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indexBee Foraging Skills Marred by Chilly Hives Separating the honey from the wax Beekeeping for medicinal purposes History of sculptured Beehives Recent developments: the example of the Bremer Roland Selection of honey for use on wounds Bees as Indicators of Environment Quality Commercial suburban beekeeping in Manukau and Auckland
Bee Foraging Skills Marred by Chilly HivesVariations in hive temperature during development can have a lasting effect on honey bees' communication and learning abilities, according to new research in PNAS. Bees keep hive temperatures consistently between 33 and 36 degrees Celsius, compensating for heat by bringing in water and for cold by vigorously contracting their muscles. To determine how temperature variations during development affect adult behavior, Jurgen Tautz and colleagues of University of Wurzburg raised groups of bee pupae in incubators held constant at either 32, 34.5, or 36 degrees Celsius. After reaching adulthood, all temperature-controlled bees appeared to behave normally inside the hive. However, differences emerged when the bees left the hive to forage. Many of the bees raised at 32 degrees actually never returned to the hive. The few that did return performed short, incomplete waggle dances, the series of movements that communicates food location to other bees. In contrast, bees raised at 36 degrees returned and performed normal waggle dances. Furthermore, when tested for a learned response to scent, bees raised in colder temperatures scored significantly lower than those raised at 36 degrees. These results suggest that colder temperatures during development may lead to lower learning and communication skills. Foraging appears to be more demanding of these skills, compared to housekeeping tasks inside the hive that may be better suited to bees with lesser abilities. "Behavioral performance in adult honey bees is influenced by the temperature experienced during their pupal development" by Jurgen Tautz, Sven Maier, Claudia Groh, Wolfgang Rossler, and Axel BrockmannOur qualified teacher and aparist team do interactive talks to schools and pre schools about bees and honey, either from the back of the truck or in your class room. We bring a (closed) live display hive, and frames of wax and a frame of honey for the children to try.
Some facts about bees:
Separating the honey from the wax
The wax can be used in your cooking, when making muffins replace the eggs and sugar with the honey soaked wax .Chicken is very nice if marinated in honey before cooking. Visit Bees On Line web site for honey recipes
Beekeeping for medicinal purposesI assume that the readers will be interested to learn that except two common ways of bees’ existence - wild life of bees in nature and commercial beekeeping, there is also different way of beekeeping - Beekeeping for medicinal purposes. For their practice, apitherapists need to have highly effective natural medications which they source directly from beehives. Honey is far from holding a leading position in the list of those medications. The most important are: bee stings, royal jelly, bee bread (not to be confused with bee pollen), propolis, unprocessed white wax, drone larvas, air from a hive etc. And even bee parasites are successfully used in curing human diseases. For instance, wax moth which causes so many troubles to beekeepers, is a valuable apitherapist’s weapon for fighting such dreadful diseases as tuberculosis, cancer, multiple sclerosis and many others. Modern technologies of commercial beekeeping tend to destroy many of those fragile components of bee products which contain healing properties critical for the Apitherapy. Unfortunately, even the technology known as “organic” is not quite acceptable for production of high-quality ingredients suitable for medicinal purposes. The best option would be to use wild bees, but this is practically not achievable as an apitherapist needs to have constant access to the beehive. Beekeeping for medicinal purposes excludes such practices as application of smoke or any chemicals, feeding sugar to the bees, frequent transportation of beehives from one spot to another, using electric irritation for bee venom collection and other similar technologies. The location of the beehives is critical too. The area should be clean, quiet and not too windy. A great variety of plants and flowing water (such as pure streams) must be available. It is not an easy task to provide all these. But that is not all. The frequent change of queens, recommended for the commercial beekeeping, is unacceptable in Apitherapy. The bees kept by an apitherapist must lead a happy life, and only then they will achieve sufficient immunity. Only those bees that have been changing naturally (without any interference from the beekeeper) during seven generations of their queens are considered to be healthy enough for medicinal purposes. From the point of view of the commercial beekeeping this way of keeping bees is wasteful and absolutely unprofitable. And that is true. This is why apitherapists who aim for their work to produce positive effects should take care of getting a few bee colonies, from which they will be sourcing medications for their patients. And this little apiary should be under the apitherapist’s direct control, ideally located beside his or her home. That is why I live in the spray-free rural zone, with no intensive farming or industrial production in the vicinity. The year 2006 is the 20th anniversary of my beekeeping practice. All these years I have applied bees’ secrets to strengthen the health of my patients. But those 20 years make only a moment in the history of the Science of Apitherapy, which originates from the times of Egyptian Pharaohs. By the way, historians consider Egyptian Pharaohs to be ones of the first apitherapists. Most of my victories over serious diseases I owe to my bees. Of course, my higher medical education helps me a lot as well as my big experience of work as a physician with official medicine. And, no doubt, I will never stop to appreciate the knowledge passed to me by my teacher, an amazing doctor – one of the first apitherapists in USSR, the colonel of medicine Boris Okhotskiy, who dedicated more than half of his life to Apitherapy and celebrates his 90th birthday this year. New Zealand provides wonderful opportunities for Apitherapy. For example, my colleagues have scientifically proved that the bee venom of local bees has multiple advantages over the bee venom produced by bees in other countries. My confidence in this has been lately proved by my success in treatment of my patients from Australia. New Zealand bees can work wonders. Our objective is to give them such opportunity, and this is where the need for medicinal beekeeping arises. Iryna KIRICHUK, Apitherapist Jan 2006
The Amazing BeeFrom the Wellington Beekeepers Association Inc. Monthly Newsletter - April 2005Beehives and bees were popular for coats of arms and often chosen by English business houses and towns to signify industry as the basis of their development and prosperity. Rudyard Kipling wrote: "A maiden in her glory Upon her wedding day Must tell her bees the story Or else they'll fly away" The poem, "The Bee Boys' Song", is based on a custom which originated in the Middle Ages and is still practised today. It refers to "telling the bees" - an especially important tradition when the master died. No one, after all was going to buy bees from the family of the dead man if the bees were likely to fly off looking for him shortly after. A practical solution to this was to tie a piece of the dead man's clothing to each of the hives, thereby tricking them into thinking that he was still alive.
DRONES:From the Wellington Beekeepers Association Inc Monthly Newsletter-April 2005The constant exchange of food and pheromones (scents) between bees keeps the hive functioning smoothly. As their name implies, workers do most of the work in the hive, such as depositing nectar into the honey cells. The nectar ripens into honey in a few days, after which the cell is capped. Drones (which can be distinguished from workers by their larger size and enormous eyes) get free board and meals. Their main contribution to hive life is to mate with the queen, an event which happens only once in each queens life.
Drone brood cells are larger than worker cells and are domed.
Cell size helps determine whether the queen will lay a fertilised egg
(producing a worker) or an unfertilised egg (producing a drone).
One of Nature’s riddles: each drone has a grandfather but no father,
grandsons but no sons! (courtesy of "The Amazing Bee"' written by Raewyn MacKenzie for the New Zealand Geographic, June 1989. Courtesy of Ivan Pederson.)
HONEY-THE GREAT CURE-ALL?It is found the mixture of honey and cinnamon cures most of the diseases.
Honey is produced in most of the countries of the world. Scientists of today also accept honey as a “Ram Ban”(very effective) Medicine for all kinds of diseases. Honey can be used without any side effects for any kind of diseases. Today’s science says that even though honey is sweet,if taken in the right dosage as a medicine, it does not harm diabetic patients. Weekly World News, a magazine in Canada, in its issue dated 17 January, 1995has given the following list of diseases that can be cured by honey and cinnamon as researched by western scientists.
HEART DISEASES: Make a paste of honey and cinnamon, apply on bread, chappati, or other bread, instead of jelly and jam and eat it regularly for breakfast. It reduces the cholesterol in the arteries and saves the patient from heart attack. Also those who already had an attack, if they do this process daily, are kept miles away from the next attack. Regular use of the above process relieves loss of breath and strengthens the heart beat. In America and Canada, various nursing homes have treated patients successfully and have found that as you age, the arteries and veins lose their flexibility and get clogged; honey and cinnamon revitalizes the arteries and veins.
BLADDER INFECTIONS: Take two tablespoons of cinnamon powder and one teaspoon of honey in a glass of lukewarm water and drink it. It destroys the germs in the bladder.
TOOTHACHE: Make a paste of one teaspoon of cinnamon powder and five teaspoons of honey and apply on the aching tooth. This may be applied three times a day until the tooth stops aching.
CHOLESTEROL: Two tablespoons of honey and three teaspoons of cinnamon powder mixted in 16 ounces of tea water, given to a cholesterol patient, was found to reduce the level of cholesterol in the body by 10% within 2 hours. As mentioned for arthritic patients, if taken 3 times a day, any chronic cholesterol is cured. As per information received in the said journal, pure honey taken with food daily relieves complaints of cholesterol.
(From an article sourced by John Burnet)
Beekeeping around the worldSculptured beehives: a revival of an old Tradition in GermanyBy Dorothea Bruckner (From ‘Bee World” March 2005 Vol. 86 No 1)
History of sculptured BeehivesIn wooded areas of Europe people went into the forest to collect honey from wild honeybees living in hollow tree trucks. Later this developed in a tradition of special forest beekeeping (called Zeidlerei in Germany). It is thought that the forest beekeeping later turned into garden beekeeping when beekeepers took pieces of tree trunk with the bees inside home to their private gardens. There, such wooden beehives (Klotzbeuten in German) were later decorated around the entrance hole with simple decorations followed by more elaborate decorations. Often these were in the form of human faces, with the mouth as the entrance hole. From these beginnings full figures evolved (called Figurenbeuten in German). These sculptures were often kept among normal hives as individual decorative elements in a private bee yard. One famous exception is the Zwolfapostelstand in Silesia in which 12 sculptured figures were united in one bee yard (around 1770). Only five of these sculptures remain and are kept in museums today. The 18th century was the high time for these sculptured beehives in Germany, but the tradition only lasted till the end of the 19th century. Now in the 20th and 21st centuries we are experiencing a revival of this old tradition.
Recent developments: the example of the Bremer RolandIn the year 2004 Roland of Bremen, a stature of a knight (5 m in height) in the marketplace of Bremen, was chosen to be a UNESCO cultural heritage site together with the town hall. This was in the year of the 600th birthday of the Roland stature. This stone sculpture stands symbolically for the free market of the Hansestadt Bremen and for justice of trade among merchants in the marketplace. For his symbolic task he holds an upright sword, he wears gloves and his girdle is decorated with a buckle that carries 10 roses and an angle playing the lute.
The year of the birthday was celebrated in Bremen with a festival. This was the reason why the Forschungsstelle fur Bienenkunde of the University of Bremen ordered a wooden Roland to be made as a beehive (called Figurenbeute) from a professional sculpturer specializing in beehive carving. Birgit Jonsson sculptured a stature from a 3 m piece of an oak tree, weighing one tonne. The sculpture is not an identical copy of the Bremer Roland stature, but a creative piece of art. The entrance holes for th e bees are in the buckle: the roses offered themselves as an ideal place for them. The bees build their combs without frames in a cavity cut into the trunk. This cavity is closed by a window to make it an observation hive for visitors. A wooden door closes the window, such that the trunk remains untouched in its outer natural form. The sculpturing took place in public in a park next to the University of Bremen, where the tree had grown for 120 years and suffered winter storm damage. The sculptures beehive was permanently placed in the park by fixing it to a concrete base. The stature is supplemented by an information plaque about the history of wooden sculptures as beehives. In the summer months guided tours will be offered to explain beehive sculpturing, beekeeping and ecological aspects o of bees in the environment.
Prospects for the futureSeveral sculptured beehives have been produced recently by Birgit Jonsson: animals such as bears, cows and pigs as well as historical persons such as a duchess, a hero (Siegfried) and others. The idea is, that the public should become aware of beekeeping, honey bees and ecological systems in general. The sculpture will help to bring honey bees to the mind of people in the city, it will help to explain the ecological interactions of bees and flowers in cities to children, students and the public. It is easily possible to link regional history to beekeeping by choosing a well-known personality from the region’s historical background. The public can then interact with the artist during the sculpturing process. The sculpture with the beehive inside will be a ‘living sculpture’ which remains highly attractive. Thus art helps beekeeping and combines it in an attractive way with the natural material of wood, promoting discussions on aspects such as wild beehives in trees, honey production in cities today, the relationship between bees and flowers in the city parks compared to agricultural land etc. I would like to emphasize the importance of gaining public interest in beekeeping today, and that it is easy to promote such interest by wooden sculpture with a beehive inside.
Readings of interest:The Monk and the honey bee: www.apiservices.com/articles/us/adam.htm History-Bee Hives: http://outdoorplace.org/beekeeping/history1.htm Silent Spring in Noerthen Europe By Borje Svensson www.beekeeping.com/intoxications/silent_spring.htm
Selection of honey for use on woundsby Dr Peter MahlanWaikato Honey Research UnitHoney is one of the oldest known medicines that has continued to be used up to present times in folk-medicine. Its use has been "rediscovered" in later times by the medical profession, especially for dressingwounds. The numerous reports of the effectiveness of honey in wound management, including reports of several randomised controlled trials, have recently been reviewed, rapid clearance of infection from the treated wounds being a commonly recorded observation.In almost all of these reports honey is referred to generically, there being no indication given of any awareness of the variability that generally is found in natural products. Yet the ancient physicians were aware of differences in the therapeutic value of the honeys available to them: Aristotle (384-322 BC), discussing differences in honeys, referred to pale honey being "good as a salve for sore eyes and wounds"; and Dioscorides (c.50 AD) stated that a pale yellow honey from Attica was the best, being "good for all rotten and hollow ulcers".Any honey can be expected to suppress infection in wounds because of its high sugar content, but dressings of sugar on a wound have to be changed more frequently than honey dressings do to maintain a concentration of sugar that is inhibitory to bacteria, as honey has additional antibacterial components. Since microbiological studies have shown more than one hundred-fold differences in the potency of the antibacterial activity of various honey, best results would be expected if a honey with a high level of antibacterial activity were used in the management of infected wounds.Other therapeutic properties of honey besides its antibacterial activity are also likely to vary. An anti-inflammatoryaction and a stimulatory effect on growth of new blood capillaries and on the growth of granulation tissue and epithelial cells have been observed clinically and in histological studies.The components responsible for these effects have not been identified, but the anti-inflammatory action may be due to antioxidants, the level of which varies in honey. The stimulation of tissue growth may be due to the supply of nutrients by honey, as nutrification of wounds is known to hasten the healing process: the level of the wide range of micronutrients that occur in honey also varies.Until research is carried out to ascertain the components of honeyresponsible for all of its therapeuticeffects it will not be possible to fully standardise honey to obtain optimal effectiveness in wound management. However, where an antiseptic wound dressing is required then standardisation for this effect is possible. Several brands of honey with standardised levels of antibacterial activity are commercially available in Australia and New Zealand, but even where these are not available it is possible to assay the level of antibacterial activity of locally available honey by a simple procedure in a microbiology laboratory.The antibacterial activity of honey is due primarily to hydrogen peroxide generated by the action of an enzyme that the bees add to the nectar, but there are some floral sources that provide additional antibacterial components. The body tissues and serum contain an enzyme, catalase, that breaks down hydrogen peroxide - how much of the honey antibacterial activity is lost through this is not known. The antibacterial components that come from the nectar are not broken down by this enzyme. Until comparative clinical trials are carried out to determine which type of antibacterial activity is the more effective, it may be best to use manuka honey, as this contains hydrogen peroxide activity as well as the component that comes from the nectar.Because the enzyme in honey that produces hydrogen peroxide is destroyed by heating and exposure to light, unpasteurised honey should be used, and it should be stored in a cool place and protected from light. If it is necessary to warm honey to liquefy it, it should be heated to no more than 37°C. If it is considered necessary to sterilise honey, this can be done by gamma-irradiation without loss of antibacterial activity. Gamma-irradiated manuka honey is available commercially. (In none of the clinical reports of use of honey on wounds was the honey used sterilised. No case of infection resulting from the use of honey has been reported.) Taken from Hive lights August 2004 Vol 17#3Bees as Indicators of Environment QualityHeather Clay National Coordinator Canadian Honey CouncilThere have been suggestions over the years to use bees as indications of environmental quality. Most recently, May 3 2004, the Council of State Governments and US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) convened a meeting to determine if bees can be useful indicators of ecosystem conditions. The Environmental Monitoring Assessment Program (EMAP) is well established in USA but their key species are fish, frogs and aquatic organisms. The question is can honeybees provide the necessary qualities needed for an indicator species. Dr Jerry Bromenshenk, research professor with the Division of Biological Sciences at the University of Montana, believes that bees are an ideal species for detecting environmental problems.
Jerry says. “Not only are bees affected by environmental pollutants, but they bring back detrimental chemicals to their colonies. Bees are like flying dust mops. Wherever they go, they pick up dust, airborne chemicals, and other samples. If it’s out there, they’ll find it and bring it back”. Bees are foraging over large areas and in the process, they pick up minute particles of pollutants on their body and in the nectar and pollen they collect. With modern technology it is possible to detect a wide spectrum of chemicals, including volatiles, pesticides and heavy metals that may be collected by the bees. The environment within a mile of the hive can be mapped for contaminants. Jerry says “What we’d like to see is an emphasis not on, is it there, but is it there in a form that’s available to living organisms and is there in harmful amounts?” His team has successfully demonstrated that it is possible to train bees to detect chemicals in the environment, like TNT from landmines. This ongoing work is not only monitors the detection of trace chemicals but also uses high tech instrumentation to detect subtle changes in bee flight or fanning behaviour.
Monitoring bee colonies electronically can form an early warning system for environmental issues. Bees are like mine canaries that provide early warnings of potential air problems. Their behaviour may, indicate a problem before the pollutant affecting them becomes toxic to humans. In the Peace River area of northern Alberta there has been concern that sour gas (also called hydrogen sulphide, H2S, or rotten egg gas) affects the health of humans and livestock. Environmentalists like to late Henry Pirker, an apiarist, in Debolt, Alberta have observed the relationship between sour gas and its effect on bee and plant growth. In 1998 Henry reported to the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Network (EMAN) symposium in Quebec that “Unusual nectar gathering patterns of honey bees and heavy winter mortality have drawn attention to the legumes which provide the basis for the world renowned Peace Country honey industry. Crops per colony were reduced by as much as 75 per cent, while wintering losses more then tripled threatening the sustainability of the industry and pollination of crops dependent on it. Nectar flow patterns shifted from the main flow in early Summer to late flows in August or September from second growth alfalfa.
Sampling of 27 fields found nitrogen fixation in alfalfa and red clovers lacking in areas downwind from major oil and sour gas flaring facilities. These areas coincided with areas of reduced crops from the main nectar flow, and severe forest damage. Synergistic interaction of ozone and sulphur compounds appears to be responsible for the drastic reduction of the early season nectar flow when ozone levels are at their highest. Reduced ozone levels in the fall permit a late, but due to variable weather of the advancing season, uncertain flow from alfalfa. The late flow from alfalfa plants, which are poor pollen providers, stimulates heavy brood rearing, but fails to provide the necessary pollen/protein nourishment t hat is responsible for longevity and winter survival.”
Henry died in 2003 but his work in drawing attention to the effect of air quality on bee mortality, loss of honey and alfalfa production has been acknowledged by the Peace Airshed Zone Association. A new air monitoring station was unveiled at Grand Prairie Alberta in March 2004, dedicated to his memory. The new station will continuously monitor Grand Prairie’s air quality by measuring concentrations of five pollutants and providing an Air Quality index.
Dr Ken Lukowiak, Calgary Brain Institute Faculy of Medicine, University of Calgary has found a remarkable effect of sour gas on Lymnaea (snails). His experiment was designed to test the learning and memory of snails in clean water and water with various levels of hydrogen sulphide. The snails that were exposed to hydrogen sulphide were severely impaired in learning ability and memory. Evidence of the neuron effect was seen at concentrations as low as 10 ppm hydrogen sulphide. New tasks took longer to learn and the snails could not retain the memory for a long term. Dr Lukowiak says that the neurotransmitter response is the same in all invertebrates, it only varies in the dose response rates. He cautions that levels of sour may be safe on their own but in conjunction with other toxins the effect may be compounded. He considers that there is no reason to believe that honeybees would not be affected by a rise in sour gas emissions.
Henry Pirker reported that bees flew over the blooming alfalfa to other plants at some distance. He surmised that the nectar production had been effected by poor condition of the alfalfa. This is probably true but perhaps the issue is complicated by the exposure of bees to sour gas emissions. The work done by Lukowaik suggests that learning ability and impaired memory retention could be a factor. Bees that were affected by sour gas may have lost their new memory of alfalfa flowers by the time they returned to the hive and thus could not communicate the location of nectar. As more research is done it is clear that bees can be extremely useful indicators of environment quality. There have been suggestions over the years to use bees as indicators of environmental quality. Most recently, May 3 2004, the council of State Governments and US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) convened a meeting in Newport Rhode Island to determine if bees can be useful indicators of ecosystem conditions. The Canadian Honey Council was invited to represent the Canadian bee industry at the meeting.
Bromenshenk,J,J., G.C.Smith, and V.J. Watson. 1995. Assessing Ecological Risks in Terrestrial Systems with Honey Bees. In:Biomonitiors and Biomarkers as Indicators of Environmental Change, F.M. Butterworth, ed Plenum Press, New York. Chapter2:9-30. Pirker, H.J. 1998. Domino Effect of Pollution From Sour Gas Fields: Failing Legume Nodulation And The Honey Industry. Fourth National Science Meeting. Ecological Monitoring And Assessment Network. January 21-24, 1998. Pointe-Au-Pic/La Malbaie, Quebec. Rosenegger, D., S. Roth and K. Lukowaiak. 2004. Learning and memory in lymnaea are negticely altered by acute low-level concentrations of Hydrogen Sulphide. J.Exp.Biol. 207:2621-2630
How the world sees our waxDear Beekeepers,
I have just returned from a trip to Germany and have gained valueable information from various people in the beekeeping industry which I would like to share. I have met Kieweg, the president of a local beeclub in Northern Bavaria, who operates one of only 2 wax melting plants in Germany that produces chemical free wax foundations. He also has 150 hives spread all over Southern Germany. Presently, his only source of clean wax comes from New Zealand. He says, that wax from almost all other countries it too poluted with either pesticides, insecticides, fungicides, antibiotics and varroacides to qualify. He showed me chemical analysis documents of his lab which lists over 100 chemicals they test for. So far NZ wax is still low in chemicals but with the heavy use of Fluvalinates (Apistan) and Flumethrin (Bayvarol) and even Thymol-based products like Apiguard and Apivar Life, the analysis shows traces of these varroacides. So far the figures are under 1mg/kg (ppm) but already between 0.2 and 0.5 ppm. From 1.0 ppm onwards varroacides will contaminate wax and honey, propolis and gelee royal. Over time, and it is probably only a matter of a few years, levels of 1.0 ppm will have been reached. In Germany, as with almost all other European countries, almost all honey and wax is contaminated well above over the 1.0 ppm mark. From levels of 7.0 ppm honey and its products are considered toxic waste and have to be discarded as such and it is not seldom that this happens. Honey products from China are even contaminated with antibiotics. They use antibiotics for AFB and EFB. There was an import stop of Chinese honey into the EU until 2004, but under increased pressure from China, this has been lifted to the dismay of EU beekeepers. By the way, most European countries produce only 20 % of its demand, 80 % is imported. There is very cheap and low quality honey on the market form South America (Argentina) and China. There is a huge awakening in Europe among beekeepers to remove all old contaminated wax combs and start afresh with chemical free wax foundations. This is the reason why NZ wax is in such demand. Kieweg cannot meet the demand. Regarding varroa control, it is interesting to hear that thymol based products (in their present form) are no longer used in Germany because it causes the wax and honey to smell after an application over a longer period of time, also because it is rather costly. Mr. Kieweg exclusively uses oxalic acid on his 150 hives. Formic acid and oxalic acid do not show traces in the chemical analysis. Oxalic acid sticks to the fine hairs of the bee's body surface and therefore also to the varroa mites. However, combs with larvae have to be removed before treatment. He puts them into a seperate box, leaves them until hatched, requeens them at the same time and than treats these also with oxalic acid. Mr. Kieweg tells me that it takes 3 minutes per hive to treat with oxalic acid which he adminsters with a syringe inbetween the combs. I have also attended a meeting by another club at which they exclusively spoke about treatment with formic acid. Again, these beekeepers have realised that they have to stop using chemicals. They showed how to administer Formic Acid either by Liebig Dispenser, sponge (which is really easy) or the Nassenheider device. With all methods one has to observe the quantities of the acid used. I have detailed information both on oxalic and formic acid if anyone is interested. Another highly interesting research goes into the trials of using smaller cell-size foundations, 4.9 mm instead of the usual 5.4 mm. One knows that some varroa resistant bees (African) build smaller cells and the varroa does not affect them. At least one research institute does trials and hopefully some scientific papers will be issued, soon. Additionally, the combs carry 28 % more bees and therefore more honey is produced. New Zealand is still extremely fortunate to have uncontaminated honey and wax and should actively and seriously preserve this situation which in reality means the avoidance of chemical varroacides. We as small hobby beekeepers can easily switch from the usage of i.e. Apistan to formic acid. It is a bit more labour intensive, but we are not here to make big profits. During May I have very successfully used Formic Acid on my 2 hives with the Liebig Dispenser. My then 2-week-old queen did not mind it at all. New Zealand exports most of its honey, a lot of it to Germany. However, while visiting there I have not come across any specially labelled Green, Clean New Zealand Honey. It is probably mixed together by the importer with other but inferior honey from other countries and sold under a German brand name. One wonders whether New Zealand should set up a NZ Marketing Board for Honey as they did very successfully with Apples and Kiwifruit. Top prices could be achieved by selling and marketing it as a superior product - as long as we can keep those chemicals down. Ulrike Stephan
Form The New Zealand BeeKeeperby Kerry F McCurdy Commercial suburban beekeeping in Manukau and Auckland this month. (August 2005)A landscape of volcanic craters, old suburbs, frost free micro climates and the people do keep city beekeeping interesting. Endless tree and flower species thrive here with useful new weeds arriving periodically including tall mangroves, inhabiting our many tidal inlets and moth plant.
For the short term at least the absence of sick bee hives in the community is a blessing. Largely due to the effects of varroa mites and wax moth, the surviving breed of hobbyists seem like good keen beekeepers, many female.
We provide full year “serviced rental hives” with home honey to sweeten the deal. We do teach as we service hives and green thumb people motivated to beekeeping by the need for bees rather than love of bees, remain customers and let us do our thing. We monitor beginner beekeepers for one further year, by phone, after helping them get started.
Espresso coffee breaks between individual hive sites adds to costs somewhat, though we manage. It is Varroa that is the monster here, thriving in our humid subtropical climate.
Brood and bee activity is non stop, Karaka poisoning a major while having Auckland’s International Airport close by plus thousands of incoming shipping containers it follows that hives professionally operated are safest.
Commercial bees help Auckland’s fruit and flora a lot. According to Einstein 4 years without bees and our ecology would collapse.” No bees in my trees”, statements come to us regularly at promotions or shows.
Auckland’s surrounding country regions are diverse in climate and character. Being caught in traffic happens here so sticking to your side of town keeps things simple.
Bringing hives up to speed for early plum pollination and splitting is on the work list this month. We have made it through till now without having to feed but when we start swarm control being high priority for Carnica blood lines to limit varroa’s ability to buildup in feral colonies.
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