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NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPER, MARCH 2017
Talk to your farmers about planting along fence lines, in boggy gullies and along roadside banks. Plant natives like five finger, cabbage tree and flax. Upright rosemary, camellias (those with the big heads full of stamens), ceanothus and banksias are good autumn and winter sources. In Australia, beekeepers on the New South Wales coast produce a winter crop from banksia; however, they have many varieties growing close to the coast. Although banksia is not a native plant, it can also provide pollen and nectar for our native birds during winter. Other plants like hawthorn and Spanish heath (which flower in winter) are really good sources, but I’m not promoting the distribution of weeds. Check your regional council’s pest plants list to see what you shouldn’t plant. One can purchase a largish tree for about the cost of a bag of pollen supplement: it’s a one-off cost that will pay dividends for years to come. If you can’t afford it this year, start taking cuttings and planting them in old plastic 10-litre paint pots at home and water them to get established. Some nurseries have small stocks ready to plant out for a modest cost. I found if I sprayed the willows with sulphur, it controlled giant willow aphids. Preparing hives for winter Close down entrances to allow your bees to better defend themselves against robbers. Replace any woodware that may rot or otherwise not stand up to the rigours of beekeeping next year. A good queen is essential—you need one with a good laying pattern and is free of diseases and viruses. Recently while checking mesh bottom board slides for varroa mites, I found three hives producing a lot of chalkbrood. I’ll start by replacing the queens (and maybe some of the brood comb) to reduce the spore load in the hives. Some bees are just more susceptible to chalkbrood and sacbrood than others. Have you checked or sent bees away to determine nosema levels in your hives? Bees with high levels of nosema don’t live as long and can’t feed as well, while queens with nosema are often superseded. In my hives the honey has ‘chimneyed up’ (i.e., the honey is only in the middle frames of the supers). Sort through the frames and move the honey in the hives down into and just above the brood nest. Then feed to get the bees to store the syrup in and around the brood nest to compact it down further. Most of my nucs are getting short of honey and will need feeding. This puts them in danger of being robbed by strong hives nearby. Put on robbing screens. You may not have time to make proper ones now (it’s a winter job), so a simple alternative is to staple a square of fly screen loosely over the entrance. Pinch one side slightly to create a side exit away from the main entrance before stapling the final side in place. It’s a good idea to have these screens permanently in place on nucs, as robbing can be very subtle and unnoticed by most of us. Some screens have a double mesh to stop the bees on the outside begging nectar from bees on the inside of the screen. (Make the screens wide enough apart so their probosci can’t touch.) I also put out mice baits in plastic bottles under several pallets to reduce rodent levels before winter. If the plastic bottle is moved a metre or more on your next visit, it means you have rats. They can consume a couple of baits in a night but the outcome is not so pleasant for them; still, this is better than them chewing through your woodware during winter to get at the honey and bees.
A wasp collecting nectar from a fennel flower. Photos: Frank Lindsay.
Things to do this month Remove all comb honey frames. Store away and protect them from wax moth. Remove and extract surplus honey—those frames that are not fully capped should be shaken to make sure the honey is dry. Otherwise, leave it for the bees or dry it further in the honey house using fans and a dehumidifier (although those in drought on the east coast of both islands may find this unnecessary). Don’t forget to do an AFB check before removing any honey. If bees are robbing, mark the supers and check the hives once the honey is off. Return any honey supers to diseased hives and burn them. Requeen hives. Now is probably the last opportunity to get queens mated while it’s still warm and there are drones about. Queen producers should also have mated queens on hand if required. In some areas, it’s time to winter down hives. Replace any woodware that requires attention. Start feeding hives that are easy to lift the back off the stand when hefted. Keep an eye out for wasps, although on the west coast of both islands, wasps have had just as hard of a time with the weather as our bees. Elsewhere, wasp nests have grown well and poisoning them may save a few hives from robbing. Close entrances down so the bees are better able to defend the hives against robbers and to stop mice getting into your hives. Monitor mite levels when miticide treatments have been completed. Results with organic treatments can differ from hive to hive.
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