AFB) as they allow for traceability. If you intend to become a beekeeper, you must also register yourself and your hives with AsureQuality within 30 days of purchasing bees and beekeeping equipment. Unlike most other countries, New Zealand beekeepers do not use antibiotics to control AFB (the use of drugs to control AFB is illegal under New Zealand law). Control is through managing honey bee colonies to reduce the spread of disease and the destruction of colonies that are found to have AFB. The importance of preventing the spread of AFB places restrictions on the way beekeepers manage their hives. When control measures fail and disease levels get out of control, AFB can result in the complete destruction of beekeeping businesses. If a beekeeper refuses to supply you with evidence that they are registered and/or you suspect that a trader is selling equipment that could be infected with AFB, you should notify the Management Agency at info@afb.org.nz or their contractor AsureQuality on It should go without saying that diseased bees, hives and infected equipment may not be sold on Trade Me. For more information visit the National American Foulbrood Pest Management Plan site. Our thanks to ApiNZ for working with us! 8 P a g e

9 Mead making demonstration Jacob De Ruiter hosted a mead making demonstration for interested club members at his Haewai Honey Meadery in Houghton Bay in February. Five enthusiastic members went along. Philip Daymond attended the session and provided a short report: We started the evening with a tasting session of a dry and a sweet mead to give us an idea of the end result of a really good mead. Jacob made the honey/water mixture this earlier in the day, in time for our session. Jacob used spring water from a bore at his place as it doesn't have any artificial contaminated impurities (like chlorine). It was stressed that pure spring water is a must when making mead. Once the honey was infused in the water, we assisted in pouring the mixture into a demijohn along with the yeast and a fruit flavouring, in this case it was plum. Within a few minutes we saw the fermentation process start to kick in. One attendee brought along a couple of his own samples of mead that he produced. We all had a taste of his mead and he got some very awesome feedback from Jacob. In addition to that, it was pointed out that mead making is not all that expensive to set up. With that inspiration, a couple of attendees are in process of setup a demijohn to have a go. Overall it was an interesting session. 9 P a g e

10 From the CE Karin Kos 2 nd March Update Apiarists are included in Immigration New Zealand s Revised Immediate Skill Shortage List Immigration New Zealand has undertaken a review of its immediate skills shortage list, which includes apiarists. When an occupation is on a shortage list, work visa applications for positions in that occupation from suitably qualified and experienced migrants are not subject to an individual labour market test. A labour market test means that an employer is required to demonstrate that no suitable New Zealanders are available to fill or be trained for each individual position. As well as facilitating temporary entry, the Long Term Skill Shortage List (LTSSL) provides a pathway to residence via the Residence from Work category for holders of work visas granted under the LTSSL work visa policy. The LTSSL also acts a reference point for the award of bonus points for residence under the Skilled Migrant Category. This list will next be reviewed in April this year. You can find out more about this process here. In our submission to the Primary Production Select Committee Inquiry into honey, we outlined the growing need for trained beekeepers in New Zealand and the role that immigration can play in helping meet our industry s immediate skills needs. 10 P a g e

11 Camp Rangi - Buzz Weekend The weather for the Buzz Weekend was perfect for opening hives and watching professional beekeepers handle their bees. Thanks to Frank and Mary-Ann for another fun, educational weekend, with very good speakers. Kim Flottum our guest speaker is from the USA. Kim is a honeybee expert and Bee Culture Magazine Editor. He talked about beekeeping in the US and the challenges to be faced there. He also spoke about bee health and gave a great talk about drones - the forgotten, or little researched member of the bee family. Kim also holds a regular webinar, which we can access here in NZ. Kim and his wife Kathy Summers were hosted and by a number of beekeepers and shown apiaries, manuka plantations and an extraction plant on their way south from Auckland. Kim gained a lot of information about our honey industry to take back to his associates. We should look out for a NZ story in the next Bee Culture Magazine. On Monday morning (6am) Kim hosted a live webinar from NZ with the assistance of Frank who helped set up the gear. The webinar couldn t be aired from Camp Rangi, as the area has no internet or cellphone coverage. The programme was received all over the world and discussions were about NZ and our beekeeping industry. 11 P a g e

12 Camp Rangi cont An important message received from the speakers was to keep our bees healthy to enable them to survive the winter, stave off disease, and produce big, healthy bees. The idea is to feed the bees so much food at this time of the year that they become fat and plump! So start checking your bees and feed heavily for wintering down, so that the bees can build up their honey stores. Gary Sinkinson & Kevin Gibbs talked about over-wintering bees in polystyrene nucs. These nuc boxes are warm and secure and promote healthy brood growth ready for the spring, with virtually no losses over the winter. Rearing queen bees For many attending, queen rearing was what we wanted to observe, and Allan Richards described his method of rearing a frame of about 40 queens, and we watched as he transferred the queen cells to an incubator box to wait out their emergence date. Allan provided about 20 hives which were the focus for Saturday s practical studies. 12 P a g e

13 Hive inspections Sterilizing hive tools the professional way Dinner s ready!! WBA Members Back row: L R - Ken Armstrong, Donna Sherlock, Chris Baring, Vaughan Kearns, Brett Richmond, Tony Coard. Front row - L-R Trish Laing, PK Tan, Christine Gregory, Eva Durrant, Frank Lindsay, Jane Harding, Bob Kensington, MaryAnn Lindsay. Missing from photoshoot Alison Slack and Anne Nobel 13 P a g e

14 Interesting websites 14 P a g e

15 Who can I speak to? President Frank Lindsay (04) lindsays.apiaries@clear.net.nz Treasurer John Burnet (04) johnburnet@xtra.co.nz Secretary Jane Harding (04) janeh@xtra.co.nz Best times to Jane by phone are evenings, and Friday/Saturday/Sunday Newsletter editor Eva Durrant (04) or edurrant@xtra.co.nz Committee Members Viv Harris vivharris@xtra.co.nz PK Tan PK Tan pk.propserv@gmail.com John Randall westernbeeline@gmail.com Richard Braczek Meeting location Johnsonville Community Centre, Moorefield Rd, Johnsonville 15 P a g e