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)
Our
next meeting will be held on Wednesday 11th September at 7.30pm, at CIT
Weston. Our guest speaker is Mr Doug Somerville (Apiary
Officer, Goulburn). Doug will speak
about Spring Management and Pollination Services.
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.
It seems that proposed law changes to food processing has caught up with the small operator sooner than expected. As from 1st January 2003 anyone selling packaged food must comply with the Australian and New Zealand food standards code. This includes honey sold at Cottage markets. I have obtained a copy of the Food Premises Code for the ACT from ACT Health and it is available from our library. On 2nd September I will attend a honey industry based B-Qual Training Course in Sydney and will talk more on this in next month’s newsletter.
Our
guest speaker, Bruce White talked briefly about quarantine matters in Australia
relating to bees. He handed out
a paper about beelining. This is the method used to find feral nests to
destroy in the event of a severe disease outbreak.
The technique uses the principle that bees generally take the direct
route home and fly at a relatively constant speed of about 25 Kilometres
an hour.
At a recent Southern Tablelands Branch Meeting of the NSWAA members were told of a beekeeper in Sydney who was fined $3000 for unregistered hives and failing to report AFB, a lesson to us all. Make sure your hives in other states are properly looked after.
The “Beginning in Bees” course we are planning in conjunction with CIT Solutions is progressing well. The final preparation to course notes are ready to go and tutors organised. All we need are the students to enrol.
Our speaker at the September meeting will be Doug Somerville from NSW AG, Goulburn. Doug’s subjects will be Spring Management and Pollination, an ideal opportunity for those new to beekeeping to learn more or maybe just brush up on skills from someone so highly respected in the beekeeping industry. As always, new members and guests are welcome at our meetings.
David Lillis
At our August meeting we were fortunate to have Bruce White speak to us about his trips to the United Arab Emirates and Uruguay.
The Emirates import packaged bees from Australia every year as they don’t overwinter bees but start afresh each year. Outside of the cities and towns there is very little vegetation and it seems amazing that bees are able to produce at all. In the hills there are also beekeepers who keep a small native bee in caves. Each season they produce a small cluster of highly prized honey that sells for extremely high prices.
Uruguay has many eucalypt plantations which are planted for timber but are also being used by beekeepers. They have Apis mellifera and Africanised bees which are difficult to work because of their aggression. 70% of the honey production is exported, much to Australia. There are no understory plants which is a problem for beekeepers. They also had not realised that eucalypts would not bloom every year.
Bruce also spoke about how the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) and the NSW Department of Agriculture are monitoring hives of co-operating beekeepers around Australian ports for the presence of parasites. The sugar shake method is used. Bruce was encouraging every one to try to develop the skill of beelining which would be used to identify any feral hives in any area that became affected by mite incursion. Speed identifying and eliminating affected hives would be vital in the event of mites being found.
Lyn Shiels
There are 214,000 hectares of forests in the South Coast Region and 55% of these are excluded from harvesting or silviculture for environmental protection reasons. Silviculture operations will be undertaken in about 20,000 hectares of the remainder in a five year period. Each site will have a publicly available site plan detailing the numbers of trees to be culled and the areas where culling will be done. The work is monitored by field supervisors and foresters.
· Trees selected for culling must be in the treatment area, not in exclusion areas such as wildlife corridors, streamside filter strips or reserves.
· Trees must not be habitat trees or those retained for future harvesting.
· Trees culled are those unsuitable for sawlogs or located where they inhibit the development of sawlogs.
· Trees culled must not exceed 45% of the basal area.
Monitoring of the program to date has shown that most of the trees culled are smaller than 60cm diameter. This allows surrounding trees to grow more effectively.
The purpose of the program is to provide an increase in the number of high quality sawlogs in future ensuring the continued viability of the hardwood timber industry.
State Forests has produced a manual as a guide to forest managers. This is available for purchase for $22 on Ph: (02) 9980 4293 and will soon be available on-line at www.forest.gov.au
Beekeepers who are currently using State Forest bee sites may want to monitor the silviculture operations planned for their areas as part of their forward planning.
Information in this article was taken from a longer article in Honeybee News, Journal of the NSW Apiarists Association Inc.
50 Triple hives which have been affected by AFB including bottom boards, lids and emlocks. Currently at Thuddungra, just north of Young.
Cost $50 per hive (in lots of 5), irradiation (around $22) and a pro rata share of truck hire to Steritech.
Owned by Neil Parker, who has them packed and ready to go. Current plan is to take them to Sydney in early October.
Ph: Rob Gardiner 6231 0383 (AH)
A Mini Field Day is planned for 15th September, weather permitting. The emphasis will be on Spring Management.
Ring Dick Johnston on 6281 2111 or Pat or Lyn Shiels on 6286 2421 for details of time and place. Bring protective clothing if you have it. If the weather is unsuitable on the 15th we will try again on the 22nd September.
Laws to protect against food poisoning will apply to honey after January 1, 2002. B-Qual are offering courses between now and December at Tamworth, Wagga and Grafton. The cost of the course is $30. The Association has application forms available or contact Bruce White, NSW Agriculture, 299 George St, Windsor. 2756. Phone (02) 4577 0600.
After completing the course participants have twelve months to ask for an audit of their business practices. The main emphasis is on extracting equipment, containers and rodent control. Eventually only those businesses which have certification will be able to sell honey to the public or to packers. It is difficult to know when the law will be able to be enforced. At the present there is only funding to run courses for a very small percentage of NSW and ACT beekeepers.
Some states are developing a different standard for cottage industry and it is possible that this will be the case in NSW and the ACT.
Lyn Shiels
This novel by Kylie Tennant was written in 1956 and is the story of a year in the life of Mallee Herrick, who has inherited sixty beehives from her grandfather and sets out to become a migratory beekeeper.
She
sets out in the “Roaring Ruin” and teams up with the Muirdens, an experienced
beekeeping family. The ups and downs
of a travelling beekeeper’s life form the background to a story of the personalities
in and around the Muirden’s camp.
Kylie Tennant says that she is not writing of bees “….because nobody knows enough about the Daughters of the Light to write about them, although, sometimes, when you take them up in your hands and feel the vibrant delicacy of their living bodies you almost think you know something about them.”
There are many vivid descriptions of beekeeping practices throughout the story. The following is about queen rearing. “By dipping a rounded stick, about the size of my little finger, first into cold water, then in the hot wax, then in cold water again, a wax sheath forms that can be slipped off until you have a billy-can full of these tiny cups which are called cell-cups.”
“The cell-cups are arranged on the bar of an empty frame and slipped into a super on a hive that has an old queen or one that is queenless. If there is a queen in the box, a queen excluder keeps her down in the bottom where she cannot destroy the bar of queen cells. The bees come up and caress and smooth these cups. This is called “priming” and no human hands can do it. The bar of cell-cups is left in overnight, and then, next morning, in each tiny cup a ten-hour-old larva is placed with a feather or a tiny spoon. The bar, with its living tiny specks of white in each cup, is replaced so that the bees can pack the cup with jelly and build over each the curious tower of knobbly wax which is the sign and surety of a queen cell.”
“Once these are wrought, the bar is lifted out, on the tenth day, and carried with the queen cells like a strange, pendulous fruit to the neuc boxes where the future queens are set up, each with a home of her own, a strong frame of good young bees and brood, and two frames of honey for their sustenance.”
“On the thirteenth day the queen emerges. She mates any time up to five days after that. If she doesn’t mate, she becomes a drone layer and you kill her. She dances a merry measure on air with her chosen lover, and then the clock strikes, and, leaving no glass slipper on the staircase of light, she hastens home, descending to the warm domesticity of the hive, and the changeless life of laying and being hustled about by her family."
At the end of the book Old Matt says to Mallee “You know, I’ve got a theory that the bees are awake to you mob. ‘Come on,’ they say. ‘We got to get somebody to look after us. Give them a little bit of honey for their trouble and kid them along.’ Bees have been dealing with us for thousands of years now and they just about got us taped.”
Who do you think is running your apiary?
Lyn Shiels
NSW Agriculture are running a course on producing package bees at Tocal Agricultural College on Sunday 10 November and Monday 11 November. The cost is $364, meals and accommodation extra. For further information contact Kim Griffiths on 1800 025520. Address: CB Alexander College, “Tocal” 815 Tocal Road, PATERSON. 2421
BEE-L "For Informed Discussion of Beekeeping Issues and Bee Biology"
BEE-L is the oldest Internet mailing list for discussing bees and beekeeping. It was originally started as a list for international communication between bee researchers at universities and government institutions. Over the years, it has evolved more to the discussion of practical beekeeping, but still retains some of its original character.
BEE-L is for public informed discussion of beekeeping issues and bee biology (and is not restricted to honey bees). It is a moderated list and has standards for posts that will be accepted. Well thought out articles are encouraged, but BEE-L is a large gathering of about 1,000 serious beekeepers and professionals, so casual chatter is usually not appropriate. (There are other lists on the net and a USENET group devoted to elementary or local beekeeping topics and to chat. There are some live chat sites as well. Each list or group has its own character. Some are chatty, and cluttered, some are for beginners, some have more specific mandates. Some are entirely private, unlisted, and by invitation only).
Anyone at all is welcome to join BEE-L (there is no cost or obligation) and read the articles that are sent out daily either one by one or in daily digest form. Replies, comments and articles from list members provide the content, so please contribute if you have knowledge of anything of interest to beekeepers and researchers. All input is welcome and will be read by the four moderators, but only articles that meet the criteria will normally be passed to all list members. Most are accepted, so don't be shy.
All posts sent to BEE-L are first delivered to all current moderators for approval. Any one moderator can approve a post independently and it will go to the whole BEE-L subscriber list. Any post that does not receive a vote from at least one moderator will expire without being sent to subscribers. Generally any post meeting our guidelines (and a few that don't) will make the cut and be sent to the list.
The moderators do not guarantee that any post will be approved. Writers submit articles to BEE-L on the understanding that BEE-L is a private, open membership list and that post may be refused without any reason or explanation, although that is not normally the case. Appeals may be addressed to the moderators by sending a post to BEE-L with the first line of text reading "FOR THE MODERATORS ONLY". All polite appeals will be considered on their merits, but the list owner's decision is final.
We hope you enjoy our community and benefit from the vast amount of knowledge, opinion and ideas that has accumulated in our archives over more than a decade. If you have experience or ideas to share, we hope you will write an article and post it for distribution. If you have experience and knowledge to share on topics that are currently being discussed or on articles in the archives, we hope you will write your comments out and submit them too.
Although the Internet is a fascinating place to get the latest information, rumours, and sometimes gossip, books and bee magazines are still the best source of authoritative information on many topics. Books, magazines and their contents are often a topic of discussion here, and we are proud to have a significant number of authors and editors reading the list.
We particularly appreciate any input from the many bee scientists, researchers and extension people who read BEE-L and from experienced beekeepers on the many continents of this diverse planet.
BEE-L is an international list. We try not criticize grammar or spelling or personal style. In particular, we encourage non-English speaking members to express their ideas as best they can. Occasionally, if the content is particularly interesting to our membership, will accept posts in languages other than English.
The above is quoted from Allen Dick’s
very informative beekeeping Web site. More
information is available on “Allen’s BEE-L Page” at www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/default.htm
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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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