Member Beekeeping Articles

In the precious dawn of an Anzac morn I sit out on the verandah with black coffee and savour the sight and smell of yellowing leaves and cool damp air. The season is run, we are done. The crop drummed and stacked and a warm feeling in the belly that soon it will be gone. Tis the season for relaxation. I've picked up a few books lately that should have been read years ago, but somehow got stashed in the book shelf and forgotten about. 'Fruitless Fall ' by Rowan Jacobsen is one of them. It documents the disasters of CCD and Neonic attacks that struck the US beekeepers and the world back in 2007/2008. It talks of almond pollination and pesticide loading and bees struggling with Varroa and virus's in a polluted world. It talks of 80%...

Of the many ways plants attract pollinators to their blooms the production of scent might be the most complex. Just as the formation of a flower or the secretion of nectar impose a resource drain on the plant the manufacture and release of volatile odours must be costly. Some plants seem to exercise little to no control over this, tobacco and petunia release their fragrance to a nocturnal rhythm; snapdragons smell in the daytime, hopefully when their pollinators are most likely to be present. These rhythms don't care if it's day or night. Clover flowers too emit scent in a rhythmic manner but it is controlled by the light and dark intervals rather than by an intrinsic clock. Release begins 7–12 h after a light is switched on and the...

OK . Not sure where to post this, as Grant generally moves things around to keep my ramblings neat and tidy ..... So, I been thinking about the State of the Nation today. The Beekeeping Nation. That was spurred by a look on Trade Me this morning .... I quite like to check out Jobs for Beekeepers as I might find something that would be more lucrative than what I pay myself .... but on reflection I bin there and done that , the six figure salary plus vehicle and bonus, plus, wait, there's more .... 50 percent of the crop .... Ah, the Glory days ..... The Glory days have been and gone.... not that they lasted for that long as I had a falling out with my business partner and his Accounts Ant ..... History eh. Hah ,the Glory days. They...

The midday day sun strikes the verandah, chasing the frost to the shadows and catching the glint of silver spiders webs hanging from the rafters. The late summer colours paint the valley golden red , and the txt comes through on the phone ..... 'we working tomorrow Boss ...... fishings looking good ....' We is almost done on the bees for the year, just a bit of Honey Dew to pull and pump into a drum ..... God's own nectar for a guy I know who puts down a brew of mead to make us Invincible in war and Irresistable in love..... And as the world grapples with Covid and bubbles and supply chain woes my soul is filled with peace. We have a contract for the contents of my honey shed's three years of production. And let me tell you that...

While it has become relatively straightforward to measure Deformed Wing Virus (DWV) levels in honeybee adults and off-spring with modern analysis methods it has not been so easy to study the possible transmission routes, and to differentiate one possible source from another. It had been shown many years ago that DWV can be transmitted when the queen lays eggs, and that drone semen can contain the virus, and more recently that varroa mites inject the viral particles when they feed. A clever study from the USDA-ARS at Beltsville has used DWV labelled with a gene with a green fluorescent protein (GRP) to demonstrate an additional way of passing the infection on, in this case during the detection and removal of infected pupae and larvae, a...

Sooo, as the days shorten and we get our minds around hunkering down with a shed full of firewood and a freezer full of wild pig and venison ..... we are wintering our bees. All our hives are now sitting on Honey dew sites. The main crop is in the drum and we are thankfull for a good crop. Funnily enough , now is the time to prepare for next year..... I guess we'll do it againn next year... we listed the bees for sale on trade me a few months ago after I had a melt down when the Missus complained that there was more going out than coming in, if you get my drift .... for we all know that apparantly a Happy wife gives rise to a Happy life ..... Hmmmm. We had a couple of bites, most wanted to buy the trucks .... but without the...

More thoughts from the day ... not sure this is the place for it, but in an effort to lower Grant's stress level ..... We been on the bees again today, escaping honey, disease checking, and the Apivar arrived so we are putting that in too. The interesting part is looking at the hives , the strength of the bees at this time of year, and the crops they have produced. There was a lot of clover around this year, but the yields have been a bit ho hum. Hives that came home from the coast a month ago onto paddocks white with clover produced us another box and a half. Compared to bees we left on the Rata that made us another three boxes. The bees on the clover paddocks have no bees ...... correction ..... they have bees and slabs of brood...

This goes 'Beyond Bee Books'. It is a really interesting Open Access publication released today, not just with pictures but moving pictures! I'll let the authors describe it: "In this study, we provide a comprehensive source of online video material that offers a view of honey bee behaviour within comb cells, thereby providing a new mode of observation for the scientific community and the general public...Our qualitative study provides insight into worker behaviours, including the use of wax scales and existing nest material to remodel combs, storing pollen and nectar in cells, brood care and thermoregulation, and hygienic practices, such as cannibalism, grooming and surface cleaning. We reveal unique processes that have not been...

OK ... so this part of the forum is about Glyphosate ... chemicals right .... I was gonna put it into the apiary diary as it was an event in February ..... but then I thought Grant might take umbrage.... so. Our game plan for the year was diversification, Split the risk with bees in multiple locations ..... I would have liked to have gone back up north and made some real coin, but the Missus said NO , so being a real bloke I kowtowed and obeyed . Instead we went East and West .... 'Destination East or West I don't care'.... It's been interesting to see the difference. Our Eastern hives all went onto paid pollination, guaranteed income, assuming the landowners pay up, because for many of our new customers, paying for beehives is a new...

Anaphylaxis (an-a-fi-LAK-sis) is a serious allergic response that often involves swelling, hives, lowered blood pressure and in severe cases, shock. If anaphylactic shock isn't treated immediately, it can be fatal. A major difference between anaphylaxis and other allergic reactions is that anaphylaxis typically involves more than one system of the body. Symptoms usually start within 5 to 30 minutes of coming into contact with an allergen to which an individual is allergic. In some cases, however, it may take more than an hour to notice anaphylactic symptoms. Warning signs may include: Red rash (usually itchy and may have welts/hives) Swollen throat or swollen areas of the body Wheezing Passing out Chest tightness Trouble breathing...