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NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPER, FEBRUARY 2017
ACTIVE BEE CULTURE Chatham Island beekeepers Mana Cracknell and Michele Andersen comment on current conditions and bee strains present on Chatham Island, share a homemade cold and flu recipe, and give us their take on the great Australasian mānuka honey debate. Mana Cracknell and Michele Andersen FROM THE CHATHAMS
November and December were challenging months for us. As we write this in early January 2017, we predict that this month will bring more of the same. In November and December we dealt with four swarms. Initially one of these refused to cooperate. Three times we had it safely transferred into a hive and moved, but it rejected our offer of free food and lodgings. It swarmed again, finding a tree and branch to cluster on that was higher above the ground each time. We would have had to borrow the fire brigade ladder if things continued, so we decided to put a bait hive in an old broken-down shed that was near the tree. It was an offer the swarm could not refuse when the rains came and the winds blew them back to good sense. They did have a determined swarm queen—a laying machine.
As we said in our December 2016 article, nectar hives have already been set up in the main to forage the clover honey flow that began near the end of November and will extend into March 2017, weather permitting. From a farmer’s perspective, white clover is a cost-effective, readily available form of protein for stock. Clover coverage on the island has increased noticeably over the last four years. Regular rainfall and bees have assisted this process. This year we had planned to place research hives in several isolated stands of tarahinau ( Dracophyllum arboreum and Dracophyllum scoparium , also known as swamp heath). That process is under way—what will be, will be! Breeding and some history on bee strains Apart from shipping overwintered and new-season queens off the island, we have been raising and replacing queens for local beekeepers, helping new entrants set up first hives and updating our red and green queens (bred 2013–2014) with white queens (bred in 2016). Most of the queens bred in 2016 were of Italian Ligurian-type stock, introduced to New Zealand and Australia in 1880. These are normal-sized Italian queens (north of Sicily) that fit into standard queen cages. We are now into breeding yellow marked queens and 50% of these will be inseminated. The 2017 batch of queens will mostly be of Italian Cordovan-type stock (recessive gene). These are giants that have difficulty fitting into standard queen cages—we use roller cages. In one part of the island, our mainstay Italian and Carnican genetics (from Carnicans introduced in 2008) are coming under pressure from feral black British stock (introduced in 1839–1840), mixed with some left over feral Carnican stock (red-brown and black) brought to the island by Micky Lewis (1960s–1970s). Apparently, he had them in a bag in the plane and they got out. There was a cabin insert in the plane. According to one
report from a suspect source, all the other passengers except for Micky bolted up the other end of the plane to protect their whisky from the bees. Living and operating as beekeepers in this isolated context, we are often reminded that we do not know which sailing ships came to the island after Lt Broughton on HMS Chatham visited in 1791. We don’t know where they came from or whether some ships carried bees here as part of their general cargo; that is, until visibly different bee stock begins to appear in our outlying naturally mated hives. We use these hives to capture DNA from local feral bee populations. What we do know is that Chatham Island (rather than mainland New Zealand) was the main roundabout for whaling and sealing in the Southern Ocean and vessels calling here came from all parts of the globe. The Chathams were a trading hub for New Zealand. For instance, early settlers in Canterbury often elected to do their shopping on the Chathams. Currently we are attempting to understand what appears to be LUS-type bee strain behaviour that can only have come from the Cape (South Africa). It is the third hive of this type that we have seen during the last three years. This hive is unstable with the resident bee population often in conflict with itself (some laying, others eating the eggs), perhaps because of the absence of a strong directive queen pheromone and/or signalling conflicts within the hive. The LUS worker bee may have well-developed ovaries and produce viable worker bee eggs, including drone eggs. Some worker bee eggs may be raised as queens, which may exit the hive to mate but have trouble navigating back to the hive or re-entering it. Two weeks ago, a virgin queen sent into this hive was immediately attacked and killed by the workers.
Tarahinau flowers. Photo: Michele Andersen.
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