We 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 [...]
Posts Tagged ‘brood’
Foundation less frames no good for brood frames
28 January 2012Our 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 [...]
Rainy Day at the Franklin Bee Club
8 January 2012Well 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 [...]
AFB Check at Earthsong
19 November 2011Went along to check on a hive at the Earthsong, which is an Eco-Neighbourhood project based in Ranui in West Auckland. For more information about this project please check out their web site http://www.earthsong.org.nz It seemed like a great place indeed very peaceful with loads of gardens about. Conny had asked us to come and [...]
Treating our new Hives with Apilife
13 November 2011In between collecting swarms we checked on our new hives today and treated them with “Apilife Var” the organic mite treatment, the mites counts have been low but we have been told that treating a hive with low brood is more effective. So lets see what happens. So in summary this is what we did [...]
Bethells 1 – Hive Inspection
8 March 2011Started 13:23 – Weather windy but sunny Well Bethells 1 is due for an inspection, the sun and the bees were out and about. So we took the chance to do an inspection. The tin roof had been propolised down; I suspect this is part of the Bees efforts to close up for winter. Inspecting [...]
Bee Hive Inspections
18 February 2011Mokoroa 1 Did a full inspection of the hive today, still a few ¾ frames in the hive from when I was feeding them the stores from last year. Loads of brood today and spotted the Queen walking around, the upper level doesn’t have much in it. But I will leave for them to fill [...]
Honey 1 – Sugar Shake and removed Drone Brood
13 February 2011Hi, I was discussing Sugar Shaking our Bees yesterday with Rocky at the Auckland Bee Club and invited him up to be part of our first attempt at it. It went pretty well, and we made a video on YouTube about it. Click HERE to view the Video. Hopefully the video shows you how we [...]
Removing the Apistan Strips
4 July 2010Well its week seven and we planned to removed the Apistan strips this week, the plan was if this weekend was bad weather (which to be honest in this Auckland Winter that’s most weekends), we would remove them next weekend. But we woke this morning to a nice clear sky day with no rain predicated [...]
Honey 1 gets some Apistan strips treatment
15 May 2010Well took my chances today in between the Auckland Rain showers to inspect one of the hives. Today I inspected Honey 1. Honey one had three brood boxes that I have reduced down to two and put in 2 Apistan strips in each brood box. Here’s hoping that these knock back the Varroa mites a [...]
