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

July 2001

July Meeting

There will be no meeting in July because our room at CIT, Weston is unavailable in school holidays. Instead our Winter (S)Warming will be held at Sage Café, Gorman House Braddon. Check with Rob Gardiner (6231 0383) re late bookings.

President’s Note

As I said last month, I’d give more details about the NSW Apiarist Association Conference. This year there was much emphasis on disease and quarantine in light of the recent attempted bee smuggling incident and varroa mite discovery in New Zealand. The President, Greg Roberts, said in his report that he has seen the damage and expense these diseases have caused the industry in other countries and, believe you me, we don’t want them here.

This year’s international guest speaker was Laurence Cutts from the Department of Agriculture, Gainesville, Florida USA. Laurence spoke about the varroa mite, the small hive beetle and africanised (killer) bees. Killer bees aren’t really killer bees, they are just more aggressive than the normal variety and so appear that way. To have these three apparently isn’t as bad as to have the African Southern Cape bees. These parasites are thought to have arrived in America around 1987. Laurence believed these pests arrived, not from smuggling, but more than likely as a discarded swarm in the cargo hold of a plane.

A big surprise for me at the conference was to hear an old friend of our association, Bruce Ward, speak about computers and the Internet and how beekeepers can best use them. Bruce was the apiary teacher at CIT Weston some years ago. He is now working with the NSW Department of Agriculture in Orange on their computer programming and internet sites. He unfortunately doesn’t have much time for the bees these days. When he started with the department in Goulburn in 1975, the biggest computer progress then was being able to direct dial STD from the phone on his office desk. He advised beekeepers if they weren’t computer literate they needed a piece of equipment 5 to 6 feet tall and around 15 to 16 years of age called a computer interface unit (or teenager for short). Afterwards I spoke to Bruce. He said he has fond memories of Canberra and sends his regards to the Association.

John Rhodes from NSW Agriculture spoke about his research into superseding queen bees. I understood this to mean the best age to introduce a new queen was between 21-28 days of age when the queen is more mature and is better accepted than a younger queen say 7-14 days old.

Bruce White talked about quarantine matters and port surveillance. He said every beekeeper should be on the lookout for any parasites on bees and report any siting to the nearest state agricultural department as soon as possible. Early detection is the key to preventing spread.

Dr Jayashnee Arcot from the University of NSW spoke about the glycaemic index of honey. More on that in another article.

Roy Jennison, Chief Legal Officer, NSW Agriculture, talked about the Animal and Plant Health Review – ie urban beekeeping enquiry review. This was of interest in light of the recent bee attack on the woman in Sydney. The review is at present before the NSW Parliament. I spoke to Roy afterwards and he said he would keep in touch with us regarding the final outcome. He also spoke about their intention to amalgamate the NSW Apiaries Act with the Animal Nuisance Act just like here in the ACT.

Landline presenter, Neil Inall, Chair of Native Vegetation Advisory Council, Department of Water and Conservation, led an interesting discussion on land clearing and salinity strategies for managing native grasslands, compensation for stopping land clearing and strategies for bringing native conservation together.

The next speaker was Kerry Hickey, MP, who talked about soil salinity and beekeeping. Salinity is a major issue for beekeepers because it reduces the forest woodland available to bees. The answers being re-forestation and encouraging beekeepers to have their say. Some areas are so bad they will exceed the safe drinking water levels. Some ways of rectifying this damage is to harvest the salt, fish farming, planting tree species suited to salinity and suitable for bees. Apparently these issues or concerns were raised by the NSW Apiarist Association as far back as 1913.

Dr Graeme Hamilton from APLC talked about biological control of locust plagues. Instead of using conventional chemical sprays the APLC have been successfully trialling a biological fungicide to control locusts as part of their integrated pest management program. Not only does it kill the locusts on the crop but it also affects incoming plagues. So far tests have shown there has been no evidence of harmful effects to bees, so this can only be a plus for the environment and beekeepers.

The last speaker was Archie Hay from AQIS who spoke about the role of sniffer dogs at airports and post office parcel centres. Apparently any dog can be trained for this task as long as they don’t pant and dribble too much. It seems that while they’re slobbering they are not sniffing. Beagles are most favoured for this task. The dogs are trained to detect odours from fruit, vegetables, plants, birds, dried and canned meat, reptiles and, of course, bees. Beagles are also chosen because they look cute and are not aggressive. Other more active dogs are employed in the mail centres as active response dogs. They can be recruited from ages 12 to 48 months. Retired dogs are usually put out to good homes.

The conference ended with a dinner later in the evening and the presentation of the "Not a Hive Crawl Award".

My congratulations to Rob Gardiner who was recently elected as Vice President of the Southern Tablelands Branch of the NSW AA.

PS Don’t forget the dinner in July.

David Lillis

Fire Ant Spread

A short article in the May ‘ABK’ by Rob Manning from Agriculture WA asks city based and amateur beekeepers to be aware of the possibility of fire ant infestation. These ants are at present in the Brisbane city area and could be spread to country areas when beehives are moved. Control will become more difficult if the ants infest rural areas. All beekeepers should keep a close eye on the surrounds of their apiaries for any different looking ants or nests. The ants are similar to ordinary ants but reddish brown coloured. They are very aggressive and the sting is particularly painful.

Varroa

Also in May ‘ABK’ a good article on possible cures for Varroa infestation. This article, reprinted from the ‘Scottish Beekeeper’ details some studies by Dr Dennis Anderson of CSIRO, Canberra which may lead to the identification of bees which are totally resistant to Varroa. If you don’t subscribe to ‘ABK’ a copy is available in our library at Bindaree.

Caution: Boiling Water in a Microwave

I recently received an email describing an accident when a young man heated water for coffee in a microwave. The water did not appear to be boiling but as he removed the cup from the microwave the water suddenly "blew up" in his face causing 1^st and 2^nd degree burns and possible damage to his eye.

Apparently this is a common occurrence when water is heated alone especially if the vessel used has no fine cracks where bubbles can form. The water heats faster than bubbles can form and release heat so the water heats past boiling point. Then if the container is jarred it is enough to cause bubbles to form rapidly and expel the hot liquid. The problem can be avoided by placing a wooden stir stick in the cup to allow bubbles to form or allowing the cup to stand in the microwave for 30 seconds before moving it or adding anything to it.

Talk by Professor Mandyam Srinivasan

We were fortunate to have at our last meeting Professor Srinivasan who spoke about his team’s investigations into bee navigation and the application of their findings to robotic flight.

They began by asking the questions, ‘How do insects navigate when they have such a tiny brain?’, ‘What are the tricks they use?’ and ‘How can we apply these to robotic flight?’

Because the eyes of bees are very close together they cannot use triangulation to perceive distance to objects so they use perceived motion of their surroundings to negotiate small gaps. They rely on the fact that the further away an object is from us the slower it seems to move. By keeping the environment on either side apparently moving at a fixed level they can fly through gaps.

Bees can make smooth landings on horizontal surfaces by keeping the apparent motion of the ground at a fixed level, which effectively means that they slow down as they get closer to the ground. Descent speed is tied to horizontal speed so that at the moment of landing their speed is zero.

The team’s findings have been applied to programming robot model helicopters to stay a fixed distance from the ground and avoid bumping into anything. This could have applications for use for military or other exploration purposes.

Another question the team have attempted to answer is ‘How does a bee know how far she has flown in order to communicate distance to her fellows in the ‘waggle dance’? Early researchers believed that expended energy was the main clue. The ANU team and another team at Notre Dame have tested this theory and believe that it is not the method used.

They first trained bees to find food placed at a fixed location in a tunnel lined with a visual texture. The food source was then removed and the behaviour of the bees observed and filmed. If the tunnel was lined with vertical stripes the bees flew immediately to the position of the food source. If the tunnel was lined with horizontal stripes the bees could not identify the place where the food had been. With horizontal striping there is no perception of the environment moving past so this suggested that perception of motion was an important factor in judging distance travelled. However some experiments were conducted to test other theories.

In the vertical stripe tunnel are they counting the stripes? Changing the size of the stripes so that more or less stripes were passed on the way to the position tested this. The bees were still able to find the position so counting was eliminated.

Are they using time of flight as a measure? This was tested by providing a head wind or tailwind to alter the time required to reach the position. Again the bees found the position easily so time was not their measuring device. This experiment also eliminated energy consumption or counting wing beats as the measure.

Experiments were done using a tunnel with moving sides to simulate the motion experienced on a much longer flight. When bees exposed to this regime communicated to other bees in the ‘waggle dance’ the recruited bees sought the food source much further away than it actually was but in keeping with the distance it would seem to be with the apparent movement of the tunnel.

The team concluded that perception of motion was the mechanism by which a bee determined how far she had travelled.

Professor Srinivasan’s informative and entertaining talk was greatly appreciated by all members present. All bee lovers would concur with Srini that "After all, bees are only human".

Lyn Shiels

       

 

ANU photo of a bee about to enter experimental tunnel Further information available on the WWW: Prof M.V. Srinivasan http://biology.anu.edu.au/rsbsweb/profiles/srini.shtml Insect Vision, Navigation and "Cognition" Laboratory http://cvs.anu.edu.au/insect/insect.html

 

Bindaree Beenotes July 2001 – Winter activities – Hive lids

Winter is the ideal time to restore old gear and build new equipment to be ready for Spring. You can save money by building your own equipment. Last month we looked at boxes. This month we will look at 8 frame lids.

 

Wooden lid – parts		$17.80
Wooden frame, metal cover	$17.20
Nail kit for lid	$0.60
Wooden lid – ready made – not painted		$25.00
Plastic lid		$19.00

Next month we will look at bottom boards

 

 

 

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