Too Busy with Bees and Other Things

One more Beekeeping Workshop coming up – the last one for this Season.April 14 – let me know if you are interested – Max.

I never got around to sending out a SUMMER NEWSLETTER – sorry about this. There are a number of reasons for this:

- Too busy with bees and other things

-Changes in the office – I’m on my own now. Simply an economic necessity.

You will see that the photos are gone for now. I’m no good with computers and have no idea how to insert photos. I hope that you find the information useful and I would appreciate your stories and suggestions.

Summer’s gone

The Summer has gone and it has been a mixed season but with a lot of promise ahead.

We had an exceptional flow very soon after we had some good rain. It was really only two weeks from the time we had rain to when the flow came. Plants seem to recover so fast with warm temperatures. The Brush Box had budded very heavily and I expected a bumper crop of it but we had some rain at the “ wrong time” and Brush Box was a disappointment.

Other plants filled the gap and we went from no honey to plenty. Good to see the hives recovering after a very long dry spell.

We had flow after flow until about Christmas. It allowed me to do many splits – from some exceptional hives I took 4 splits. Some of the resulting nuc’s turned into exceptional hives in a very short time.

We always have a lull in flowering after Christmas and I generally stop splits in mid - January, give or take a few weeks. This year I did one last batch and they have been slow. These nuc’s will be ready to roll on come next Spring.

We had little rain for most of Summer until February. We made up for it in the last week or so of Summer with excellent and abundant rain which will be great looking ahead.

We would like some sunny weather going into Autumn but will not say “ no” to some occasional good, gentle rain.

Promising prospect for Autumn, Winter

A lot of Gum’s are budding at the moment.

E grandis is budding heavily and should flower in Autumn. Grey Gums also look promising. Both are not exceptional bee trees but in a good year will contribute good pollen and some honey. They will keep the hives kicking along. The Blue Gum ( Etereticornis is budding heavily as it often does around here. It is one of the most common Eucalypts around here. Often it look promising but turns out to be disappointing. It flowers here in Winter – if the weather is sunny we can get a flow – wait and see.

God soil moisture does mean that our ground flora will contribute pollen and honey for our bees - think Cobblers pegs!

If the rain keeps coming it will also delay any frost and I would not expect any early frosts here.

Too early to know what winter will bring…but the current great soil moisture is a pre-requisite for a good Clover flow in late Winter/Early Spring. It is looking much better than 12 months ago or two years ago. To get a good flow of any plant all the conditions need to line up – good soil moisture this time of the year is simply the start

Nuc’s

I was very late starting to make splits. Spring/Early Summer was simply too dry.

Too make successful splits/Nuc’s it is essential to have access to well mated queens. If there is no food around or the weather is not suitable ( too dry, too wet, too cold…) the queens will not successfully mate.

Most of queens this season came again from Barry and Cherryl( andLeisha) at Glasshouse. I made-up some nuc’s with my own queens too.

I think I had one queen which failed – all others did well.

This year all the nuc’s I sold where sold in new Hoop Pine nuc boxes. This does increase the cost but it also means no returns-no clean-up and less work and nil risk to bring back a disease.

Demand for nuc’s again was well over what I can supply.

Many would like nuc’s early in the season but there needs to be a good population of drones for queens to mate and there were no drones here until well into September.

Anybody who can supply nuc’s to the Southern market in September would have a great business! It would have to be somebody further north than us – maybe Rockhampton?

Anybody?

I made an interesting observation with the last batch of nuc’s.

I made-up 8 5 frame nuc’s/ All got 3 capped frames of brood.

As always I moved them up the valley, away from the mother hives.

I returned them to home about a week later and there where a good number of field bees active – all pretty normal.

I went overseas for a few weeks and when I got back I checked all the boxes.

While I was away the weather has been very hot and we also had some storms. Not un-usual for this time of the year but the heat apparently was quite exceptional.

This is what I observed (pretty evenly on all nuc’s)

-The population was quite good – about normal for a 5 framenuc.

-There was some older capped brood, all nice and healthy

-A very small area of recently capped brood and not a lot of brood at the larval stage

-A lot of eggs and very young brood

I believe that the queen went on a holiday while it was very hot or a severe storm killed some eggs a few weeks ago. It has happened to me here before.

Has anybody else made a similar observations?

A few weekslaterafter nearly a week of wet weather the nuc’s look strong and normal. It just took them some time to recover.

Autumn work in the beehouse

I do hope that we will be able to bring in some more honey. The week with very hot weather and the week with a lot of rain have put hives back. If we can look forward to some sunny weather there is a good chance that another flow could kick-in. It often does in our part of Queensland.

If you are lucky enough to harvest more honey make sure that you are think of the bees first and leave plenty of stores for them. It is counterproductive to over-harvest only to find that you need to feed your bees a few months later.

It is not too early to start thinking what you want to do with your bees next season.

Do you want to expand? You better plan to purchase more equipment.

Keep the grass down around your hives.

Keep a close eye on SHB – they don’t seem to ever rest here. Clean trap, replace DE

It is too late now to replace old foundation with new.

You may like to reduce entrance with as the temperatures are getting lower.

Remove and store (away from wax moths and SHB) any surplus supers.

Laying workers

It does not happen often but it does happen – a hive with Laying Workers (LW)

It happened to me again very recently.

The hive was a very strong one, one marked for a split as the bees had been very productive ( lots of honey) , quiet and clean.

When I lifted the honey super there was plenty of honey but there where Drone Brood larvae on both sides of the queen excluder – something is wrong.

Lifting a frame out and it is obvious that there is no Worker Brood but only Drone Brood – 100% a LW hive – well, not quite 100% as it would be possible that the queen ran out of sperm and was only able to lay un-fertile eggs. Possible but not very likely.

There are a few ideas about how to go about an get rid of the LW. I have experience with only one method which ( probably just luck) has in both cases worked for me.

Here it goes:

As I was making splits I did have a spare , mated queen.

I took every frame from this hive and shook all the bees off a few metres away from the hive. The idea is that LW are heavier and will not be able to fly back to the hive. The theory goes that with the LW missing, the hive would accept a new queen.

I gave the hive an hour or so and then introduced a caged queen.

Checking a week later showed that the queen was alive.

Checking another few weeks later showed the queen alive and a poor pattern of worker brood.

Now, this may not be the end of the story. It is possible that the queen is a dud and will be replaced or the pattern may well will improve over the next few weeks or come Spring.

Something to keep an eye on but there is definitely no LW in this hive anymore.

Asian Bees

My friend Nharn in Cambodia is as enthusiastic about bees as I’m.

A couple of years back we took a nuc box and frame over to just see if the Asian Bees would take to it.

The story goes that Asian Bees do not stay in a hive but form their combs on branches.

It was thus interesting to the bees INSIDE the wooden box. It will be interesting to see if they stay.

Bees wax

The price of Wax Foundation keeps going up – if you can get it, that is. A lot of professional beekeepers have long switched to plastic foundation ( cost is just one reason) and I would guess that soon amateur beekeepers will also make the switch. We here, old-fashioned as we are, will stick to wax.

The price is driven by a shortage.Europe and the US have Varro and can not buy clean wax. The cosmetics industries are after clean Beeswax and they can afford to pay a higher price to what we Beekeepers can pay.

Made –up bee equipment

I assemble frames, Bottom Boards, Supers and lids for people who are too busy to do this type of work.

In Autumn and Winter I have generally plenty of time to do this. I use a high quality paint (Resene see here: ) which is hospital grade – there is just about no smell.

I pre-paint all timber parts ( not frames). All supers are Grade one Hoop Pine. I use coated nails and screws ( no staples used) We use Titebondlll glue.

On lids and bottoms we use Weathertex see here:

Frames are glued, nailed from top and bottom and the sides. We use Stainless Steel Wire to wire the frames and eyelets to avoid splitting.The foundation we use is Thick Foundation.

For prices see here ( may change as timber and foundations increase in price):

We also stock most tools and needs for the Beekeeper. You find a pretty complete list here:

Some prices are out of date but I have to learn to change prices on my website….not my strength – sorry.

Enjoy your bees

Max and Trudi

From the web:

Pollination technique could significantly boost macadamia yield

The native Australian stingless bee, Tetragonula, can be a good pollinator of macadamia as long as there are enough of them in the orchard. Improving macadamia tree yields by more than 50 per cent could be achieved by alternating varieties in rows and increasing pollinators, new research suggests.

For the study – funded by Hort Innovation and Plant & Food Research and the Australian Macadamia Society (AMS) – researchers conducted a trial in a Bundaberg orchard which investigated pollination impacts on four different nut varieties.

The trials showed when researchers hand-pollinated flowers along rows of different varieties, in almost all cases (44 of 47 trials), more than double the nuts were produced compared to those not hand pollinated. This suggested that when pollinators, particularly bees, had the opportunity to transfer pollen between different macadamia varieties, similar results could occur.

Hort Innovation chief executive John Lloyd said these findings complement a range of efforts underway through the grower-owned not-for-profit company. “The consumer appetite for Australian macadamia nuts is insatiable with a trade-focussed agenda seeing the export value jumping 66 per cent between 2015 and 2016 to $253M,” he said.

“Domestically, 19 per cent of households are consuming macadamias, and we are working with industry and the AMS to increase that figure through a three-year $5.5M marketing campaign being delivered using grower levies. This research, along with a host of other projects, will further support those efforts.”

By attracting a mix of pollinators and planting the right mix of varieties, growers can consistently improve the yield of macadamias in their orchard

Lead researcher, Plant and Food Research pollination scientist Dr Brad Howlett, said the project also uncovered important early findings about pollinators.

“Honeybees are the most common macadamia pollinators but we also see stingless bees, lycrid beetles, soldier beetles and flies,” he said.

“Research has shown the more varied the pollinators, the better. This is because pollinators are more likely to complement each other by moving pollen between trees in different ways.”

DrHowlett said growers needed to choose varieties for planting carefully because pollination from one tree to the next can only occur between varieties that flower at the same time.

AMS chief executive Jolyon Burnett said insect numbers are affected by weather and surrounding habitat, so it is important for growers to know what is happening in their orchard to make the most of surrounding pollination services.

“Monitoring insects visiting flowers will allow growers to adjust their strategies to increase the number and consistency of flower visits across their orchards,” he said.

“For example, if flower visits are low, introducing honey bee or stingless bee hives will significantly boost the number of insects visiting flowers.”

Download the final research report: MT13060 Final Report Complete

Reproduced from a media release by Hort Innovation Australia