Inquiry Beekeeping for CALENDAR Project

[cgwelcher]

Kia ora,
Hello!

Not sure where the best place to post this is but here we go:

We are a group of STEM students studying abroad in Wellington, New Zealand, from January 7 to March 1. We are from Worcester, Massachusetts, USA, studying at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). Our focus while we are abroad is to research the effect of seasonal shifting on beekeeping and how climate change and technology have potentially altered calendar perception. We will be working with the global CALENDARS Project to further their research on how individuals and communities perceive shifts in seasonal patterns across diverse activities and livelihoods.

We would love to gain your insight on this topic and do an interview while we are in New Zealand, if you would be willing to talk with us. If you know of any other contacts who would be interested in providing information for us, we would love to be put in contact with them to learn more about beekeeping.

Thank you for taking the time to consider our project, and we hope to hear from you soon. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to reach out. We look forward to hearing back from you.

Sincerely,

Alaina (Chemical Engineering)
William (Electrical and Computer Engineering)
Cole (Robotics Engineering and Computer Science)
Aaron (Industrial Engineering)

 

[cgwelcher]

If anyone would like to talk with us please reach out! gr-nz-24-bees@wpi.edu

 

[tristan]

i keep wondering how to tell that that changes in beekeeping are climate change related.
nz is typically quite changeable weather to start with. you could look at it over a lifetime, but there is so many beekeeping changes over the decades (eg varroa, hive numbers, manuka, farming practices) that i doubt anyone could tell for sure.

for me one thing that stands out is lack of clover honey and pennyroyal. for us clover crops have been pretty rare for the last 10 years or so.
but, we are not chasing clover crops (bush has been worth more), hive numbers have increased a lot over that time. farmers reseed paddocks with low nectar producing clover. farmers tend to spray out weeds extremely well.
so all that tends to hide any effects of climate change.

 

[Alastair]

for me one thing that stands out is lack of clover honey and pennyroyal.

Yes that is something I have wondered about. I remember around 10 years ago getting a good pennyroyal crop, and could drive around Dairy Flat and all the paddocks were purple, didn't matter if they were sheep, cattle, horses, they were all purple. Then a year or two later, gone. Near enough zero penny royal, anywhere.

There must be an answer to this riddle, but I don't know what it is.

Then over the last few months, heaps of people seeing chalk brood, and seeing it in my hives also. Why? Climate? Don't know.

 

[Gerrit]

heaps of people seeing chalk brood, and seeing it in my hives also. Why? Climate? Don't know.

I don't have the answer, but I see it occasionally as well. I am not aware "any research" is done on chalkbrood, maybe something has changed (mutation or whatever), we don't know.

 

[Alastair]

I see it occasionally as well.

As in, more so recently?

 

[Eeb Evih]

Yes that is something I have wondered about. I remember around 10 years ago getting a good pennyroyal crop, and could drive around Dairy Flat and all the paddocks were purple, didn't matter if they were sheep, cattle, horses, they were all purple. Then a year or two later, gone. Near enough zero penny royal, anywhere.

There must be an answer to this riddle, but I don't know what it is.

Then over the last few months, heaps of people seeing chalk brood, and seeing it in my hives also. Why? Climate? Don't know.

I farmed near Karapiro in the hills to the north of SH1. I observed over the years, 1960's pasture weed white daisy early 70's plumless and nodding thistle and a huge outbreak of inkweed, each seemed to run about 5 years before the mineral or element there was a deficiency of was resolved. meanwhile the stock only occasionally arrived showing copper deficiency in the '60's and 70's but by late 70's mineral deficiencies were rampant in on farm bred stock (sheep and cattle) my dairy neighbours had this more than 10 years earlier than us peasant sheep farmers. I put it down to superphosphate as they applied 2 to 3 times more than us drystock farmers... so I began using rock phosphate and dropped all chemical use on farm.
Skinks came back after a few years, the first bell bird was heard in 1990 and after 65 years finally I saw a Kereru in 2013 June while the Waipa Council was ascessing my 75ha of Kanuka and 12 ha native bush (third of my property, retained because I had a son who was making furniture out of Kanuka and he had a 30 year rotation at 2ha a year) for SNA land grab

 

[Wildbee]

i keep wondering how to tell that that changes in beekeeping are climate change related.
nz is typically quite changeable weather to start with. you could look at it over a lifetime, but there is so many beekeeping changes over the decades (eg varroa, hive numbers, manuka, farming practices) that i doubt anyone could tell for sure.

for me one thing that stands out is lack of clover honey and pennyroyal. for us clover crops have been pretty rare for the last 10 years or so.
but, we are not chasing clover crops (bush has been worth more), hive numbers have increased a lot over that time. farmers reseed paddocks with low nectar producing clover. farmers tend to spray out weeds extremely well.
so all that tends to hide any effects of climate change.

Has any one done any research into high nectar yielding clover crops? Im sure my farmers would plant it if it existed

 

[tristan]

Has any one done any research into high nectar yielding clover crops? Im sure my farmers would plant it if it existed

someone had a good story about that. apparently the clover breeders didn't breed for nectar production and bred a lot of it out. it could be bred back in but there is no incentive for anyone to do the work.
farmers would plant it, but only if it doesn't cost them anything more than existing varieties.

 

[Wildbee]

someone had a good story about that. apparently the clover breeders didn't breed for nectar production and bred a lot of it out. it could be bred back in but there is no incentive for anyone to do the work.
farmers would plant it, but only if it doesn't cost them anything more than existing varieties.

I was reading today that clover nectar has been bred for slightly in regards to pollination , breeding strains that can be pollinated at lower temperatures