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NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPER, DECEMBER 2016
Extracting Try and get your first crop off before Christmas to beat the Tutin Regulations deadline. If it’s not completely capped, shake the frames to make sure the honey is mature (if it’s wet, a few drops of nectar will drip out). I also wouldn’t put the outside frames from the honey supers in the extractor as these tend to have a higher moisture content. There’s no use extracting early if the honey is going to ferment later next year. Refractometers are fairly cheap now and take the guesswork out of determining whether the honey is ready to extract. Measure a sample of honey from several frames in each super to give you an average for the super. If it’s under 18.6% water content, the honey can be extracted. If it’s higher, stack the supers onto drip trays in a room and put in a dehumidifier, a heater set to 35°C and a fan. Offset the supers (overlap supers back and front to allow air to move through them) and leave for 24 hours. From my experience, 10 litres of water in the dehumidifier drops the moisture in the honey frames of 60 boxes by one percent. For those of us in wet areas (high humidity, hives in the bush, etc.), I make a wooden roof with a 50-mm rim for each stack of supers (like the roof of an Australian hive). Cut a hole to fit a domestic heater. Offset the stack of supers on the drip tray by 25 mm or lift them on blocks slightly so air can circulate. I get my fans from the dump recycling depot; you can also get dehumidifiers there as well— Woods is a good model. Get an electrician to electrically check them and add a plug. Clean the dust out with a vacuum cleaner, especially at the air exit, and put on the fan only. Hot air from the heater, directly down on to the frames will melt them; hence the need to another heater in the room. (Warm air holds more moisture so is therefore easier to remove.) You soon get to know how long it takes to remove moisture so your honey is reduced below 18% moisture by measuring all the supers in the stack every day. I reduce mine down to 17% as they keep better, but some would say by taking out extra moisture I’m removing weight, therefore money. I prefer to produce a premium product so don’t look at value until it’s in a container.
Things to do this month
Ways to help quake-affected beekeepers We all feel for the beekeepers in the
Check feed. Check for failing queens. Introduce nuclei. Super hives—get them on before the bees need them. Control swarming. Make nucs out of any hive that swarms and combine weak hives to make full-strength units for honey production. This is the best time to get queens mated for those making their own replacements or ordering queen cells. Prepare the honey house equipment. Undertake the first honey extraction in some areas. Do a full brood frame check for AFB before removing any honey or combining hives. Get the honey off before 1 January to meet all the testing requirements for those in the tutin/ scolypopa areas. Fit foundation into comb honey supers. Put the comb honey supers on when the first three-quarter-depth frames are being used for honey storage. (This super is put under the comb honey supers to prevent the bees storing pollen in the comb super frames if there’s a break in the weather.) Check hives for mites. Keep those mite numbers low. Have a good Christmas break, even if it’s only a couple of days. Take time off and spend it on family activities. Most commercial beekeepers’ families hardly see them at this time of the year. Family time is important. Take a break before you get into the extracting season. We hope you have a good crop. All the best from the Publications Focus Group team.
earthquake areas of the South Island. Some will have lost hives and will be affected for a few years to come. Hives split open by the shaking will be robbed and going from the Cyclone Bola experience in the Gisborne area in 1988, AFB will become a major problem for a year or so. We can help our fellow beekeepers. How about making a few nucs for them? ApiNZ no doubt can organise delivery in the autumn when the roads open and the beekeepers there have had time to assess their needs. Insurance is OK but it doesn’t cover bees. These beekeepers will need bees to keep going. If you are one of those affected and need a hand, or just to have someone beside you for a while, do ask. We tend to be loners and battle through rather than ask for assistance. Two helpers can make a lot of difference. Give a book for Christmas Books are always a good Christmas present for a beekeeper. As a gift for a new prospective beekeeper, a wise choice is Storey’s Guide to Keeping Honey Bees by Malcolm T. Sanford and Richard E. Bonney (ISBN 978-1-60342-550-6). For the more experienced (second year plus), a reprint of Queen Rearing Simplified by Jay Smith (ISBN 978-161476-052-8) would be a good present. Even if you’re not interested in producing queens, you should at least have the knowledge and it will certainly improve the way you introduce queens.
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