Beginneer Beekeeping Course

01/03/2014
Today I attended the first of three sessions in the "Beginner Beekeeping Course" led by (Dr) Melissa Gunn and held at our local community Kaipatiki Project. 
The course consists of two theory and one practical session and covers enough to whet the appetite for any budding beekeeper.
There was an interesting range of folk in attendance, from some ladies who already keep bees, people like myself who are in the process of getting a hive, people who are pretty sure they want a hive, but want to know what is involved – and a couple of folk that I’d describe as simply “bee-curious”.

Having read a number of books already, I was looking forward to the gems of wisdom that comes through actually doing the beekeeping – as well as filling in the many gaps left by the primarily American centric texts which I had read. 

The last item was easily answered, there is a book called "Practical Beekeeping in New Zealand" which comes highly recommended by all the NZ bee club sites I've visited - and also got the stamp of approval from our tutor. My tip to readers, check the local beekeeping club prices, check the supply companies such as Ceracell, Kiwimana, and Ecroyd (for those of you in the mainland). Once you've done your research, run a quick search across TradeMe, as that was the place I found the best buy (including the freight).

So – to my notes from the sessions:

Safety – People:

• You may wish to invest in an EpiPen just in case one of your guests should happen to get stung – however, these are pharmacy only items, they are not cheap (~$135 at time of writing - though you may be able to source them offshore for less). They are only effective for a period of 20 months from manufacture, and if your friends are severely allergic enough to require such treatment, they may already carry one of these with them anyway. Bottom line – it’s a judgement call, if you do decide to purchase, be sure to calandarise the date when you need to replace the unit, and get the pharmacist to show you how it works so you’re not spending precious seconds reading the instructions while your friend turns all blue and puffy.
• To ‘train’ your bees to fly up and away from areas where people tend to walk, you can employ the use of a screen, be it brushwood, weed mat or shade cloth, or a natural barrier planting such as a hedge or tree. These can be sited about 2-4m in front of the hive, and should be around 2m high. They also serve to keep your hives out of the line of vision of poorly informed/paranoid and/or nosy neighbours how may otherwise exist blissfully ignorant of the thousands and thousands of bees that you keep just on the other side of the fence (they will however still reap the benefits of increased pollination in their vegetable and flower gardens).
• Providing a water source for your bees *before* installing your hive will increase the chance that your bees will pass down knowledge of your water source, rather than scouting out your neighbours pool/water feature/birdbath etc. Some beekeepers add some sugar to this water for the first few weeks to make it more enticing to the new bees.

Safety – Bees:

• Try to convince your neighbours to let you know in advance if they plan to spray with an insecticide – that way, you can keep your girls safely locked up for the day of spraying and hopefully you won’t get too many post spray deaths in your colony.
• Some garden sprays are BAD for bees - especially those containing neonicotinoids. Let your neighbours know which ones to avoid using, inform them of alternative, safer sprays (or options such as companion planting) and check your garage cupboards for offending sprays ensuring you safely dispose of any unwanted products. There is a handy information pamphlet here
• Get rid of Karaka trees around your section if at all possible, they produce a toxic nectar. This tends to cause a problem in dry summers when other nectar sources may not be as prolific. Your local bee club will generally offer a Tutin testing nearing the end of summer.
• If you hive a swarm, keep them quarantined for at least 18 months (the AFB spore active period) to prevent the potential spread of AFB to your existing hives. 
• Swarming season tends to be from September until December – your local bee club tends to be the first point of contact for swarm removal so get active with the club if you wish to be considered for homing a swarm of bees.

Interesting (to me) Facts:

• The Apiaries Act 1969 made it illegal to keep hives without removable frames (for inspection purposes). This basically outlaws the use of ‘Skeps’ (the more traditional constructed beehive).
• “Honey” is deemed to only come from the Western Honey Bee Apis Mellifera bees. Apparently this is not scientifically completely accurate as many solitary bees also produce honey, but it’s good enough for us as we all tend to use one of the many Apis Mellifera subspecies.
• There are around 20,000 bee species, New Zealand has 28 Native to the country (and none of them are our beloved honeybee).
• On the 10th of March 2011 New Zealand had 3,251 beekeepers, 23,395 apiaries, 388,369 hives, and produced something around 9,000 – 12,000 tonnes of honey annually.
• In the summer, worker bees tend to work themselves to death over a period of only six weeks. In winter, as they are less active in foraging, the worker tends to have a life expectancy of around 6 months.
• Bee stings are acidic and wasp stings are alkaline, thus treatment can be marginally different but there is no substantive evidence that neutralising agents such as baking soda pastes / bluo / anything else have a marked effect on the severity of the reaction to the sting. The reason is that a sting contains between 5 and 50 micrograms of fluid, the toxins are injected into the skin and neutralising agents are topical at best. Simply put, you've got about as much venom as the size of this full-stop . and coating the sting site with vinegar/baking soda or anything else your grandmother told you is highly unlikely to change the pH level of the venom back to a neutral state. It may help the victim feel better and placebo effects are still useful when calming someone down. Therefore, the recommended treatment regime for a sting is to:

Remove the stinger quickly (grabbing it directly or using a thin blade to flick it out makes little difference), and apply something cold to the site of the sting. This will constrict the vessels in the area and reduce the spread of the toxins to surrounding tissue.

• The Queen substance pheromone is close in smell to lemongrass. Often lemongrass essence is used in a “Bait Hive” when seeking to capture a swarm.

Harvesting Honey:
The mechanics of extraction were discussed, but these are well covered by almost every book out there, what I found interesting was the requirements placed upon beekeepers who wish to commercialise their honey crop. If you are selling your harvested honey, you will need:

• To operate under the Food Hygiene Regulations 1974 OR a registered Food Safety Programme 
• To comply with the Food Standards Code (labelling/composition) and the Food (Tutin in Honey) Standard 2010 also the 2011 amendment.
• To extract in a commercial kitchen environment (these are available for short term hire)
• ...and a bunch of other things - seriously, read up on the material and talk to your bee club, they will have members who have been through this and can help you navigate the requirements

For those planning to be clever, be aware that Food Safety is quite clear that "Donating or bartering honey is a form of trade and is also subject to regulation under the Food Act 1981", so giving it away, swapping it etc. won't help you dodge your responsibilities. Frankly I was surprised at the compliance requirements, so I'll certainly be doing more reading before next season.

07/03/2014 - Edit: Added further notes from theory session

Brood Patterns:

• Brood patterns can often indicate imminent problems with a hive. A healthy hive will exhibit a solid brood pattern – that is, brood/eggs located in most if not all central cells of a comb. When the brood pattern is “spotty” – that is, many gaps between brood, eggs not being laid in adjacent cells.

Good Brood Pattern (brood consistent, surrounded by pollen / honey stores) Image Credit: http://beeinformed.org/

Poor Brood Pattern Image Credit: http://beeinformed.org/

Workers will produce queen cells when they feel a need to make changes within the colony.

• Queen cells found at the bottom of a frame are known as swarm cells and are created when the colony feels cramped or uneasy in their current home. 
• Queen cells found toward the middle of the frame are known as supercedure cells and are created when the workers believe their queen needs replacing.
• These cells can be removed and placed into smaller brood boxes (known as Nucs – or Nucleus’) with only a few frames and attendant worker bees with the intention of producing an additional colony – these are either sold to other beekeepers, or used to start another hive. 
• It does pay to understand the origins of your Queen bee as, Queens produced from swarm cells are thought to have ‘swarm genetics’ so may require extra attention when compared to those originating from supercedure cells.

Swarming:

• Tends to happen during Spring and Summer
• Vibration within the hive tends to increase just prior to swarming (there's a number of projects around this - one of them is written up on Bee Hacker - Also, Eddie Woods work has been summarised here)
• You can lose much of your honey crop and your bees should they swarm
• Bees captured from a swarm (while ‘free’) may contain undesirable genes and/or susceptibility to disease – which may have been the reason they swarmed in the first place. With this in mind, it is recommended to quarantine such colonies for 18 months to protect against introducing potential AFB spores to an otherwise healthy hive.

Bee Diseases in New Zealand:

Our relative isolation protects our ecosystem to an extent, hence we are spared from some of the possible diseases which affect bees in other countries. However, with ever increasing numbers of people coming into the country, bringing with them prohibited – but undetected goods, alongside the potential for pathogens to enter the country through free trade agreements resulting in inadequately processed and vetted goods, our border controls are becoming an ever thinning last line of defense against such pests. One only has to look at the destruction wrought on our bee population from the introduction of the varroa mite in the 1990s to see what impact such failures in controls can bring.

Currently New Zealand is known to have the following:

• AFB (American Foul Brood)
• Varroa
• Nosema (Adis / Cerama)
• Wax Moth
• Parasitic Mite Syndrome
• Sac Brood (virus)
• Chalk Brood (fungus)
• Half Moon Disorder

Let’s hope the list stops there, and that we can find methods of eliminating, or at least more effectively controlling, the presence of the ailments which currently exist

07/03/2014 - Edit: The last session was a practical where the instructor invited the class to her house and we went through a hive inspection.