37
NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPER, FEBRUARY 2017
PERSEVERE, PREPARE AND PROTECT ABOUT THE APIARY
Frank Lindsay, Life Member
I suppose it had to happen. After a number of good production years and decent conditions this spring, summer has been very trying for the bees in my area. Cold, wet, windy conditions have restricted bee activity and therefore their build-up.
Bees at the hive entrance. Different pollens coming in suggest good nutrition: clover produces grey pollen.
At home near Wellington, I started a number of nucs that usually build up well before I move them away. However, this season has been different. A wet October spoilt early queen raising and matings; yet we had prolific swarming. During November, we had an extended period of dearth and I lost three growing hives to starvation. This has never happened to me before. Nucs established during November expanded to a couple of frames of brood but the new emerging bees were all small, indicating poor nutrition. It’s uncertain how long these bees will live and whether they will they be able to nurse the next generation, but I’ll find out when the
next cycle of brood emerges. These nucs had pollen around the brood, but perhaps not enough, and the quality might have been poor. As I write this in mid-January, lots of dark-grey clover pollen is coming in, which should help. December was colder than normal, but at least the weather delayed some of the major nectar flows. Pōhutukawa has had a long extended flowering after starting three weeks late. Up the Wellington coast, farmers are on their second cut of silage and clover is flowering in those paddocks that haven’t been cut. Hives that swarmed earlier have now built up and are swarming again with the stop–start weather. We have
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs