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: 6254 0018.
Our next meeting will be held on Wednesday 14th
May at 7.30pm, at CIT Weston. Our
guest speaker is Mr Doug Somerville who will speak about various aspects of
beekeeping in his experience as an apiaries officer and beekeeper.
The business section of the meeting is from 7.30 and Doug will speak from 8.00. There will be time for a cup of tea and chat after the meeting.
Winter is almost upon us, so now is the time to
make sure your bees are prepared. Feed
them now, if necessary, and give them heaps of syrup so that you don’t have
to disturb them during the cold months to come.
Check for diseases now and destroy any AFB hives,
it’s silly to feed a diseased hive through winter only to kill it in spring.
If anyone has hives requiring irradiation please contact me or Lyn
Shiels, as we may have a deal for you!!
I have had the misfortune of having hives stolen
from my site at Higgins. One hive,
owned by Judy Burgess, is a 5 decker, one of mine was a four, the rest three
or two. All of my hives and components
are branded S 393. The boxes are white
or bright red. Please be vigilant
and if you see any of this gear let me know.
Bob Shaw
Torrens, in common with many Canberra suburbs,
has experienced an explosion of European Wasps in the last twelve months. We have had several hives attacked.
The pattern seems to be the same each time.
The bees that were unable to land on the entrance board and landed
on the ground short of the hive were immediately set upon by wasps.
The wasps cut the bees in half and carried away the abdomen leaving
the bee to die. This continued until most of the field bees
were dead. The wasps then began to
fly directly into the hive killing the remainder of the bees and also taking
the store of honey.
One small swarm hive was destroyed in this way
before we realised what was happening. Another
stronger hive low to the ground was severely affected.
The next small swarm hive was placed on a stand
about 30 cm above the ground and the entrance closed down to about 3cm. This hive has not been attacked by the wasps
although they are still collecting dead bees from the ground in front of the
hive. It seemed as if the bees flying
close to the ground were vulnerable but the wasps were unable to attack them
when their flight path was higher.
If you are able to find the nest of the wasps
they can be destroyed with petrol or with insecticidal powder. Traps can be set with sugar water for wasps
but these are fairly ineffective, trapping only small numbers while the nest
continues to grow. They also have
the tendency to trap other beneficial insects including bees.
Pat Shiels
Just starting back into beekeeping after a long
absence!
Would like 2 hives and maybe some gear to start up.
Please email me at: aussie_airpass@hotmail.com I
live in Cowra, so if you’re about 2-3 hours away, I would be only to happy
to chat about a sale of some hives.
David Smaluck
If you have spare equipment or hives for sale or are looking to buy beekeeping items advertisements such as the above are free for members and non members. Ed.
A few hardy members gathered in Weston Park on
Anzac Day and set out their picnic gear and warmed the barbecues with one
eye on the lowering skies. After a
glass or two of wine we put our sausages and steaks on the barbie and a few
drops of rain began to fall. A little
later down came the rain and even the hardiest were forced to adjourn to drier
places. It was disappointing that
the usual leisurely afternoon had to be cut short but we were fortunate that
we had finished eating by the time the rain came down in earnest. It was suggested that we could have broken
the drought by organising the picnic a month or so earlier.
Lyn Shiels
PS. Hardly a drought breaking performance anyway as we had only 11mm at Torrens.
Beehives might keep African elephants off farms,
say researchers. The insects could
help stop elephants eating crops, and make lucrative honey for farmers.
Elephants can destroy whole crops, especially
where farms border on reserves. In Kenya, researchers have enlisted the notoriously
touchy African or 'killer' honeybee to help protect plants such as maize and
cassava.
The bees (Apis mellifera scutellata) attack anything
that threatens their hives. Angry swarms are reputed to have chased herds
of elephants over several kilometres.
Elephants avoided all the trees hung with full
hives, report Fritz Vollrath, of the Mpala Research Centre and Ian Douglas-Hamilton,
of the Nairobi-based conservation organization Save the Elephants.
Even empty hives were enough to reduce elephant damage, probably through
their smell. More than 90% of trees without hives had branches ripped off
and bark stripped.
"Beehives would be much cheaper than fences,"
says Ian Redmond, a UK based expert on African wildlife and conservation.
The local Masai people are skilled beekeepers, Redmond
adds: "I can see some people
adopting [hives] quite enthusiastically".
Beekeeping is being promoted in East Africa as
an environmentally friendly industry. "If it can also deter elephants,
that's wonderful", Redmond says. Noise, fences, chillies, smoke and shooting
have also been tried as elephant deterrents, with varying degrees of success.
Hives could be deployed like biological minefields
around farmland, say Vollrath and Douglas-Hamilton. Or they could be used
to protect valuable trees, such as ancient baobabs.
Elephants may even avoid the sound of bees. One
old bull that had been badly stung several years earlier turned tail at a
tape recording of a buzzing hive, the researchers point out. The control treatment
- a Bach violin concerto - left elephants unmoved.
Surges in elephant populations can also damage
wildlife. Because some areas now have more elephants than they can cope with,
Botswana, Namibia Zimbabwe and South Africa are calling for a limited trade
in ivory to be reopened.
Kenya, concerned that any trade would invite poaching,
wants the current ban to continue. The issue will be voted on at the meeting
of the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species now going
on in Santiago, Chile.
References
Vollrath, F. & Douglas-Hamilton, I. African
bees to control African elephants. Naturwissenschaften online publication,
© Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd
2002
Published on www.nature.com/nsu/nsu 20 November 2002 by John Whitfield
The Sydney Mail on Saturday May 4th 1893 noted that beekeepers in the northern rivers area were prepared to pay 5 shillings for a swarm of bees. Local lads collecting the bees, noticing that the price was the same for a small swarm as for a large one, began to divide the larger ones into two, selling each one to a different buyer. The correspondent noted that this had the effect of teaching local beekeepers about queen raising and “no one will ever be a successful beekeeeper till he has learnt this lesson”
Pat and I will be away for a while towards the end of this month so if you have anything to go in the newsletter would you please send it to Paul Hooper phooper@pcug.org.au Phone 6231 3738 or Dick Johnston bindaree.bee@bigpond.com Phone 6281 2111 Thanks. Ed.
One tablespoon
butter, 3 tablespoons honey, 3 bananas, squeeze lemon juice, 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind, 1 egg, ½
cup milk. 1 cup s.r. flour.
Slice
bananas, place in bottom of pie dish and sprinkle with lemon juice. Cream butter and honey, add lemon rind, beat
in egg, then milk, and stir in the sifted flour; place over bananas and bake
in moderate oven 25 to 20 minutes.
2
cups wholemeal s.r. flour, ¼ teaspoon salt, 1 tablespoon butter or dripping,
½ cup honey, ¾ cup milk, 1 egg, 1 cup raisins or sultanas, 1 cup finely chopped
apple, ¼ teaspoon carbonate soda mixed with 2 teaspoons milk.
Sift
flour and salt, melt dripping and mix well with honey, milk and beaten egg.
Stir this into the flour, then add raisins, apple and soda.
Steam in a covered basin for 2 to 2½ hours.
Delicious served with marmalade.
4 ozs. rough
puff or shortcrust pastry, ½ lb. apples, 3 cloves, 1 oz. butter, 2 tablespoons
honey, 2 eggs.
Peel,
core and cook apples with tablespoon water and cloves, adding when soft butter
and honey. Rub apples through sieve.
Beat eggs well and add to apple mixture.
Place a spoonful of mixture in each pastry-lined patty tin and bake
in moderate oven 15 to 20 minutes.
Make
a sweet pastry and line tart plate or pie dish. Filling: ½ cup honey, juice and grated rind 1 lemon, ¾ cup milk,
1 cup cake crumbs, 1 lb. apples, little nutmeg, 2 eggs.
Peel,
core, and thinly slice apples, add nutmeg and lemon and pack into lined tart
plate or pie dish. Beat egg yolks
and stir in the milk, honey and cake crumbs.
Pour over apples. Bake in hot
oven about 25 minutes. Stiffly beat
egg whites with 1 tablespoon honey and pile on top and replace to oven to
set.
OUR “HONEY
LADY”, MRS. HAZEL EVANS
ABK 1946
|
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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