Newsletter of the Beekeepers Association of the ACT Incorporated
Newsletter Web address:
www.bindaree.com.au/newsletter.htm
Meetings of the Beekeepers Association of the ACT Inc are held on the second
Wednesday of the month at 7.30 pm at the CIT, Heysen Street, Weston in Building A
Contact No: Association President – David Lillis Ph: 62975202 (AH)
August 2002
Our
next meeting will be held on Wednesday 14th August at 7.30pm, at CIT Weston. Our guest speaker is Mr Bruce White who will
be speaking about bees in quarantine, his trip to the United Arab Emirates
and the exporting of live bees to the Emirates. If time permits he will
also talk about his visit to Uruguay and their eucalypt plantations.
The business section of the meeting is from 7.30, Bruce will speak from 8.00 and there will be time for a cup of tea and chat after the meeting.
Not much to report on at this time of year. Things being quiet in the apiary give beekeepers a chance to get ready for the coming season. Yes, Spring is almost here! Now is a good opportunity to look around and see what is budding up for the coming year. With the cold and dry conditions some say Spring might be here early, I hope not! Without much rain there’s talk of a slow honey season ahead.
The
guest speaker at this month’s meeting will be Bruce White, an Apiary Quarantine
Specialist from NSW Ag. Bruce will
talk and show slides on bee exports to the United Arab Emirates. I have seen this presentation and found it
to be extremely interesting. See
everyone on the fourteenth.
David Lillis
Empty
Super Award 2001/2002
The Empty Super Award was presented at our Dinner to Dick Johnston for his story about his gamble on Bindaree in the Grand National. Although Dick described his story as a full super story it was impossible to pass up such a lucky sequence of events.
The following is a point form précis of an article which has been sent to ABK.
· I spent six days on the SBA honey stand at the Royal Highland Show, Edinburgh.
· Last year’s show was cancelled due to foot and mouth. The show committee used this break to upgrade the showground.
· The stand was located near the main entrance gates. As they entered, people dashed into the marquee to avoid showers and bought everything!
· The work of the Honey Stand was in judging and display, public education and selling products.
Judging
· Colour grading is strong in Scotland (light, medium and dark). With a set of grading glasses, we could expand into these classes.
· Our comb honey entries compare well with Scotland’s: our display containers are well up to standard: we could surpass Scottish standards in chunk honey.
· We haven’t yet done free wax modelling. In this, Sydney’s standards surpassed Scotland’s, and given the local talent, Canberra could no doubt equal or better Sydney’s.
· Our Canberra judging practices have been fully affirmed. Refinements like silk gloves and silk fabric squares for handling wax entries will be useful.
· Painting on wax surfaces is permitted overseas; it might be worth considering in Canberra.
Education
· There is no doubt the Scots excel in this area.
· A series of thematically organised stations was set up:
1. Two very different honeys to taste (bell heather and sycamore) using pump action dispensers.
2. The story of bees life cycle and bee products. Posters, hive equipment and computers were used.
3. Hands-on experience: candle rolling. Many children saw it as their favorite show experience.
· Groups of 15 students completed the education stations at 15 minute intervals throughout the show – a feat of organisation.
· Lots of young beekeepers are recruited in this way each year.
· A jostling crowd jolted the demonstration hive – the cloud of British black bees ensured the crowd made itself scarce. It was soon fixed, but there were lots of nosema traces to clean up.
· Sticky fingers… the public simply couldn’t keep their hands off the exhibits (particularly damaging to wax exhibits). Other pavilions had the same problem – all the cheese exhibits vanished – eaten by the public!
Trading
·
3 producers sold products.
·
On sale were honey and wax products,
apiarists’ equipment (I bought a refractometer, wax moulds and apiarists
literature.
·
The standard of presentation was
rough ‘n’ ready – lower than Sydney, on a par with Canberra.
·
The demand for produce was very
strong.
Margaret Gardiner
2 standard 8 frame boxes
Bottom board and lid
15 wired frames and 12 sheets wax
Smoker
2 smaller boxes and several escape boards
Home made solar wax extractor and electric embedder
Noel Chamberlain Ph. 6281 2074
When I was eight years old a work friend of my Dad’s talked him into keeping a couple of hives. As I looked up to my father I wanted to have a go too, so for Christmas that year Santa gave me a bee suit.
Back then (in 1972) no one had heard of the Bindaree bee suit. My suit consisted of a pair of boots, overalls, rubber gloves, a straw cowboy hat and some gauze cloth for the veil. The cloth was held on the hat by elastic and the bottom end simply tucked into the overalls. It was very simple, but effective.
Dad and I built our hives up to seven and we kept them for about four years. Unfortunately, Dad got too busy with other things and he ended up selling them.
It’s taken about twenty years for my interest to resurface.
David Lillis
We would like to make this a regular feature in our newsletter so members are invited to put pen to paper and tell us how they got started in bees. Ed.
Empty
Super Story
I am contracted to supply a bee (yes, 1 bee) to a medico at John James hospital. I collect 3 bees in a cage and deliver them on the afternoon before they are needed. Phone call to me at 7am the next day (this time does not exist in my cosmos) tells me that all the bees have died. Mad rush to get more bees and over to John James before the use-by time of 8am. Yours truly eventually works out that bees require feeding at less than 2 hourly intervals.
Roy Bray
Several
weeks later, around midnight, I bolted upright in bed, grabbed a flashlight
and went out and looked in the honey room.
Yep, around 30 gallons on the floor.
Closed the door and went back to bed.
By spring it was granulated and easier to clean up.
Mike Tooley
Dick Johnston found this story on the Beekeepers Internet mailing list BEE-L@listserv.albany.edu
Labelling Of Honey
The following
information on the labelling of honey was provided by Food Standards Australia
New Zealand (formerly ANZFA) and published in the July 2002 edition of Australian
Honey Bee Industry Council (AHBIC) “Honey News”.
The
Australian New Zealand Food Standards Code defines honey, prescribes
its composition and identifies the information that must be provided when
labelling it for retail sale.
Definition
Standard 2.8.2 provides the following definition of honey:
the natural sweet substance produced by honey bees
from the nectar of blossoms or from secretions of living parts of plants
or excretions of plant sucking insects on the living parts of plants, which
honey bees collect, transform and combine with specific substances of their
own, store and leave in the honey comb to ripen and mature.
Composition of honey
Standard
2.8.2 also stipulates the composition of honey should contain:
(a) No less than 60 % reducing sugars; and
(b) No more than 21 % moisture
Labelling Requirements
Part
1.2 of the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code sets out the
information that must be provided on foods that are required to bear a label.
The label on a package of pure honey for retail sale must include the
following general information:
·
the prescribed
name of the product (i.e. honey);
·
the lot
identification;
·
the name
and business address of the supplier;
·
date marking;
·
nutrition
labelling; and
where the product for sale includes ingredients other
than honey, the label must also include a list of ingredients and may be
required to carry a declaration of key or characterising ingredients and
components and/or a percentage declaration. If the product is pure honey,
an ingredient label is not mandatory.
The label must also include a statement about the country
of origin of the product.
Warning and advisory declarations
Under clause 4 of Standard 1.2.3 Mandatory Warning and
Advisory Statements and Declarations, the presence of bee pollen in a food
must be declared whenever present as:
·
an ingredient;
or
·
an ingredient
of a compound ingredient; or
·
a food
additive or component of a food additive; or
·
a processing
aid or component of a processing aid.
The definition of ingredient in Standard 1.2.4 is ‘any
substance used in the preparation, manufacture or handling of a food’. As
bee pollen is a substance intrinsic in the food i.e. bee pollen is naturally
present in honey, it does not need to be declared.
Nutrition Information Panels
A generic Nutrition Information Panel can be used for all varieties of
honey.
To calculate a Nutrition Information Panel, food composition
data is required. Food composition data can be obtained either from food
composition tables or databases, laboratory analysis, or FSANZ’s nutrition
panel calculator, which has been designed to assist manufacturers. The calculator
is available free-of-charge at www.anzfa.gov.au.
Legibility Requirements for Food Labels
Any information required in or on a food label needs
to comply with legibility requirements. All food labels must present information
so that it is legible, prominent and in English.
In order to be legible, information on food labels
should be indelibly printed to withstand normal conditions of use and storage.
Information should also be distinct, such that decorations and embellishments
do not interfere with the legibility of the words on the label. There is
no prescribed format for typeset, including font size, however, manufacturers
should try to ensure that the information is presented in a type that is
easy to read.
In order to be prominent, words, statements, expressions
or designs required to be on food labels should stand out so as to be easily
seen by prospective purchasers.
Additional Requirements
All food manufacturers and retailers must have regard
to the broader legal environment of which the Australia New Zealand Food
Standards Code is a part. In Australia, this includes the Trade Practices
Act 1974, the Imported Food Control Act 1992. In New Zealand, this legislation
includes the Food Act 1981 and the Fair Trading Act 1986.
………………………………………………………………..…………………………………………..……………….
Editor’s Note. The ANZFA Nutrition Panel Calculator
gives the following nutrient values per 100g Edible Portion of honey:
Energy 1401kj Fat 0.0g Carbohydrate 82.1g Sodium 14mg Protein 0.3g Sugars 82.1g Specific Gravity 1.43
Springtime in the Apiary
Many
of our members are reporting that their bees have continued to raise small
numbers of brood throughout the winter.
While this can be a good thing, ensuring that there are young healthy
bees in the hives in early spring, there are hazards associated with this
type of season. In colder winters
bees spend most of their time in the cluster within the hive emerging only
for short cleansing flights or explorations.
In those circumstances the need for stores is comparatively low but
if brood raising has continued and foraging has not replenished the stores
there is a greater danger of starvation in early spring.
This problem is greater if we have a cold or wet Spring and the bees
don’t get much flying time or when there is not much food. It pays to be
alert to weather conditions and the circumstances of your bees in spring.
On
a still day of more than 15 degrees check on the condition of your bees
with regard to stores, absence of disease, presence of a laying queen and
general cleanliness. The bottom
board can be scraped to remove any debris built up over winter and old frames
due to be replaced can be lifted above the brood box.
It is not usually a good idea to put new frames with foundation into
the hive until the bees have a good honey flow available but frames that
are already built out can be used. If
you have no suitable frames simply leave the old ones in the top box and
replace them when the honey flow begins.
Excessive moisture should be dried out and any wet or mouldy hive
mats replaced. Queen excluders should
be placed in the hive when the brood box is beginning to fill.
Queenless or weak hives can be amalgamated with each other or with a stronger hive. Feeding with sugar syrup will stimulate brood raising and give the hive a good start.
Lyn Shiels
|
Richard Johnston Phone: 02 6281 2111 Email: bindaree.bee@bigpond.com Website: www.bindaree.com.au Shop open: Wed, Thur, Fri 4 pm to 6 pm, Sat 9.30 am to 4pm Closed: Sun, Mon, Tue. |
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