These are the notes from the presentation that I hopefully will be giving at the Auckland Bee Club on 11 Feb 2012, hopefully others will also find these notes useful.

The amount of mites that are naturally falling out of your hive is a good indication of the mite population. A meshboard or a screened bottom board is a non intrusive way to count the mites without the need to open up the hive and disturb the bees.

This could done any time of the year, if you have a mesh board installed.

What you need:-

• A Meshboard
• Something Sticky for board (We use cooking Spray from the supermarket “Canola Oil”)
• An inspection tray to place under meshboard.
• A magnify glass can be handy for spotting mites

How often should I check for mites?

Numbers of mites can expand quite rapidly in Autumn, so always be on the lookout for signs of mite damage. For example bees with deformed wing virus and or a large number of mites in drone cells.

We normally do a three-day count once a month.

Steps involved:-

1. Spray or apply sticky solution to inspection tray.
2. Record time of day.
3. Three days later as close to the same time of day tray was placed, remove tray.
4. Count the mites on tray and divide them by 3, this give you the average fall per day. Doing it over multiple days gives you a more accurate count than doing a count of one day.

*** Don’t smoke or inspect your hive during the sample period, this will give you an inaccurate count ***

The mature mites are small, oval, and dark reddish-brown. Only count the mature mites.

For example:-

Mites on tray after three days equals 30.

30 divided by 3 equals 10 mites per day

Record this figure in your hive records and work out the best course of action based on the following table:-

* Sourced from Control of Varroa MAF Book Page 46, which is available free HERE

We decided to go away for Auckland anniversary weekend. So while I was out and out in the Coromandel bush pursuing another one of my hobbies (Locating treasure with a GPS device or Geocaching).

I had heard that Tutin in honey is more of a problem in the Coromandel Peninsular. I managed to find quite a bit of it on my tramp/walk with Snow our dog.

Tutin is a native plant in New Zealand, which can produce toxic honey. Toxic honey is a rare event and is more likely to occur when comb honey is eaten directly from a hive that has been harvesting honeydew from passion vine hoppers feeding on tutu plants. The resulting nectar produces toxic honey, which if consumed in large quantities can cause issues for humans. It causes no ill effects to the bees. The insect that feeds on the Tutin tree is known as a “fluffy bum”, Latin name Scolypopa australis.

It’s a good idea to watch these trees in your local area for any signs of the fluffy bums on the Tutin Tree. This is a good sign that your honey may contain toxic nectar. If you sell your honey commercially you are required by law to get it tested before sale. It’s probably not a bad idea to get I’m tested anyway, if you live in high risk area. Do you really want to poison your kids or friends?

I didn’t spot any “fluffy bums” on the Tutin today, the only fluffy bum I saw was on our dog “snow” but she doesn’t count.

Something had been feasting on some if the trees, but looks more like caterpillar damage according to our resident gardener Margaret.

I’d you are based in the Waiomu area here are some GPS locations of Tutin that I found in your area to observe.

S 37 01.583 E 175 32.650
S 37 01.567 E 175 32.590
S 37 01.610 E 175 32.083
S 37 01.593 E 175 31.748
S 37 01.578 E 175 31.674

You can type these in Google Earth if you don’t have a GPS Device.

You will often find Tutin on the side of steams or rivers, go out and see if you can spot any. Can you see any fluffy bums? Comment here if you do with the general area.

We inspected our hives when we got back as well, so have also uploaded some Bee photos.

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 management frame

Foundation less frames with drones

The bees also sometimes create crazy comb when they get the chance. I wish the bees would read the same books I do .

Crazy Comb

When we use foundation less frames in the honey supers the bees tend to create more drone sized cells for the honey, which uses less nectar in producing the wax for the comb.

We still use wooden frames with wax foundation here at Kiwimana, our bees don’t like the plastic frames and neither do we .

But I think we will stick to using full foundation frames for the brood and give the bees some “Drone management frames” to fulfil their desire for drone space. What do you do with your foundation? Have you moved over to using plastic?

I 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 to decap the honey with your decapping knife.

The tip is to use drawing pins on the top edge of the frames. This increases the gap between frames by about four millimetres.

I attached drawing pins (two per frame). For the frames by the sides of the box make a gap at both ends of the frames a finger width. Let’s see how this works out, still waiting for a period of no rain in Auckland to help the bees bring in some more nectar.

I will report back on how the bees do with drawing pinned frames.

Do you use nine frames in your hive boxes? How do you space them out?

More photos of frames:-

I 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 show.
• Drone layers / AFB / Tutin checks.

Thanks to Donna for bringing in the old Green party election signs, we can recycle these as meshboard inspection trays or roof insulators for the bees. If only the Green party can also get neonicotinoid pesticides banned this term, all we be good with the world.

I also purchased some rope and food grade oil to make up some oily rope for one hive. The bees walk on the rope and get some of the oil on them. This is meant to make the bees groom themselves more and remove the varroa mites. Susie at the bee club is also going to give it a go.

We first heard about this at the last NBA conference last year from a talk by Anne Hulme. We will report back our findings.

Here is the recipe for the oily rope idea. I’m sure Anne Hulme wouldn’t mind it being published here. We had no way of getting in touch, if she is reading this then please get in touch.

Cords using Food Grade Mineral Oil (FGMO), Honey and Wax Recipe for 10 hives

250 grams FGMO and 125 grams Wax melted together first,

Then add 125 grams Honey stirred in on a low heat.

Drop in the cords and stir to cover well. Lift out with tongs and lay in an ice cream container. Pour any excess mixture back into the wok / frypan.

Use one metre of cord cut into a convenient size, to each brood box.

Lay the cords over the tops of the brood frames.

Replace monthly or before they get propolised. (Anne does it fortnightly in the honey season)

Cook the used cords again for next time. Can be used again and again for years.

Anne said that this did reduce the mites in her hives. So we are keen to give it a go, as it can be used with honey Supers on. And doesn’t add any pesticides to the hive .

Here are some photos from the day:-

Hi over the last three days, I have had inspection trays in some of our hives. Here are the results:-

Whenupai 1 Varroa Count

Tray placed 9 Jan 2012 18:30 (0 mites)
Tray Checked 12 Jan 2012 18:30 (5 mites)

=5/72 (Hours) = 0.069 per hour
or 5/3 (Days) = 1.67 mites per day

The hive has a large populatrion of pseudoscorpion’s These little guys are meant to eat Varroa Mites. Maybe thats why the hive has a low mite count…

Remuera 1 Varroa Count

Tray placed 9 Jan 2012 18:30 (0 mites)
Tray Checked 12 Jan 2012 18:30 (4 mites)

=5/72 (Hours) = 0.06 per hour
or 5/3 (Days) = 1.33 mites per day

Looks good to me. This is the swarm that was in bush in a previous blog post, these guys are building up well and are due a full inspection.

Taupaki 1 Varroa Count

Tray placed 9 Jan 2012 18:30 (0 mites)
Tray Checked 12 Jan 2012 18:30 (10 mites)

=5/72 (Hours) = 0.14 per hour
or 5/3 (Days) = 3.33 mites per day

Loads of pollen on the inspection tray. This is the second biggest hive, and doesn’t have any drone brood management frames in it. We need to build some more soon.

These are some notes from the inspections today:-

Taupaki 1

Hive is very strong and doing very well, loads of bees in the brood area and their have built out two boxes with brood. The hive has some crazy comb issues due to using foundation less frames. I have removed this hopefully the bees will take the hint.

I removed one ¾ box which was added before Christmas in case of a honey flow, but the bees haven’t touched the box. So have left them with two ¾ boxes to work on.

The hive needs some Drone Management frames which we will build when we get a chance.

Did spot the Queen going about her royal duties, which is always a thrill (Can you spot her?)

The hive does seem to have a large population of drones for some reason.

Swanson 1

These bees were a swarm we picked up in the middle of November. There have been busy and have started building out the second full-sized box. No need to add or remove any boxes from these guys.

Didn’t spot the Queen in this hive, but did see plenty of brood. Here is a great picture from the hive:-

I did see a few Varroa mites when some drone comb broke apart between frames.

Adult Bee Testing

I have also been asked by Asure Quality to be part of their testing for their “American Foulbrood National Pest Management Strategy”.

My role is to provide some bees from our hives, which I also did today and have couriered them to them to test.

I always seem to be picked to do these random surveys? Felt sad that some of my girls had to lose their life for this testing.

Here are the photos of today’s inspection:-

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 resulting a loss of all our hives.

Our plan this year is going to do the following, it’s hard to follow a plan unless you have one .

Location
Keep bees elevated at least 12 inches from the ground. To reduce splash up from the Waitakere rains.

We moved our apiary to a sunnier spot, under tree cover just doesn’t work over winter in the Waitakere ranges we have discovered.

Early Spring

Treat bees with API Var life. An organic treatment that we are trying out this year.

Spring

Split hives – this disrupts the mites breeding cycle and increases the colonies chance of success.

Throughout the season Spring through to Autumn

Use drone brood management frames, removing every 24 days (if mites are present in brood).

Use screened bottom boards to reduce and monitor mites. Having a Screened bottom can remove up to 25% of the mites, it also allow you to do mite counts.

Check for mites at least every month, using a inspection tray in our mesh boards.

Use sugar shaking on each inspection (If mites located).

Autumn after honey supers removed – treat hives with Oxalic acid. We have not tried this, so will need to research this further. Have you had any success with Oxalic acid?

What are you planning this year?, make a plan and stick it on your wall. Maybe even share your plan here. It would be great to see what others have planned, so we can all learn.

Thanks for reading…Gary

Well it was a wet day in Auckland, and we were surprised the meeting was still on. But we were told by the Hive Manager “Peter” that weather forecast predicated clear skies until Lunch time. So it was off down to Franklin to attend the club day.

We had chat in the shed about the upcoming Honey Show, we will have to find out more and see if we can extract some honey for the day. The club will also be selling honey at the upcoming Karaka show.

The weather did stop raining for a brief time and it was time to check out the spilt that was taken on the last club day. The hive did have a lot of bees in it, but no sign of brood today. Peter said it could mean the Queen hasn’t started laying yet. We did find an empty Queen cell, so let’s hope she is all ok and the hive starts up soon.

We then inspected the Top Bar hive that club has now; it was great to see that the hive has several frames of brood. So these girls are going very well. The bees were also very calm and the frames were easy to remove and inspect.

I am still toying with the idea of building a top bar hive, maybe that could be a winter project for me. It could be an interesting project to try. I’m still not really sold of the benefits to the bees yet. Do you have a top bar what do you see as the benefits to the bees?

Afterwards a few members went down to a local café in Pukekohe for an after meeting coffee; the member that was meant to bring the hot water didn’t turn up to the meeting this week.

It was great chatting with everyone about ideas and plans to take over the bee-keeping world .

Thanks to everyone that came along today, despite the weather.

Here are some photos of the day:-

Day One

Got a call from Mary in Glen Eden, a swarm of bees had taken up residence on the side of her pool house. It was into the Kiwimana mobile after work, with a spare hive that I had gathered together from parts found in the workshop.

Mary said she thinks the bees had been there about a week, but I noticed a large comb hanging from the pool house around six inches long. I’m pretty sure these guys have been here for around three weeks.

This was their new home, so they were pretty aggressive bees. I must remember to bring gloves on swarm calls. Because you never know what you will find. Usually swarms are pretty calm, but not these guys. The girls managed to give me three stings for my troubles.

I cut the largest comb and placed it into the hive box. But judging by the bees actions, I’m pretty sure the queen is still on the side of the building.

The area is a dangerous spot, the bees were around 1.5 meters up, but over the fence was a six metre drop. The deck surface was also very slippery.

Day Two

Mary called to advise that the bees have moved from the wall into the hive. I will go and visit and investigate.

We visited and indeed bees are coming and going from the hive. They have been busy building comb as well, I did noticed some new eggs. So we are fairly certain the hive is queen right. But it does concern me that some bees are coming and going from the hole where an electric cable is coming our from? Bees are also managing to get into the pool house, but can’t get back out, so the floor has become a wasteland of dead bees .

We will pick up the hive tonight. Hopefully the house owner are not dealing with another Colony in the wall.

Conclusion
We picked up the bees tonight, didn’t see any activity from the hole in the wall. I sealed it with some tape, just in case. Mary the home owner said a small amount of bees flew away the morning before we checked them. Maybe this was the hole in the wall bees?

Welcome to KiwiMana “Glen Eden 2″ found 11 kms from HQ.

We have since checked on the bees, and the amount of bees is much smaller than the first swarm. So I think its pretty certain that the swarm had split in two before we picked them up . The hive has three Queen Cells and we also provided them a frame of new eggs. We suspect they don’t have a valid Queen.

Here are all the photos:-