Whats this about? The honey comb that the bees use to raise their brood and place their honey stores gets old. What is a beekeeper to do? Why do it? Frames become impregnated with pesticides, some the bees pick up from their foraging efforts and others from beekeepers placing treatments into their hives to remove [...]
Archive for the ‘Equipment’ Category
Replacing old comb in your hive
28 April 2012NBA Meeting – Waitemata Honey
26 April 2012agp,albany,arabinogalactan,auckland,audrey,bee,graham cammell,comvita,cosmetic,dha,dihydroxyacetone,extractor,hmf,honey,honeys,jonathan stephens,kanuka,kumeu,ltd,manuka,medicinal,motorway,nba,neil,packers,pre,premises,protein,stephens,stimulates,tanks,umf,waitemata
We will be selling Mite Away Quick Strips
5 April 2012We are happy to announce that we will be selling the NOD Mite Away Quick Strips. MiteAway Quick strips are a formic Acid based miticide which is reported to leave no residues in the hive. The strips were invented by Bee Keepers in Canada to help the fight against the mites. Kiwimana realises that some [...]
Swanson One and API Var Life
17 March 2012This hive was showing signs of a high varroa mite count; it was on solid bottom board so we couldn’t do a drop count. But the inspection of drone brood indicated lots of mites and bees were spotted with deformed wing virus. The decision was made to treat the hive a few weeks back. API [...]
Foundation less frames no good for brood frames
28 January 2012We have been experimenting with foundation less frames and getting the bees to create their own foundation. The problem with doing this on brood frames is that the bees tend to create more drone comb and we would rather their build this in our drone management frames. So we can keep varroa numbers lower. Drone [...]
Keeping nine frames in a ten frame box
24 January 2012I found this clever tip on the beebehavior.com site to keep nine frames easily spaced in a ten frame box. Using only nine frames causes the bees to build out the wax further, and surprisingly you will get more honey than if you used ten frames. Also as the wax extends out further, it’s easier [...]
Working in the shop at the Auckland Bee Club
14 January 2012I went along to Auckland bee club today, and spent most of the time helping Sue in the shop. It was a very busy day and I enjoyed meeting and talking to everyone that came in. I managed to sneak out during the talks. The topics today were:- Harvesting honey Tips on entering the honey [...]
Our Varroa mite plan this season
10 January 2012This was a question posted in by one of our readers, Sophie asks:- How can a New Zealand bee-keeper keep their bees alive every year? Well this is a good question, over recent times bee-keepers are having trouble keeping bees alive. Due to Varroa mites and pesticides in the environment. Last year our plan failed [...]
Visiting Peter and Ceracell
17 December 2011Today got up early and drove to Ceracell to pick up some much needed supplies, we needed some frames to put into our boxes we have made. We also needed to visit Peter in Rangiriri to pick up the NUC box he had made up for us. Arrived at Ceracell at 09:00 but the gate [...]
Kiwimana Drone Management Frames For Sale!!!!
15 September 2011We have listed the Drone Management Frames we built on Trademe, if you are interested check out the auction by clicking on the link below:- TradeMe Auction fro Kiwimana Drone Management Frames Here is some information about the frame. In the battle against the Varroa destructor mite beekeepers needs a few tricks to help combat [...]
