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 [...]
Posts Tagged ‘honey’
Tutin and Treasure Hunting on Auckland Anniversary Weekend
30 January 2012Foundation 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 [...]
Inspecting Hives and Sending Bees in the post?
11 January 2012It was time to inspect hives today in between painting bee hive boxes and dodging the ever-present rain in Auckland. Isn’t it meant to be summer here? 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 [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
Picking up the Hawthorn swarm – Part 3 “Third time is the Charm”
13 November 2011I headed out to work on the Remuera swarm again, hopefully third time lucky. I spoke to Peter from the Franklin bee-club who suggested we take some old comb to attract them. Which I had done last time, but this time I also took a frame of capped honey from our stores. What I did [...]
Went along to the Auckland bee club meeting
13 August 2011The sun was out so it was a good day to attend the first bee club meeting of the weekend. The first part of the meeting was part of the yearly AGM, a new vice president and some other club roles were nominated. I was nominated by one of the committee members “Martin” to join [...]
Good luck to our girls
14 May 2011Well it’s that time of year when all bee keepers hope we have done enough to help our bees with the coming winter months in New Zealand. In the case of the Waitakere’s we seem to get excessive rain for weeks at a time. We now know the reason why the council built a water [...]
