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NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPER, NOVEMBER 2016
the new super. As more nectar comes in, spread the frames containing nectar among the foundation frames and put a couple of foundation frames on the outside of the brood nest in the second box to get them drawn out. Don’t put foundation frames in the bottom super, as the bees won’t draw it out all the way to the bottom because of the cold and will sometimes chew holes in wax foundation sheets. In order for bees to draw frames out, conditions have to be warm, a nectar flow on and the hive must have surplus bees. Bees will also want to make drones, so give them a half frame without wax so they can produce drone brood. If the bees have enough drone brood, they will draw out all your foundation frames with worker brood, which is far more beneficial to your beekeeping and can make varroa control easier. Hives should be going into the flow with a minimum of six full-depth frames of capped brood with bees covering at least two full-depth boxes of frames Hives should be going into the flow with a minimum of six full-depth frames of capped brood with bees covering at least two full- depth boxes of frames (three if you use three- quarter-depth boxes). In some areas with shorter flows, it’s best that hives are three full- depth boxes high and full of bees. Six frames of brood will produce about 25,000 bees that will emerge from the capped frames, which will take the place of the nurse bees so they
Cabbage tree (cordyline australis)
get hungry. If this happens, 21 days later there will be no new bees to collect nectar.
can get out and start foraging. You want as many bees as possible into the air gathering nectar. Smaller colonies can be manipulated through Demareeing to release nurse bees into the air. Varroa strips have to be out of the hives before the flow starts. Apivar® has to be out two weeks ahead of the flow. Check varroa levels two weeks later with a sugar shake or an alcohol wash. Fewer mites means more honey produced. During this month, pastoral areas could suffer a dearth of nectar and pollen where nothing flowers between willow/dandelion flowering and clover flowering. Hives may need to be fed pollen supplement and sugar syrup if there is nothing available so there isn’t a break in brood rearing. If nothing is coming into the hive, the bees will stop feeding the queen and she will stop laying eggs or the bees will start eating the eggs, then small larvae as the bees
Planning ahead If you can, plan to get the first lot of capped frames off before the end of December so you don’t have to test for tutin in the honey. If you take it off as it’s capped you will taste the different honeys produced from different sources as they flower. If you take it all off late in the season, you will get a blend of what was produced through the season. All that the small beekeeper requires is a couple of deep plastic bins that fit into each other, leaving a 100-millimetre gap between the bottoms of each. Drill hundreds of five- millimetre holes in the bottom of one tub so that it holds the wax cappings but allows liquid honey to slowly pass through. I haven’t seen anything in the catalogues produced by New Zealand beekeeping supply companies but you can see what I mean by looking on the Mann Lake website: www.mannlakeltd.com/ beekeeping-supplies/product/HH-231.html I have used two bins, one that is three quarters of the depth of the lower bin to good effect. These had plastic lids, making it easy to seal at the end of the day so the honey drained overnight. Cappings can be returned to the hives (do this after dark so the bees don’t cause a nuisance) and put in a top feeder to clean out. Once dry, the wax can be melted into blocks and stored. Put it together with other beekeepers’ wax and get it refined back into foundation again. Extracting equipment and tips about frames
White clover Photos: Frank Lindsay.
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