Wellington Beekeepers Association Inc.

Transcription

1 Wellington Beekeepers Association Inc. Our Next Meeting: When: Monday 12 November 2007, at 7.30 p.m. Where: Johnsonville Community Centre Meeting Room 2 (The Lounge) Wellington Beekeepers Association Inc. Monthly Newsletter November 2007 Page 1 This newsletter is available to members via 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 , Manners St., Wellington (Ph )

2 Wellington Beekeepers Association Inc *$20/$15.00 subscription for the 2006/07 year, (July-June) Received from: Name: Address: Phone: Enclosed:$20*/$15 Cheque/Cash Date: Receipt No:. *(If you would like to receive newsletters via , you will be entitled to a discount of $5 on the membership fee. Please supply a valid address.) 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 , to bring a laptop.) Digital camera for movies and stills DVD player/vcr videos (as long as we have advance warning of the need for a video player) MINUTES OF THE WELLINGTON BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION MONTHLY MEETING HELD ON 8 OCTOBER 2007 AT THE JOHNSONVILLE COMMUNITY CENTRE COMMENCING AT 7.30PM Present: Andrew Beach (Pres), James Scott (Vice Pres), John Burnet (Treas), Richard Wickens (Sec) and 20 members Apologies: Nil Minutes of the Last Meeting: Passed unchanged apart from a comment attributed to Ivan Pederson that the insertion of frames of new foundation either side of the brood and pollen frames. This strategy was intended to provide more room for the queen to lay and therefore discourage swarming. The reference to swarming was at Ivan s insistence to be deleted as Ivan was adamant that this was not a hard and fast rule. Richard thanked Vicky Alexander for the quality of the minutes. She had stood in for him as secretary to allow him to attend another function. James Scott was also thanked for deputising for Andrew Beach who had attended a work function. Moved Amor Walter. Seconded Ken Bredan. Passed unanimously. Colony Collapse: Frank Lindsay provided comments on the latest theory about the cause of colony collapse. There appears to be a number of possible causes and one or more may occur concurrently or one may Page 2

3 lead to another, eg, carnica mite infestations, nosema, etc. More about this can be found in the October 2007 issue of The New Zealand Beekeeper for those members interested in learning more about this phenomenon. Spring Action: Put on extra supers, split hives, and check for presence of queen cells along bottom bars of frames and if any are found remove them to avert swarming. Ensure that there is plenty of room in the brood chambers for the queen to lay as she will not go above any honey stores. Treat for varroa and remove strips before honey flow proper starts. If a colony appears to be in danger of collapse through an infestation of varroa mites remember that for every mite detected there may be hundreds unseen an emergency treatment with Bayvarol strips can be carried out as it does not leave residues in the honey. Amor updated his use of the French designed tubed base board. He still treated with miticide strips in the autumn to control mite infestations. Ivan spoke about the advantages of removing drone brood from the hive as the varroa mite tends to lay its own brood in drone bee brood cells. The use of icing sugar as a control was also discussed. Preservation of Hive Boxes: Various methods of preserving timber were discussed including the use of Metalex and Paraffin dipping. Originally beeswax had been used mostly in the past when it was cheap - but had been replaced by paraffin owing to the cost of beeswax. Lanolin is being used in Australia but not here in New Zealand. The types of timber used in the manufacture of boxes was also discussed. Requeening: Frank Lindsay explained how to requeen a hive. Attendants should be removed from the queen cage before the cage is installed in the hive. (Remember to remove the old queen first.) Once the colony had begun to feed the queen her acceptance could be assumed. The queen can live up to four weeks in a cage before being installed in a hive provided she is fed a drop of water at regular intervals. Scholarship: Andrew told members that he had written to the enviro-schools. One of them had suggested that he direct his inquiries to the industry training organisations and horticultural training institutes in an effort to find suitable candidates. Members expressed confidence that suitable candidates would eventually be surface. Apimondia Conference 2007 in Melbourne: Frank Lindsay showed photographs he had taken of various stands and displays that had been present at the September conference in Melbourne which he and Mary-Ann had attended. The Apimondia Conference is an international event held in a different locations around the world each year. In addition to speeches on developments and topics of interest to beekeepers regardless of their nationality, it is also an exposition providing opportunities for suppliers and Page 3

4 others to show off their wares. Frank also showed some photographs of an apiary taken during a field trip. Conference participants had come from as far a field as Russia to attend the conference. A more comprehensive description can be found in the October 2007 edition of The New Zealand Beekeeper written by Frank of course. Close of Meeting: The meeting closed at 9.05 *** Don t Forget! *** The December Meeting will be the usual Christmas Party. Look out your favourite party food recipes, preferably using honey, to bake some goodies to share with members. FOR SALE: Complete box of Ross rounds with rings, $20, Ivan Pederson, For Sale: Two clean, dry 3-high hives $95 each (neg.) Each hive complete with: 1 base/stand 1 mesh grill to monitor varroa 1 bottom board to slide mesh grill into 2 full size supers with 10 frames, wired and with foundation comb embedded. 1 full size super with 10 empty frames plus 7 foundation comb sheets & 3 drone comb sheets 1 metal Queen excluder 1 complete Parker corner bee escape 1 flat sugar feeder tray 1 lid/top board 1 galvanised metal sprung- end lid/cover Tel. Linda on Wanted To Buy: I am interested to buy fresh Wellington general area BEE POLLEN. I need it to ward off spring allergies and build immune system. This is strictly for private and personal use. I am new to Wellington, but used to buy fresh bee pollen in Cambridge, so am looking for something similar. Looking forward to your assistance / advice in finding a bee keeper in Wellington area. With appreciation Izolda Anyone able to help Izolda, please contact her directly be ing to: Izolda.Kazem-Zadeh@tec.govt.nz Progress towards breeding varroatolerant honey bee stock in New Zealand Over the past three years HortResearch has been breeding honey bee stock that are resistant to varroa. The project is part of the Development of Technologies for the Control of Varroa programme funded by the Sustainable Farming Fund, with contributions from the National Beekeepers Association and HortResearch. The aim of the breeding programme is to select stock that display a trait called delayed suppressed mite reproduction (SMRD) and then increase the presence of this trait through selective breeding. SMRD is the percentage of varroa in cells that do not reproduce or only produce offspring that do not survive, such as males or eggs that do not reach full maturity by the time the honey bee emerges from its brood cell. Page 4

5 The initial honey bee stock was bought from or donated by beekeepers throughout the North and South Islands. The stock was assessed for their ability to reduce varroa reproduction and the best 10 queens selected. Assessing SMRD for one queen can take up to 4 hours. Each successive year the 10 queen lines (although not technically correct, we will call each queen a genetic line for ease of discussion) were inbred to increase this percentage. This was done using a closed mating population, where virgin queens were artificially inseminated with semen from drones produced by their mother. In the first year only single drone inseminations were conducted to reduce the gene pool. For the following 2 years, we have inseminated the virgin queens with semen from 2 or 3 drones from their line to ensure the queens would lay eggs for longer. During this past year, we have also inseminated some virgins with semen from other resistant lines. Each year an increase in percentage of suppressed mite reproduction has been observed, with the latest results revealing that 80% of varroa in one of the lines do not reproduce. This is an exciting step forward. However, we have only been selecting for a trait, not a honey bee, so although we have culled any lines that have not bred well, been overly aggressive or have had high levels of disease, we do not know how these bees will perform in relation to honey, propolis or pollen production. Until these issues are dealt with, the lines will not be released to the beekeeping industry. Year Page % 2 65% 3 80% Percentage of SMRD As funding from the Sustainable Farming Fund ends in June 2007, we have been searching for a place to maintain the stock as a closed population with minimal management. This requires an area where the bees will be isolated from all other managed and feral colonies to ensure that the lines maintain their resistance to varroa. We have been granted approval by the owners of Great Mercury Island (thank you to Michael Fay and David Richwhite) to establish and maintain the stock on this island, until the stock is worth releasing to the beekeeping industry. Since 2000 we have seen varroa spread down the North Island and across to the Nelson region. This South Island incursion is a timely reminder for us to focus on the issues that we need to deal with as we adapt to life with varroa. One of the major issues is the development of mites that are resistant to the varroa control methods that we currently use. Taking an integrated approach to controlling varroa is the only way to reduce the impact of resistant mites. The production of honey bees that are resistant to varroa is one of the numerous tools that may soon be available to reduce the impact of varroa resistant to chemicals. Michelle Taylor and Harlan Cox, HortResearch, ex The NZ BeeKeeper, May 2007

6 Membership List Club members are interested in having the contact details of other members, particularly those living in their area. So each year the club prepares a list of the names, suburbs, and phone numbers of members for distribution to all members. If you do not want to be on such a list, please let me know by 30 th November. A list will be distributed with the December newsletter. James Scott phone , or via jlscott@clear.net.nz Auckland Beekeepers Club nucleus box construction: (courtesy NZ Beekeeper, May 2007) The nucleus box described below was designed by Auckland Beekeepers Club member Paul Brown (paul@ww.co.nz). Real estate (coreflute) signs are often thrown out after the sale of a property. Some agencies prefer to give them away to get rid of them. Here s a project to turn these unwanted signs into something useful. Every beekeeper should have 5-frame nuc boxes on hand for swarms, introducing queens, to use as a work box, and for emergencies. Steps: 1) Find one or two pieces of real estate sign and tape them together so they measure more than 555mm by 970mm. 2. Using a marker pen and long ruler, mark out the plan as shown. Note that the bottom is 190 x 525mm and the top is 200mm wide (240) and 510mm long with 20mm edgings (550) 3. Cut all the outer lines, not the folds (a retractable blade knife is best) 4. Don t cut out the hole in the middle of the bottom yet (to take some screen mesh for bee ventilation) until you have creased all the folds. 5. Set the retractable knife blade at about 2mm and cut halfway through all the inner lines. 6. Depending on the size of the screen available, set the knife at say, 5mm, and carefully cut the edges around the hole so the pieced of screen mesh can be fitted into the hole. NOTE: It is best to use the 3mm coreflute as it gives greater strength. Double coreflute is even better but you need to add on the thickness to the outer coreflute layer. Coreflute also breaks down in sunlight so should be painted to prevent UV damage. See Page 7 & 8 for picture & instructions: All that is required are two pieces of coreflute, two wooden ends, cloth tape, mesh and a stapler. The coreflute wraps right around the two wooden ends and is stapled to them. Page 6

7 producing one or more new queens and swarming. If you think about the foresight of your bees, you will appreciate that it is about 3 weeks before swarming that they decide that at least one new queen is needed. This is the time to go through the hive, looking particularly along the bottom of the frames in the brood boxes, and destroying all unwanted queen cells. These are larger cells, generally on the bottom of frames, although they may be anywhere. Don t remove any queen cells until you have identified that there are eggs present, or you have seen the queen. The hive might be superseding or have already swarmed. Killing the queen cell in that case might be a backward step. See page 8 for picture of made up coreflute nuc: When to Super Up: (by Ron Morrison, courtesy of the New Zealand Beekeeper March 2007) In the Spring as the days warm up, bees gather more nectar and pollen to sustain the increased laying capacity of a good queen. It s time to add a box as soon as there is a build-up of burr comb under the inner cover. If there is a good flow on this box will be filled in a week or two and another box or boxes will be required. Failure to provide these will result in the bees becoming crowded, Then there is the other side of the story. If too many boxes are added to a hive that may be on the weak side, the bees will not be able to service all of the frames. This creates the ideal situation for the explosion of wax moths that are always present and generally kept under control by a strong hive. The other way to find moths is to leave drawn combs in a warmer, darker situation. Moths love this. So if you are storing drawn comb and don t have the luxury of a freezer, keep combs in a cool place where the wind can whistle through. (Warning: using para-dichloro-benzene (PDB) is a NO NO. The European buyers have developed testing that will detect one part per billion of this Page 7

8 chemical and contaminated honey will be sent back to the exporter). An organic method is to spread through the stacked boxes a few leaves of Pennyroyal, a plant found in swampy locations. The better the stack can be sealed the more effective this is. Allow the air to circulate through before putting the boxes on hives. Most of this is better explained in Practical Beekeeping in NZ by Andrew Matheson, a booklet that should be in your bookcase and will be found in any library. And from Frank Lindsay s article in the May 2007 NZ Beekeeper: My method of storage (of boxes and frames) is fairly simple. I place pallets on the floor and cover them with steel queen excluders. I stack the supers and put more excluders on top, then cover the stack with a light wind cloth. The excluders prevent rodents getting at the frames, and the cloth will stop any contamination getting into the frames if they run across the top of the supers. (I also put out a lot of rat bait in tunnel feeders.) encounter with a rubbish bin at a friend s engineering workshop has changed my mind. He has a machine that punches small holes in sheets of thin steel used for the manufacture of fuse boxes etc, and the little white painted discs that are left behind are ideal for gluing onto the thorax of the queens. Unlike typist s correcting fluid, which sometimes wears out before the queen does, these dots should last practically forever but that is not the main reason we use them. If at any time you wish to find the queen you only need to hang a thin fridge magnet in the middle of the brood next: within 24 hours she will be found safely held in place for you to do whatever you wish with her. So far with the limited trials we have done we have had 100% success rate and the extra weight of the disc does not appear to affect the queen in any way except that they seem very reluctant to swarm. Although we had a very bad swarming season this year, not one single marked queen swarmed during the season. Marking Queens: By John Berry, Courtesy New Zealand Beekeeper March 2007) Marking queens is a practice that has been carried out for many years. I ve not usually bothered to do it, but a chance Page 8