September NEXT MEETING: Wednesday 3 rd September Main Hall, Johnsonville Community Centre, Moorefield Rd. 7.

Transcription

1 September 2014 Newsletter NEXT MEETING: Wednesday 3 rd September 2014 Main Hall, Johnsonville Community Centre, Moorefield Rd 7.30pm MAIN MEETING Rex Barnes, Manager National Pest Management Programme on AFB 7.00pm BEGINNERS SESSION (In upstairs Trust Room) Spring Inspections Swarms Return address: 280 Major Drive, Kelson, Lower Hutt

2 Wellington Beekeepers Association Newsletters are published in the last week of each month, except January. Members contributions to be with editor by 20 th month. Please submit articles in Microsoft Word document format. MEETINGS Johnsonville Community Centre Main Hall, Ground Floor, Moorefield Road 1ST WEDNESDAY of the month Main 7.30pm Beginners WHO TO TALK TO PRESIDENT Richard Braczek (04) ibraczek@paradise.net.nz TREASURER John Burnet (04) johnburnet@xtra.co.nz SECRETARY Suzanne Basiora (04) sbasiora@gmail.com If recommending articles from the web, please confirm whether these can be reproduced or have copyright. CONTENTS 3. August Meeting minutes 5. Topical message from Vice President 5. Volunteers requested for supper 6. Ready made hive equipment 6. Hive Sites Offered 7. Things to do this month 7. Rotorua Bee Day 8. Wanted to Buy 8. Historical article single frame slinger 9. To Drone or not to Drone 10. Beekeeping problems in Auckland 11. Latest Otago Research NEWSLETTER CONTRIBUTIONS: Sandie Matcham (04) smatcham@actrix.co.nz 2

3 MINUTES OF THE WELLINGTON BEEKEEPERS ASSOCIATION (WBA) MONTHLY MEETING HELD AT THE JOHNSONVILLE COMMUNITY CENTRE, WEDNESDAY 6th August 2014, 7.30 pm Present: Vice President Luke Potion and 59 members. Visitors/New Members: 13 Video The meeting started with a screening of a black and white retro presentation of migratory Australian beekeeping style in Beekeepers on the Move. (See URL: New Directions Luke explained the changes that he will carry out within the WBA. His four point plan included: 1) Encouraging members to learn something about bee anatomy and physiology at each meeting. 2) Developing skills to identify bee friendly plants by bringing them to the meeting to share. Learning supported by seeing the actual plants, feeling them, smelling them. 3) Create links with the beginners beekeeping group by having a representative share at each meeting. 4) Establish a Bee Guardian Action Group to support the elimination of American Foul Brood (AFB) locally, establish bio-security 'sentinel' colonies, and respond to the gross misuse of pesticides and bad beekeeping practices in our region. Matters Arising WBA 75 th Jubilee Anniversary Party is on Saturday night 8 th November, Johnsonville Community Centre, 7:00 pm What s happening in the Hives? Bees are still wintered down, some queens are still laying It s time to assemble frames and boxes. Feed bee sugar syrup to be ready to build up for spring James Scott offered that Moore Wilson s sell 25kg bags of white sugar for about $28. August Hive Assembly Workshop 24 th at 1:00 pm in Wainuiomata at Wayne Wilds. Bring a small hammer and a plate to share with tea. WBA donates nails to construct the gear. John Burnett to send out an to members as a reminder and to give directions. 3

4 Manuka Honey Labelling Guide Released Karyne Rogers from GNS Science delivered a PowerPoint presentation on new manuka honey labelling standards. She took part in the process with Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) to help develop the interim manuka honey labelling guide. See this website for more comprehensive information about manuka honey labelling Karyne also talked about science helping to isolate the unique chemical factor in manuka called methylglyoxal. Hawaiian Queens Lou Gallagher talked about her recent visit to Hawaii where she visited a Kona Queen breeder who produced 20,000 queens a week for the American market. Their pest control included treating for varroa and small hive beetle. Highlights were seeing the cane sugar syrup that is fed to the bees and the queen bank where queens wait until orders for them come in. Join a support Group John Randall encouraged all beginner members to find a local support group to join. The WBA currently has subgroups in Upper Hutt, Lower Hutt, Otaki, a Top Bar Group and the Western Beeline in Wainuomata. Beginners Group Report Beginner Group Representative Anne Gilbert showed the chux cloth and A4 black and white drawing of small hive beetle that John Randall handed out to everyone. He advised them to place the chux cloth in the top of their hives. The bees break down the cloth and small hive beetles get stuck in the shredded cloth fibres. This is a measure to trap small hive beetle and identify it early when it arrives in New Zealand. This highlights hobbyist beekeepers important role in control of exotic pests and diseases. Suzanne offered to members the small hive beetle image from John Randall. Bee Guardian Action Group Tony Coard seeks members to be a part of the Action Group. He has seen how a focussed group of Whanganui beekeepers have worked to stop American Foul Brood (AFB) in their region. He leads a vanguard to repeat this in the Wellington Region. He has elicited the support of Tony Roper from Assure Quality to test any frames submitted by the club. Tony calls for a frame from any hives that have died over winter. Members are asked to bring brood frames to the next meeting. Wrap frames in newspaper and place inside a council rubbish bag. Elimination of AFB Luke stressed the importance of all members reading Elimination of American Foul Brood without the use of Drugs by Mark Goodwin. Copies are available from John Burnet 4

5 Bees Dance Luke showed a DVD clip on explaining the language of the waggle dance and how bees communicate the location of sources of food to other bees. (See URL: Hive Gismo Stewart Turner demonstrated an external frame holder to make examining hives easier. The meeting closed. Stewart s external frame holder A message from your Vice President Make sure your bees have enough food to get through to the new nectar. Now is the time they will run out if you neglect them. Good beekeepers always leave enough honey on for their bees to get through the winter ok. Regards Luke Volunteers requested to share supper duty We are looking for a few people who would be willing to prepare the meeting night supper on a rotational basis. The more volunteers, the less often you would be asked to prepare supper. Tasks include getting the milk and biscuits, preparing tea / coffee and clearing up afterwards - not arduous. If you can commit to helping out occasionally, please contact Jane on janeh@xtra.co.nz 5

6 Ready made hive equipment If you want any made up equipment from a mesh bottom board to a whole hive, please contact Andrew Beach on andrewbeach@hotmail.com or phone so that he can order equipment from John Burnet in time to make up the parts for the start of the season. A request from Maire in Kelburn Hive Sites offered Are you looking for somewhere to site hive(s) in Kelburn? Maire is offering her garden. If you are interested, Maire Dwyer can be contacted by at maire@actrix.co.nz A request from Richard in Whitby Are you looking for somewhere to site hive(s) in Whitby? Richard is offering his garden. If you are interested, Richard Nicol can be contacted on A request from Sam in Brooklyn Are you looking for somewhere to site hive(s) in Brooklyn? Sam is offering his garden. If you are interested, Sam can be contacted on or by at bridgmans@gmail.com A request from Alec in Seatoun Alec would like to offer his garden in Seatoun for a hive site. He would be happy to enter into a rental agreement if someone could provide the hive and look after them (as is offered in other parts of the country). If you are interested in having bees in Seatoun, or are thinking of renting hives, please contact Alec MacKay on or at alec@mackay.eu.com 6

7 Things to do this month This month: featuring August, September and October (to give you plenty of time to prepare) By: Luke Potion AUGUST Prepare for new seasons work. Assemble feeding equipment and supplies of sugar. Get queen raising equipment if you are going to rear your own queens. Assemble frames for new season and have wax or plastic frames on hand. If queen rearing, stimulate drone production hives by feeding syrup and pollen supplement. Embed foundation into extracting frames. SEPTEMBER Check all brood frames for AFB. Feed if necessary. Remove and replace old, dark or broken frames that have been moved to the outside during the season. Check mite fall and apply a Varroa treatment if surplus honey flow is anticipated within 8 weeks. Unite any weak or queenless hives with stronger queenright hive, especially if you prefer not to increase hive numbers. Hives can be split late in the month or when there are plenty of adult drones present. Prepare for queen-raising programme. Stimulate drone hives and starter and finisher hives for queen-rearing. Check stored supers for wax moth. Check under the roofs of the hives for excessive moisture. Get wax dipper going to dip new and reconditioned supers. Cut vegetation around the hives. OCTOBER Apply Varroa treatment if surplus honey flow is anticipated within 8 weeks or hives are showing mite damage. Remove entrance guards. Check pollen and food levels, feed if necessary. Check all brood frames for AFB. Take swarm control measures and begin inspecting hives at 10 day intervals. Fit foundation to new frames. Super hives. Make sure the bees have room to expand. Split hives. Requeen hives with mated queens or own queen cells. Cull out old or damaged frames from hives. Replace old or damaged supers with new gear. Rotorua Bee Day Rotorua has organised a 'Bee Day' where they have 5 top speakers from the recent conference in Whanganui presenting some really interesting topics. They are offering the day course for just $20. They hope to attract local bee enthusiasts and those from other parts of the North Island as well. If you are interested, check out their Facebook page for details: 7

8 Wanted to Buy A member from To Horo has lost his hives to robbing during the winter. He would like to buy 2 or 3 hives to replace them. If you have hives to spare and would like to sell them, please contact Ljubo Bura. Contact details: jane_bura@hotmail.com or phone: A page extracted from a 1973 WBA Newsletter (unfortunately it was too faint to copy and had to be re-typed!) Extract from BEES & Honey by W.A.GOODACRE Dept. of Agriculture NEW SOUTH WALES 1943 Quite a number of beginners with a couple of colonies make a practice of cutting combs from the frames. Destruction of valuable combs in this way is often a very serious matter to the welfare of the bees, for if the honey flow cuts off rather suddenly they cannot rebuild them. It pays well with even only one or two hives to have an extractor, and if the purchase of a regular machine is a problem, a single frame slinger, as illustrated, costing about 21s., might be considered. With care it does very good work. Can anyone work out how this slinger was supposed to work? If so, please send details to your editor (details on page 2) and I will print them in the next newsletter 8

9 Worker bees 'know' when to invest in their reproductive future From: Reproductive cycle triggered when colonies reach 4,000 members When a colony of honeybees grows to about 4,000 members, it triggers an important first stage in its reproductive cycle: the building of a special type of comb used for rearing male reproductive, called drones. A team of experts from the Department of Neurobiology and Behaviour at Cornell University, led by Michael Smith, studied what starts the reproductive cycle of honeybee colonies. The results are published in Springer's journal Naturwissenschaften - The Science of Nature. Reproduction isn't always a honeybee colony's top priority. Early in a colony's development, its primary focus is on survival and growth. When the colony reaches a certain stage, its workers start investing in reproduction. The first step in this whole reproductive process is building cells of drone comb, the special comb made of large cells in which drones are reared. Drones are male honeybees that develop from unfertilized eggs. Their sole purpose in a colony is to mate with virgin queens from other colonies, thereby spreading the genes of the colony that produced the successful drones. Virgin queens in turn need to mate with drones before they can lay fertilized eggs that will become workers. Queens will mate with over a dozen drones during their single nuptial flight, after which they are stocked with sperm for life. Smith and his team were puzzled about precisely which colony features kick-start this key process of building drone comb. Is it the number of workers in the colony? Is it the total area of worker comb in the colony? Is it the amount of brood in the colony? Or perhaps it's the size of the colony's honey stores? The Cornell University researchers therefore set out to carefully manipulate each of these features in different groups of colonies, while keeping the other colony features identical. They found that while every colony built worker comb (non-reproductive comb), not every colony built drone comb (reproductive comb). In fact, only an increase in the number of workers stimulated the workers to start constructing drone comb. This was seen whenever colonies contained 4,000 or more worker bees. The researchers were still left wondering about precisely how an individual worker bee 'knows' how many other workers there are in its colony. Smith and his team speculate that this might have to do with how crowded individuals feel while working side-by-side in the hive. They are currently engaged in further research to shed more light on this mystery. "Colonies with more workers built a greater proportion of drone comb, but colonies with more comb, more brood, or more honey stores, did not do so," Smith summarizes. "We estimate that a colony needs approximately 4,000 workers to invest in building drone comb." The researchers believe that their findings are also relevant to other social systems in which a group's members must adjust their behaviour in relationship to the group's size. 9

10 Uncertain future for Auckland beekeeping From: An argument between neighbours over bee hives kept on an orchard in Kumeu now has Auckland hobby beekeepers worried they could soon need a resource consent to keep their hives on their own property. Or even worse, hives could be banned in urban and country living areas altogether. A submission under the Auckland Unitary Plan has been made by Kumeu/Huapai Residents and Ratepayers Association chairman Pete Sinton as agent for his partner Jenny Price's Kumeu company. Sinton and Price have been in dispute with their orchardist neighbour Peta McClure over hives being kept in the orchard. The waxy excrement left by the bees on their flight path has been cited by them as a serious nuisance. This has led to the police being called and legal action taken. Beekeeping is a popular hobby for many in Auckland and it's not unusual to see a bee hive tucked away in gardens around the city. There's hives kept on top of the Auckland Town Hall with the honey from them being presented to visiting dignitaries. Labour Party leader David Cunliffe's family keeps them at their Herne Bay property. But beekeepers across Auckland are now heading for their keyboards before the July 22 5pm deadline for all 'further submissions'. These can address submissions already made under the Auckland Unitary Plan. ''The submission could see restrictions, and possibly resource consents, needed for beekeepers in urban areas,'' Auckland Beekeepers Club member Gary Fawcett said. The club has around 400 members and most would be affected should the submission be successful, he said. Back garden beekeepers make up the majority of beekeepers nationally and are important for biodiversity. ''It's ridiculous. It's basically trying to ban urban beekeeping,'' he said. ''Bees are very important in urban areas for biodiversity, pollinating vegetable and flower gardens, fruit trees and native trees and grasses,'' he said. ''Bees are endangered internationally and do very well in urban areas compared to rural areas where they come into contact with a lot of agricultural pesticides.'' ''Should beehives be excluded from urban areas, the big picture could be grim,'' Auckland bee blogger Margaret Groot said. ''Naturally swarming bees in urban areas would likely be seen as pests and removed leaving pollination in urban areas seriously compromised,'' she said. The National Beekeeping Association is also concerned. 10

11 ''There have been previous attempts to license urban apiaries in urban areas by Rodney and Franklin Councils prior to the Supercity, but they failed,'' New Zealand Bee Keeping Association spokesman Don MacLeod said. Bees have free range across all major New Zealand cities, with no resource consents needed to keep bees on urban private property in any of the centres the Rodney Times contacted, including Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington and Tauranga. Most city councils worked on the complaint basis for beekeeping, where an environment officer would be sent out if there was a complaint made to try and find a solution. This usually involved moving hives to another spot on the property. Tauranga has a bylaw that could be enforced if necessary. BEE DISPUTE Jenny Price and Pete Sinton wrote to their neighbour last year regarding the bee excrement from bee hives. "They have caused us no end of annoyance as we have to garage our cars all the time. If we leave them outside, your bees cover our cars in excrement..." "Our house has it on the east side. Our barbecue tables are covered in it, plus any cushions we place on the seats. We don't put the washing on the line as all our clothes get covered in the excrement also." Price says the offending material ''sets like a wax, so it's terribly hard to get off. "It's all right when it's wet, because you can get a hose. But you never know when they're going to strike next.'' - Rodney Times Otago research uncovers dramatic changes in the honey bee viral landscape after arrival of Varroa mite From: 22nd August 2014 A University of Otago study of the first stages of Varroa infestation and its consequences on bees and viruses in New Zealand will provide important insights for future management of threatened bee populations world-wide. Honeybee colonies around the world are dying at alarming rates. A variety of factors has been proposed to explain their decline, but the exact cause and how bees can be saved remains unclear. Varroa is thought to be one of the main stressors that reduce bee fitness. As they feed on the blood of pupae and adult bees, the mites can transmit several honeybee viruses with high efficiency. Uncontrolled Varroa infestation can thereby cause an accelerating virus epidemic and so kill a bee colony within two to three years. 11

12 A new study by PhD student Fanny Mondet, from the University of Otago s Department of Zoology, and INRA, Avignon, France, examines the viral landscape in honeybee colonies in New Zealand after the recent arrival of the parasitic Varroa destructor mite. Published in PLOS Pathogens today, the study focuses on the complex interplay between bees, mites and viruses, taking advantage of a unique situation in New Zealand. The country was only recently invaded by Varroa, which was first detected on the North Island in 2001, and still had an active infestation expansion front traveling southward into Varroa-free areas of the country when the study took place. The researchers monitored the first stages of the Varroa infestation and its consequences for bees and bee viruses. The study reports that the arrival of Varroa dramatically changed the viral landscape within the honeybee colonies of New Zealand. Each of seven different virus species examined in detail responded in a unique way to the arrival, establishment, and persistence of the mite. Consistent with observations in other countries, Deformed Wing Virus (DWV) is the virus most strongly affected by the spread of Varroa throughout New Zealand. DWV, which can multiply in the mites and is thought to be a direct cause of Varroa-induced colony collapse, was almost never seen in New Zealand bee colonies before the arrival of Varroa, or ahead of the expansion zone after Thereafter, DWV abundance gradually increased with Varroa infestation history, even when Varroa infestation rates declined. Another highly virulent Varroa-transmitted virus, Kashmir Bee Virus (KBV), also showed a close association with Varroa. However, in contrast to DWV, KBV abundance peaks two years after an initial Varroa infestation and subsequently disappears from the colonies entirely, leaving DWV as the dominant honeybee virus in long-term Varroa-infested areas. The results of this study strengthen the idea that in Varroa infested bees multiple virus species interact to create a dynamic and turbulent pathological landscape, and that viruses play an important part in the survival or collapse of honey bee colonies infested by Varroa, says Ms Mondet, who is the lead author. For example, KBV could play a key role in the dramatic honeybee colony weakening observed during the first years of Varroa infestation. The researchers hope that the results to date will be useful for the beekeeping industry by highlighting the importance of beekeeper awareness, of mite monitoring, and the timing and efficiency of Varroa control. Otago zoologist Professor Alison Mercer adds that future research will focus on the mechanisms that form the evolutionary basis for the bee-varroa-virus interaction. This work was supported by a grant from the New Zealand Honey Trust Industry Fund. 12