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 – Bob Shaw Ph: 62540018
Our next meeting will be held on Wednesday 13th August at 7.30pm, at CIT Weston. Our guest speakers are Dominic Staun who will speak about mead making and Lyn Shiels who will speak about swarm collecting. The business section of the meeting is from 7.30 and Dominic will speak from 8.00. There will be time for a cup of tea and chat after the meeting.
The wattles are flowering, the boxes are budded
and the canola is lush and green! As
I write this it is 4°C, sleeting and blowing a gale, but spring is fast
approaching.
A little bee (bird) told me that B1 and B2 are
headed for the canola again this year and that to avoid another entry in
the Empty Super Awards a GPS navigation computer is being acquired. Don’t
forget the batteries!
With our recent rain spring is looking much better
than last year, with ground flora such as Capeweed and Salvation Jane showing
promise. Our bees will no doubt
appreciate the plentiful pollen and nectar flows to come, and will breed
prolifically, bringing the need for vigilance on the part of the beekeeper
to prevent losses through swarming.
See you at the meeting where we will be treated
to a presentation on the arts of swarm collection by Lyn Shiels and mead
making by Dominic Staun.
Bob Shaw
The Winter Swarming was held at the Restaurant
83 at the Woden Tradesmen’s Club and attended by about 18 members, who dined
on a variety of foods from the buffet.
A pleasant evening of food, nectar and friendship was passed.
The Empty Super Award was presented by popular acclaim to a loyal devoted beekeeper wife for her story about B1 and B2 and a calamitous trip to the canola last springtime. Competition is now open for next year’s award. To qualify for this prestigious award the strange, funny or ridiculous story of your or someone else’s beekeeping experience must be published in the newsletter between now and next July.
It's hard to hoodwink a jailer, but incarcerated
beetles fool their honeybee guards into feeding them, new research shows.
Small
hive beetles storm honeybee hives to plunder pollen, honey and even developing
larvae. They are the fastest-growing honeybee pest in the United States,
where they were accidentally introduced from South Africa in the 1990s.
The beetles are too tough to attack so bees imprison
them in chambers made from tree sap. Worker bees stand guard to stop the
beetles escaping, as the jails are often poorly sealed. "It's like
a rugby scrum," says Randall Hepburn, an entomologist at Rhodes University
in Grahamstown, South Africa.
The beetles can be held like this for months,
yet never seem to waste away. To get to the bottom of this prisoner's dilemma,
Hepburn, and his colleagues in the United States, used transparent beehives
and placed the penal units under TV surveillance.
Video
recordings of the scrum revealed that small hive beetles use their antennae
to tickle their guards, just as other bees do. This encourages the guards
to regurgitate a drop of honey. “It's hit-and-miss”, says Hepburn, “but
eventually the bees get tricked into feeding their arch-enemies, it's ridiculous
to watch”.
To check their suspicions, Hepburn's team added
dye to the laboratory bees' food supply. Sure enough the dye showed up in
the beetles guts the next day.
“This is a brilliant example of the arms race
between a parasite and its host,” says Peter Neumann, an entomologist at
Martin Luther University in Halle,
Germany, who first documented the bees' incarceration policy. “They are
using the same begging language as the bees to obtain a meal,” he says.
How this situation evolved is baffling, as there
is rarely such as thing as a free lunch in biology: most animals that feed
others expect something in return. The beetles may be giving the bees some
hidden advantage, says Hepburn, but it's far from obvious what that might
be.
More likely, the team suspects, is
that beetles capitalize on their misfortune. By surviving in the hive they
will be there when the bee colony absconds in search of new premises, which
often happens. This gives the beetles “a massive head start” on other empty
hive plunderers such as wax moths, fungi and bacteria, says Neumann.
© Nature News Service Macmillan Magazines Ltd 2002
Cec began keeping bees more than forty years ago in 1955. He was working at the time for Tom, a blacksmith doing structural building for soldier settlers around Deniliquin. He was living in a tent in Tom’s backyard. Tom had been hurt while working in the Bendigo mines and had gone working for a beekeeper for a while so he had some knowledge of bees. A mate of his had 11 neglected hives in the bush and he wanted Tom to work them. Tom said Cec better have a go and he would help him. Cec had had some beekeeping classes at Gatton Agricultural College but had never had anything to do with bees otherwise.
The bees were not doing very well in the bush
so they moved them closer to town on to orange blossom. Cec almost gave bees away because they were
really savage on the orange blossom, as bad or worse than on stringy bark.
Tom had a 2-frame extractor which Cec still has
today. Using it they took the orange
honey off. He had an A-model Ford
which he converted to a ute and he had it for about 8 years. One time when they were collecting an old neglected
hive it fell apart as Cec lifted it on to the truck and he was badly stung.
Again as he nursed his wounds he thought of giving up.
Later Cec went to Melbourne and bought a Spacemaster
ute which had belonged to a Moana beekeeper and Tom built him a trailer
to cart the bees about. He bought some more working hives and began working
them at Deniliquin.
In 1959 he went to Swan Hill to work at the Power
House and with shift work he had time to work the bees as well. He had them
on a permanent site on a pumpkin farm where there were pumpkins, grapes
and cantelopes. He lived in a caravan at the Caravan Park, a step up from
the tent at Deniliquin, and bought an old box caravan to use as a storage
shed. Although he worked at the
Power House he had no power himself. Cooking was done on a gas stove and
he had a Tilley lamp for light. At
Rainbow he bought a honey house that had been built by Clem McIntyre’s father
and parked it near his bees on the farm. At this time he had no contact
with other beekeepers, his education came from buying books and from ABK
which he has subscribed to since 1956 except for a brief period when he
first came to Canberra.
Lyn Shiels
Cec’s story will continue in a later issue if the ed. can persuade him to continue to tell it.
There are some signs that we may have an early start to the new season and a few preparations now can make a more successful season later. Now is the time for constructing, painting or mending of equipment. Check stored boxes for wax moth attack. On a sunny warm day have a quick check of hives for stores and begin feeding with sugar syrup and pollen supplements if necessary. As the weather warms and breeding starts in the hives stores are used rapidly and can run out quickly especially if there is a cold snap so check regularly simply by lifting the hive.
If you move your bees around this is a good time to check some possible new sites. Canola is doing well in some areas and should be blooming in a few weeks. Paterson’s Curse (Salvation Jane or Riverina Bluebell depending on your point of view) is also coming along well in areas where it hasn’t been sprayed. Some eucalypts are showing promise for later in the spring and summer. Many farmers are happy to have a few or more hives on their property in return for a few kilos of honey.
A couple of members have already discovered AFB in one of their hives. If you are unfortunate enough to be in the same boat remember that we may be able to organise to send them to Sydney for irradiation at a cheaper rate than taking them yourself. A likely cost is about $20 per hive plus radiation costs (currently $22). For more information contact Bob Shaw on 6254 0018 or Lyn Shiels on 6286 2421. Hives need to be clear of honey and dead bees, well wrapped in strong plastic and made up into units which weigh less than 25 kilos.
Lyn Shiels
Wax moth can be a heartbreaking experience. Recently a neighbouring amateur beekeeper told me of the pain of having 40 boxes of stored comb riddled with wax moth. It certainly helped me concentrate on the problem.
Average to strong colonies will keep wax moth under control in their hives, but when comb and boxes are stored off the hive wax moth can develop and spread unhindered. Wax moth love old brood comb, but larvae will also sometimes develop and survive on very little waxy remnants – as I found with numerous larvae developing in a box of frames from which the comb had been scraped off their plastic foundation
Various
preventive treatments to avoid wax moth damage can range from leaving a
box of empty comb on top of strong colonies, storing combs open to light
and air (but inaccessible to bees), freezing boxes and combs, to fumigating
with paradichlorobenzene (PDB) or phosphine.
My strategy is to store boxes of empty comb over a Mercer mat (see April 2002
newsletter) atop a strong or strongish colony where possible. For the remaining boxes of dry comb I use phosphine fumigation,
as this allows me to stack the boxes in a securely locked shed, treat them
and then leave them sealed until they are required to be put back on the
hives. Phosphine kills all stages
of wax moth, from egg through to fertile moth, in the combs, frames and
boxes. So as long as the boxes remain
well sealed there will be no reinfestation.
Phosphine tablets can be used to fumigate boxes of comb in sealed stacks,
in stacks under gas-proof sheet, or in a sealed room or container. For most amateur beekeepers, using sealed stacks
of boxes is likely to be the best method.
This photo shows a sealed stack of 8 boxes of combs being fumigated. All joins and openings in the bottom board,
boxes and lid have been sealed with tape.
One phosphine tablet has been placed on an old saucer on top of the uppermost frames before the lid was sealed. One tablet is enough for an eleven box stack. The Queensland DPI note (www.dpi.qld.gov.au/bees/4948.html) indicates that one tablet should be used on stacks up to 5 boxes high. In contrast, the NSW Agnote indicates that one tablet is too much for a 5 to 8 box stack. My reading of the Bayer’s Quickphos® label indicates that one tablet should be used for stacks from 5 to 11 eight-frame boxes high, and that having less than 5 boxes could cause an undesirable concentration of phosphine gas inside the boxes. This is based on the listed specification of tablets per cubic metre volume.
When
the stack is eventually opened the first task is to remove the saucer with
the residue of the tablet and to very carefully dispose of the residue in
strict accordance with the safety directions on the label. The boxes of comb will then be aired for between 2 to 5 days, depending
on temperature and how much airflow they are exposed to.
Phosphine is readily available in tablet form as it is commonly used for pest fumigation in stored grain and other food commodities, and for rabbit burrow fumigation. There are several brands of phosphine tablets available through rural suppliers. I have used Bayer’s Quickphos®, the NSW Agfact refers to Degesch’s Phostoxin® , and the Queensland DPI note refers to Phostoxin, Gastion, Celphide, Alphos Detia and Fumitoxin.
Phosphine tablets are a dangerous poison and must be handled with great caution and in accordance with the detailed safety instructions on the label. Phosphine gas released from the tablets is highly toxic to all forms of animal and human life. If mis-handled sufficiently, phosphine tablets can spontaneously ignite. For a lot of beekeepers the risks associated with this substance are considered too great and other control methods are preferred. However, if you are comfortable with handling toxic products in a safe manner, you may find phosphine fumigation will fulfil an important part of your wax moth control strategy. As an extra benefit, phosphine fumigation will also kill all stages of the Small Hive Beetle if they happen to be in your boxes.
Two valuable sources of further information about wax moth control, including phosphine fumigation, are the Queensland DPI note referred to above and the Australasian Beekeeper, June 2003 article on Wax Moths, based on the NSW Agfact 481/612.
Paul Hooper
|
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. |
Home | Hints | Newsletters | Shop Online
