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 – Bob Shaw Ph: 62540018
Our next meeting will be held on Wednesday 11th February at 7.30pm, at CIT Weston. After a business meeting Bob Shaw will speak about preparing your bees for winter. It is never too early to start thinking about and preparing for the colder months. There will be time for questions on this or any other topic during the meeting and a cup of tea and chat after the meeting.
The Annual General Meeting will be held on Wednesday 10th March. There will be committee vacancies to be filled. If you are able to help in any way on the committee please contact any of the current committee and let them know of your interest. New people and ideas are very welcome.
The research program at ANU Research School of Biological Sciences featured on radio, television and print media this week. Dr Judith Reinhard spoke about their experiments testing the links between scent and memory. Bees were trained to go to a particular feeding station and that station was linked with a particular scent. Later the scent was sprayed into the hive and researchers were able to observe that the bee’s memory was triggered so that they went to the site associated with that scent. The team are working on possible links to human memory and learning. Members who visited Srini and his team last year would remember seeing some of the experiments in this area demonstrated. It is good to see bees getting some good publicity for their role in scientific research. Details of the research have been published in the science journal “Nature”.
Happy New Year everyone. I hope
this finds you well and your bees enjoying the current conditions which, I’m
sure you will agree, are a great improvement on last year.
I recently moved my bees onto what appeared to be an excellent stand of River Red Gum only to see every blossom fall to earth within a week! I guess you can’t win ’em all! I hope the next move onto Brittle Gum will be better.
The Canberra Show is just around the corner so get your entries in if you haven’t already. Talk to Lyn Shiels or me if you are interested in volunteering to man the Association’s stand at the show.
At our February meeting the members present will be asked to ratify the appointment of Brigitte and Derek to the positions of Secretary and Treasurer until our Annual General Meeting in March. After the business is concluded I will give a short talk on preparing your bees for winter. Hope to see you all there.
Bob Shaw
The Christmas party was again held at Richard and Jan Johnston’s home. We spent a delightful evening chatting on the deck and quaffing a few glasses of nectar and nibbling some Christmas fare. A big thank you to Jan and Richard for their hospitality.
In
November I gave a talk to a year five class at Weetangera Primary School. The children were good listeners and asked
a great many questions. The display
box of bees caused much interest as did tools, photos and display items.
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The show will be held from Friday February 27th to 29th and we will have our usual stall in the Horticultural Pavilion.
Members are needed to fill the roster for the
stall. Roster times will be 9am-1pm, 1pm-5pm and 5pm-9pm on Friday, Saturday
and Sunday. The Sunday evening shift
is shorter and mainly involves packing up the stall. If you are able to help ring Lyn Shiels or put your name on the
roster at the February meeting. A
pass is provided so come early or stay on after your shift and enjoy the show.
It can be great fun talking to people who are interested in learning something
about bees. Customers range from those
who are thinking about taking up beekeeping through those who are interested
in learning a bit more, those who just like their honey and want to taste
a bit and the many children who just want to see a queen bee and watch the
bees in the display box. Help will
be needed to transport tables and display boards and to set up the stall on
Thursday afternoon. We will probably
need some help on Monday morning to collect everything and return it to the
caravan. We also need a volunteer to provide some bees
in the display box for the show either on Thursday evening or early Friday
morning.
Apiculture entries should be in by now but late entries may be accepted by the show society. The judging will be held on Thursday morning from 8.00-12.00 and spectators are welcome.
Members who want to sell honey at the show please contact Lyn Shiels so a time can be allocated to them.
If you can help with any aspect of our stall please contact Lyn or Pat Shiels on 6286 2421 or come to the meeting and volunteer your services.
Bees
and Pollination
The Canberra Times ran a small article on January 3rd about the value of bees as pollinators. They quoted some of RIRDC’s research findings into the increased yield of crops where honeybees are used as pollinators. Many crops would not yield at all without pollination by bees. I would like to develop a small pamphlet or information sheet for the Association to distribute at public displays and would like to hear from anyone who would be interested in helping with it. RIRDC and others have already done the research for us and it would just be a matter of drawing information together in a readable form for the lay person.
by Thomas Leo
Ogren
published in Apis-UK Issue No.20 January 2004
As one who makes his living by writing about allergies and asthma I am often asked about the potential health benefits of using local honey.
Honey
contains bits and pieces of pollen and honey, and as an immune system booster,
it is quite powerful. I have often in talks and articles, and in my books,
advocated using local honey. Frequently I’ll get emails from readers who want
to know exactly what I mean by local honey, and how “local” should it be.
This is what I usually advise:
Allergies arise from continuous over-exposure to the same allergens. If, for
example, you live in an area where there is a great deal of red clover growing,
and if in addition you often feed red clover hay to your own horses or cattle,
then it likely you are exposed over and over to pollen from this same red
clover. Now, red clover pollen is not especially allergenic but still, with
time, a serious allergy to it can easily arise.
Another example: if you lived in a southern area where bottlebrush trees were frequently used in the landscapes or perhaps you had a bottlebrush tree growing in your own yard, your odds of over-exposure to this tree’s tiny, triangular, and potently very allergenic pollen is greatly enhanced.
In the two examples used above, both species of plants are what we call amphipilous, meaning they are pollinated by both insects and by the wind.
Honeybees will collect pollen from each of these species and it will be present in small amounts in honey that was gathered by bees that were working areas where these species are growing. When people living in these same areas eat honey that was produced in that environment, the honey will often act as an immune booster. The good effects of this local honey are best when the honey is taken a little bit (a couple of teaspoons-full) a day for several months prior to the pollen season. When I’m asked how local should the honey be for allergy prevention I always advise to get honey that was raised closest to where you live, the closer the better since it will have more of exactly what you’ll need.
It may seem odd that straight exposure to pollen often triggers allergies but that exposure to pollen in the honey usually has the opposite effect. But this is typically what we see. In honey the allergens are delivered in small, manageable doses and the effect over time is very much like that from undergoing a whole series of allergy immunology injections. The major difference though is that the honey is a lot easier to take and it is certainly a lot less expensive. I am always surprised that this powerful health benefit of local honey is not more widely understood, as it is simple, easy, and often surprisingly effective.
Mr. Ogren is the author of five published books, including Allergy-free Gardening, and also of, Safe Sex in the Garden. Tom does consulting on allergies and landscaping for, among others, the USDA urban foresters, the American Lung Association, for county asthma coalitions, landscape, nursery and arborists’ associations, and for www.Allegra.com Tom’s own website is www.allergyfree-gardening.com
“Hygienic behaviour is the most studied genetically determined character honey bees carry that make them resistant to AFB. Colonies carrying the traits that make up hygienic behaviour detect early AFB infections, uncap the cells and then eat up the larvae before the disease has a chance to produce spores. Hygienic behaviour stops AFB in the same way that ploughing a field stops weeds; it stops the AFB before it can form seeds, or more precisely, spores.” (Adony Melathopoulos of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada)
“Hygienic” bee colonies identify and remove diseased and dead larvae and pupae from the brood comb and the hive much more quickly and thoroughly than the average colony. Recently developed techniques for determining the level of hygienic behaviour in bees involve the freezing of area of pupated sealed brood on a comb with liquid nitrogen. Details of the measuring of hygienic behaviour can be found on the Web at www.honeybeeworld.com/misc/hygienic.htm .
Testing
for the hygienic behaviour trait in queen breeding stock is seen as a positive
step towards reducing disease in bee colonies.
The long-term viability of chemicals to counter disease is already
seriously in question and the use of a naturally occurring behaviour as an
alternative is very attractive. Breeding of queens with a genetic tendency
to strong hygienic behaviour in their offspring is seen as offering a credible
replacement, or at least supplement, for current chemical use against bee
diseases from chalkbrood right through to AFB.
Advocates
of hygienic bees hold that if all beekeepers were to insist on hygienic traits
in their queens then, within a relatively few years, diseases such as AFB,
sacbrood and chalkbrood would become mere occasional hindrances.
There appears no doubt that requeening a hive that has significant chalkbrood sometimes results in a quite rapid cleanout of the chalkbrood mummies and affected lavae and a noticeable improvement in hive productivity. Sometimes there is no change.
There is considerable discussion overseas about selective breeding of queens with hygienic traits and many queen breeders advertise their queens as being selected for hygienic traits. However, I have been unable to find any Australian queen breeder advertising such breeding. If you know of a breeder who selects for hygienic behaviour traits, please tell me.
Paul Hooper
The next run to Steritech will take place on 9th February for irradiation on the 11th. As soon as we have enough hives to make an economical load we will organise another run. At the moment Steritech are irradiating hives about once a month. Please let Bob Shaw (62540018) or Lyn Shiels (62862421) know if you have any hives needing to go to Steritech.
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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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