Apiary Diary. February 2020

[Gino de Graaf 1,030]

1 hour ago, Nuc_man said:

Not that great cold summer minimal crop no buyers and hearing same thing all round me both queen and nuc money running low now ...Really not sure what direction to take from here. Any honey price under 6 or 7$ will just put salt in the wound , how about you @Gino de Graaf

Doing ok. Drought stopped flow early. Ironic really, considering. 

Good hives a solid third. We leave the second above single broods, tho expecting to feed for winter. 

I considered not putting thirds on, would have very sticky hives now if I didn't.

 

Not expecting buyers at my door. Pasture not attractive enough. 

 

Started our harvest and cell work. 

Your honey is light clover? 

 

 

 

7 minutes ago, Philbee said:

Its a trial Hive and here is a jpeg of its trial  history.

This spring it got 7 staples and 4 of them were replaced twice.

 

When it became apparent that the Bees weren't chewing, which was one of the Spring trial test goals,  I used some hives to demonstrate  the affects of adding fresh treatments mid course.

After all the idea is to extract as much data from a licenced trial as possible given that this trial was allocated just 450 treatments to use.

 

It should be noted that this trial Hive has a good health history
 

 

Well done. Did you notice any difference between trial hives and regular? Did you have any hives treated with conventional to compare with? 

[Nuc_man 83]

12 minutes ago, Gino de Graaf said:

Doing ok. Drought stopped flow early. Ironic really, considering. 

Good hives a solid third. We leave the second above single broods, tho expecting to feed for winter. 

I considered not putting thirds on, would have very sticky hives now if I didn't.

 

Not expecting buyers at my door. Pasture not attractive enough. 

 

Started our harvest and cell work. 

Your honey is light clover? 

 

 

 

Well done. Did you notice any difference between trial hives and regular? Did you have any hives treated with conventional to compare with? 

Yeah some nice honeygrade 1 and 2 and kanuka

[Philbee 4,675]

4 minutes ago, Gino de Graaf said:

Doing ok. Drought stopped flow early. Ironic really, considering. 

Good hives a solid third. We leave the second above single broods, tho expecting to feed for winter. 

I considered not putting thirds on, would have very sticky hives now if I didn't.

 

Not expecting buyers at my door. Pasture not attractive enough. 

 

Started our harvest and cell work. 

Your honey is light clover? 

 

 

 

Well done. Did you notice any difference between trial hives and regular? Did you have any hives treated with conventional to compare with? 

Difference between trial hives and regular ones.

Difficult to answer as the regular hives get the same treatment and I dont look at them nearly as much.
However looking back over 3 years Id say the trial Hives and the Regular hives are similar although hives that are opened the most seem to be really good.

Ive never used conventional treatments as a Commercial so have no way of comparing.

I have noticed that some Spring Hives are slow to start but do catch up, However this is not an absolute, Many Spring Hives bolt from the start.
That may be to do with the Queens?
There is one consistent observation though, Hive that winter well start well.

[Maggie James 906]

33 minutes ago, Philbee said:

Difference between trial hives and regular ones.

Difficult to answer as the regular hives get the same treatment and I dont look at them nearly as much.
However looking back over 3 years Id say the trial Hives and the Regular hives are similar although hives that are opened the most seem to be really good.

Ive never used conventional treatments as a Commercial so have no way of comparing.

I have noticed that some Spring Hives are slow to start but do catch up, However this is not an absolute, Many Spring Hives bolt from the start.
That may be to do with the Queens?
There is one consistent observation though, Hive that winter well start well.

Hives that overwinter well (unless an apiary becomes inaccessible), have gone into winter well.  

[Philbee 4,675]

2 minutes ago, Maggie James said:

Hives that overwinter well (unless an apiary becomes inaccessible), have gone into winter well.  

And Hives that go into winter well are Hives that have maintained low counts through Summer which will be the hives that came out of winter well and so it goes on.
The days of the "knock down" mentality are all but gone.
The secret is to maintain low numbers of Mites 12 months of the year.
My data sheet there shows 7 mites in April at the beginning of the trial.The only reason the mites got away on me was that I couldn't treat the trial hives until MPI issued the Prov Registration to conduct the trial.
This took longer than expected and the mites numbers grew having only been treated in the previous Sept . 

However in the end it worked out well because it stacked the odds against the trial which is precisely how I like it. 

 

[kaihoka 2,975]

@Philbee

 of my three hives , all had strips in winter, the two close together have got varroa in the drone brood .

I have noticed these hives go backwards . One was a bit weak it ,  swarmed , and the new queen took ages to mate .

I am sure it was being robbed by its neighbour on nasty wind days . And sharing varroa .

Both these hives have lots of uncapped brood and there is still a flow .

My other hive which is about 50 metres away has clean brood and collected lots of honey .

There was never any varroa in the brood till the migrants arrived .

I am sure they treated their hives but with hundreds of hives and a revolving work force it must be hard to keep track .

I gassed them on sat and will do it as alastair said , 7 treatments 3/4 days apart , till I put in OA strips .

No I have not done a sugar shake or alcohol wash .

[Philbee 4,675]

2 minutes ago, kaihoka said:

@Philbee

 of my three hives , all had strips in winter, the two close together have got varroa in the drone brood .

I have noticed these hives go backwards . One was a bit weak it ,  swarmed , and the new queen took ages to mate .

I am sure it was being robbed by its neighbour on nasty wind days . And sharing varroa .

Both these hives have lots of uncapped brood and there is still a flow .

My other hive which is about 50 metres away has clean brood and collected lots of honey .

There was never any varroa in the brood till the migrants arrived .

I am sure they treated their hives but with hundreds of hives and a revolving work force it must be hard to keep track .

I gassed them on sat and will do it as alastair said , 7 treatments 3/4 days apart , till I put in OA strips .

No I have not done a sugar shake or alcohol wash .

When there is a lot of pressure from hives of unknown status the only option is to maintain the treatments continually.
A large commercial told me a while ago that he had his Mites under control and so backed off his treatments in late Summer only to see the Mites get a foothold again.
His words were that once you have your foot on their throat dont take it off.

[Alastair 8,627]

Phil are your trials only to measure mite numbers or do you run comparitive tests for other things also? Such as bee health, honey production, oxalic and glycerine levels in harvested honey, and other things beekeepers may want to know?

[Nuc_man 83]

4 hours ago, Jamo said:

The problem with many beekeepers that get their info from a book is the fairytales that they dream up when reading between the lines.

Yep spent 25 years reading between the lines ,good book long journey 

[Philbee 4,675]

1 hour ago, Alastair said:

Phil are your trials only to measure mite numbers or do you run comparitive tests for other things also? Such as bee health, honey production, oxalic and glycerine levels in harvested honey, and other things beekeepers may want to know?

The Autumn part of the trial was purely to demonstrate Efficacy / Effectiveness 

However it had been noted that Spring time was when the Bees were the most aggressive at cleaning the Staples out of the Hive (chewing) so as Part of the effectiveness aspect of the system goes it was important to also assess  the rate of chewing in a hive because a chewed out treatment is hardly going to be effective no matter how toxic it is to mites.

So we looked at chewing this Spring.
Ive run Nosema tests along the way also but not to an extent that any claims can be made.
As for Honey production no tests have been done at a recorded level however there is barely an empty Honey cell in the outfit.

As for residues thats another issue and one that will be dealt with also.
It will cost about 12k to sort that but the main issue is to establish what residues are to be tested for.

 

I would suggest that the pathogen monitoring program may have some date on the health of OA/GL Hives and now that the trail is in its very late stages I may send some samples away for testing which of course could be part of a data volume. 

The fact that all the trial hives are numbered and on permanent sites means that the trial is in effect perpetual

 

 

 

There was one site (No. 3)that had very high Autumn Mite counts and subsequently preformed poorly even although  the Mites were eliminated.

The deadouts in that site remain and will be restarted shortly.
This will be recorded and the condition of those Hives monitored.
And so it goes on, never ending

Edited February 9, 2020 by Philbee

[Alastair 8,627]

31 minutes ago, Philbee said:

The Autumn part of the trial was purely to demonstrate Efficacy / Effectiveness 

 

As in, against mites only? 

 

31 minutes ago, Philbee said:

I would suggest that the pathogen monitoring program may have some date on the health of OA/GL Hives and now that the trail is in its very late stages I may send some samples away for testing which of course could be part of a data volume. 

 

To put that plainly, are you saying you are running trials to compare pathogen levels of OA treated hives against pathogen levels of non OA treated hives? If so, that is something i would be interested in.

Edited February 9, 2020 by Alastair

[Philbee 4,675]

1 hour ago, Alastair said:

 

As in, against mites only? 

 

 

To put that plainly, are you saying you are running trials to compare pathogen levels of OA treated hives against pathogen levels of non OA treated hives? If so, that is something i would be interested in.

Mites only

 

No Im not overly interested in comparative testing for pathogens unless there was a concern that OA increased pathogens in a Hive.
However if some conclusions can be made on the side for little or no extra cost or time, well thats a bonus.

 

In my operation I dont have any Non OA Hives so couldn't make any comparisons anyway but I know that there are Hives out there on OA that are part of that program and that program will have seen any relevant trends 

 

 

Edited February 9, 2020 by Philbee

[Stoney 1,584]

On 8/02/2020 at 12:28 PM, jamesc said:

Quite.

Now Mr Stoney..... you being a wise man with quite a bit of savvy,  now is the time to remove your veil and put on your other hat.... or perhaps it’s a case of straightening up, give your lower back a break and engage the top two inches and come up with a cunning plan to find a use for this useless Dew.

The new brain and second opinion has often won the day.

Mmmm there is a large part of my day spent thinking on this subject.. however posting any thoughts on here may not be using my top two inches very wisely..

 The boy and I disappeared out to the hut last night with a bag of tucker and a couple of rifles to make some memories.. 

 

now, I love killing two birds with one stone but not as much as I love killing wasps.. 

we sliced and diced up the targeted species for bait instead of casserole on this trip... 

and this morning gave the local yellow skins at the bee sites a good feed, it was an instant hit.. fantastic. 

 

 

[jamesc 4,915]

Haha..... nice hat!

To be honest, I’ve run out of enthusiasm with the bees. It’s hard to staymotivated when working for nothing.....

so we seem to be spending a lot of time in the river....

[Stoney 1,584]

I know how you feel..

we had a light frost at the hut this morning.. had a couple back at New Years when we stayed as well.. good to see things have started to pop back to life taking on a nice green tinge after a couple good rain dumps lately. 

 

Not long now James... they will all be wintered down soon and you will be roasting marshmallows..

or maybe even wearing a suit somewhere far away pitching your prized produce.. 

[jamesc 4,915]

Going back to Stoneys comment about not sharing thoughts..... fair enough .... but it does send a signal that the Bee industry is still an industry of loners and poker players.

To grow as an industry we need to join main stream NZ agriculture .... with info sharing,  fieldays, published honey prices

and, dare I say it , a unified marketing strategy.....

5 minutes ago, Stoney said:

I know how you feel..

we had a light frost at the hut this morning.. had a couple back at New Years when we stayed as well.. good to see things have started to pop back to life taking on a nice green tinge after a couple good rain dumps lately. 

 

Not long now James... they will all be wintered down soon and you will be roasting marshmallows..

or maybe even wearing a suit somewhere far away pitching your prized produce.. 

Uh huh....The other day  I got me some new boots... in readyness.!

[Philbee 4,675]

Them look like $1000 boots

Id suggest some Chinchilla RM Williams 7-8 hundy or head down to Dunedin for some McKinleys  at the Bargain price of 3 hundy 

Edited February 9, 2020 by Philbee

[jamesc 4,915]

I don’t mind paying for quality .

RedBands yah know.

Edited February 9, 2020 by jamesc

[Maggie James 906]

1 minute ago, jamesc said:

I don’t mind paying for quality .

RedBands yah know.

 

We have an amazing op shop here at which I am v happy to pay minimal $ for quality.  

[Stoney 1,584]

2 minutes ago, Maggie James said:

 

We have an amazing op shop here at which I am v happy to pay minimal $ for quality.  

You may yet see these boots on the shelf in there Maggie.. will depend how well the sales trip goes I suppose. 

43 minutes ago, jamesc said:

Going back to Stoneys comment about not sharing thoughts..... fair enough .... but it does send a signal that the Bee industry is still an industry of loners and poker players.

 

I agree re united front and all that but hey.. if I have an angle to flick off some stockpiled drums of beech I won’t be shouting it from the rooftops.. I’ll be quietly paying some bills . 

Talked to a guy the other day that sold some for under $2 last season to get rid of it. Not helpful. 

 

[kaihoka 2,975]

1 hour ago, jamesc said:

Going back to Stoneys comment about not sharing thoughts..... fair enough .... but it does send a signal that the Bee industry is still an industry of loners and poker players.

To grow as an industry we need to join main stream NZ agriculture .... with info sharing,  fieldays, published honey prices

and, dare I say it , a unified marketing strategy.....

Uh huh....The other day  I got me some new boots... in readyness.!

Are they line dancing boots ?

[tommy dave 1,184]

Extracted six 3/4 boxes yesterday using the capping fork and two frame manual plastic spinner. Jarred about 40kg of it, the rest is in ten litre buckets. A friend turned up with a couple of arataki two kilo square plastic jars to fill, they're great, will try and track down a few.

 

Some guy was blowing smoke about buying some boxes of capped honey from me to run through his np1 facility and sell cos he claims to have a market and not enough product. Suspect it's just talk, but if true it would save me some hassle extracting honey and getting rid of it

[kaihoka 2,975]

7 hours ago, tommy dave said:

Extracted six 3/4 boxes yesterday using the capping fork and two frame manual plastic spinner. Jarred about 40kg of it, the rest is in ten litre buckets. A friend turned up with a couple of arataki two kilo square plastic jars to fill, they're great, will try and track down a few.

 

Some guy was blowing smoke about buying some boxes of capped honey from me to run through his np1 facility and sell cos he claims to have a market and not enough product. Suspect it's just talk, but if true it would save me some hassle extracting honey and getting rid of it

I have been collecting capped frames for extacting later .

The honey in them will all be different and I am not sure what I will extract and which will go back on the hive .

Since I have no spinner and I do the scrape and crush method I will need to store them in a very hot room for a couple of days before I extract them .

I was thinking this yr to scrape off the cappings and put in a super over a plastic tub and just let the honey drain out .

That way I would not damage the wax so much .

[tommy dave 1,184]

5 minutes ago, kaihoka said:

 

I was thinking this yr to scrape off the cappings and put in a super over a plastic tub and just let the honey drain out .

That way I would not damage the wax so much .

How about hanging those scrapings in a Muslim bag inside a bucket in a hot room

[Maggie James 906]

3 minutes ago, tommy dave said:

How about hanging those scrapings in a Muslim bag inside a bucket in a hot room

Crikey Tommy - You will get us into trouble.  I think you mean muslin bag.  Muslin is a type of cotton material.

 

 

10 minutes ago, kaihoka said:

I have been collecting capped frames for extacting later .

The honey in them will all be different and I am not sure what I will extract and which will go back on the hive .

Since I have no spinner and I do the scrape and crush method I will need to store them in a very hot room for a couple of days before I extract them .

I was thinking this yr to scrape off the cappings and put in a super over a plastic tub and just let the honey drain out .

That way I would not damage the wax so much .

 

Kaihoka - In your situation I suggest you go to a supermarket, look in the dish cloth section.  There should be a type of cloth in a clear plastic bag that is made from mutton cloth.  Stick your wax cappings in this to make a bag that you can tie to a broom handle and drain over your bucket.

 

Or peg a double layer of mutton cloth to the rim of a plastic bucket and place the wax cappings on this.