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NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPER, MAY 2017
BEEKEEPERS AT THE FRONT LINE OF SURVEILLANCE ABOUT THE APIARY
Frank Lindsay, Life Member
The season is winding down. Nights are getting colder and bee activity is starting to be restricted to the warmer parts of the day. This long, warm autumn has allowed the few nectar and pollen sources to continue flowering.
I have tried washing out frames but this wasn’t very successful unless I got them completely clean. I have found it’s better to add clean, drawn frames to any hives that survive and put the dirty honey supers on top to be robbed out. I also add frames of brood because all open brood in the hive will have been destroyed. If you don’t add more brood, it’s likely that the hive will dwindle as the older bees die off during winter. Varroa treatments Most will be removing their miticide treatments put in during February but how do you know if the treatment has been successful? It’s important that all beekeepers monitor hives two weeks after the completion of the treatment. Resistant mites are spreading, helped by migrating beekeepers. Unless you monitor you won’t know: you are only making an assumption. I was lucky to be given an alcohol washer while in Canada. They are fairly easy to make. All that is required is two 500-gram plastic honey jars, a small round of 8 mesh (eight mesh to the inch), a blade knife and a soldering iron. You may be able to get a small amount of 8 mesh off an old pollen trap. Cut out the tops of the plastic lids, leaving about three millimetres of plastic around the edge to give the lid some strength. Cut the mesh so it’s a bit smaller than the outside diameter of the jar lid. Then, using a soldering iron (after placing the mesh between the lids), melt the plastic around the edges (a little at a time so it fuses together). Some beekeepers may be able to go to a firm that does plastic welding (repairs plastic car bumpers), and they may be able to do it for you. I use methylated spirits watered down 50/50.
Fennel and lacebark are still flowering in the Wellington region, with lots of ornamentals in the city. There is brood in the hives but this is reducing, and some older queens will soon stop laying if there’s nothing coming in. In early April, wasps started hanging around hives in numbers, so nectar sources must be getting scarce. Some beekeepers are putting out Vespex® but the wasps are not seriously getting into it, preferring nectar that has, up until recently, been provided by the giant willow aphid. These wasps soon learn to just walk into hives and take what they want. Smaller hives should have robbing screens. Restrict the entrances of bigger hives. I’m also putting out more baits to knock out the mice and rats around the apiaries. A few dollars in baits can save having a hundred dollars of damage if they get into a hive. A lucky escape The Wellington region was lucky to miss the rain that the two recent cyclones deluged on the upper half of the North Island. These floods have had adverse consequences for beekeepers as well as farmers. Hives had been placed where farmers hadn’t seen flooding before; yet so intense was the rain in some areas that apparently safe areas flooded, causing beehive losses. The only thing that can sometimes mitigate these losses is good communications with our farmers, and perhaps replacing stones on hives with straps so that the hives will float. It can be quite surprising that capped brood can still be alive if floodwaters recede quickly. The bees will try and clean up the comb around the brood nest and warm it up, but often you have lost most of the bees so their efforts are minimal. They haven’t a chance of cleaning all frames and once the mud starts to dry, the bees will refuse to use the combs.
Sugar shake bottle at left, alcohol washer in the middle, alcohol on the right. Photo: Frank Lindsay.
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