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Having been involved in the MPI pathogen project and seeing the results from virus tests I would say that deformed wing virus is endemic to every hive in NZ whether it shows any symptons or not .

Interesting day... I have a hive that was supposed to go to a new beek tomorrow. The hive was checked on Tuesday 30/10, eggs, larvae, capped brood, stores, no AFB, Queen right. All looked good. So, being a nosey beek... thought I’d have a ‘quick peek’ in this avo Off with the lid, lots of girls fanning, bums up in the air, ditzie, erratic behaviour. Hmm.Better check for her majesty. She’s a red dot, black girl, from Nov 2017 split, usually easily spotted. On a thorough check through the frames, she wasn’t to be seen. No fresh eggs...On frame 7 there is a fine specim

I'm not sure what other people's experiences are, but I find those hives that get hit really hard by varroa - eg sugar shake 20+, mites on bees, bit of DWV etc that the Queen never really seems to recover - best to squash her and try a new one. Anyone else think like this?

I am thinking that whitebait is overrated as a food. If we were a concerned nation of conservationists we would take a holiday from catching the little critters , pop down to our local macca's , and let them have a life.

I was all set to squash a slow, drone layer queen today and as prep I’d switched out a load of frames and put nice ones in a few days ago. The new queen wasn’t quite ready that day. And now the ‘drone layer’ seems better behaved, lots of tidy laying (it’s eggs at this stage so it’s a bit early to be sure, but it looks a mile better than it was). Is this a thing? Big cells will always be drones and bad frames will never be repaired? There hadn’t been any attempts to replace her by the bees, which may have been a clue. They had a varroa problem in early spring which may or may not be releva

Halle bldy llujah. Last week i was due in court in Greymouth to front up for the case "DOC v's Gowanlea in the case about bees pirating the DOC estate. On the Thursday before the Main Man and I were rattling up a bumpy track in the not so back of beyond wondering that the court case must be due soon. Brothers, you need to watch your thoughts, because no sooner had we initiated that thought .... the phone rang. It was the lawman. Now the lawman has been paid a humungous amount of dough in this case, so good on him for being on the ball. He had been talking

Always. I try very hard to get my grammar correct. I fail quite often but it is not thru lack of trying.

Of all the creatures to talk to. Im picking the bees would have heard more interesting words than most species.

Not age related in my case. Poor communication skills cause wars.

Yep. Age related condition I think. We were brainwashed to think that poor grammar/spelling indicated the end of the known world.

You mean an allergy to crap grammar ?

Have you developed 'pink cat' syndrome @Trevor Gillbanks?

Sorry I misread your post and did not see the "I". Maybe because you put it as "i" instead of "I"

If it’s a five hour drive I would be doing it at night ! Early in the morning is a good option as well Load up in the evening get some sleep leave around 2 or 3 am and unload in the early daylight

Awesome! Thanks for the advice. Will save me driving at night...I wasn't looking forward to the long night.

"An Auckland businessman has been fined more than $26,000 for making false claims about the therapeutic properties of honey. The Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) found Jonathan Towers had made prohibited claims about honey and sold it as high-value mānuka honey between March 2016 and December 2017. " https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/108317789/Auckland-businessman-stung-26-000-for-making-false-honey-claims http://www2.nzherald.co.nz/the-country/news/article.cfm?c_id=16&objectid=12153475

Sounds like they did you a favour. Nice new queen for the season.

No, I was browsing . There was a cruise ship in the harbour . The whole town was very busy . Akaroa reminds me of Russell in the Bay of Islands

Yep I agree . This one was mid forties in July. I kept her going to see what would happen . The staples nailed the varroa but the hive kept producing occasional DWV bees indicating a larger underlying problem

I had a strange one the other day . A hive that had bad winter varroa , and the queen was limping along , laying generally poorly , but had recovered from varroa , but I suspect , not the residual viruses . She disappeared , the hive was queenless , so I gave them a frame of eggs . A week later they had made three large queen cells , then removed the larvae leaving themselves queenless again . Very weird ... They got merged with a neighbour

I’m in Canterbury at the moment . The bees are tough here because it’s colder and windier than our Waikato variety are exposed to ,today anyway ?. To my surprise , the internet here works, unlike the Sunshine Coast apparently ?

4 years As a commercial I have never used Synthetics

I find niwa to be pretty reliable with their long-range forecasts. They are almost 100% wrong 100% of the time.

I don't understand why there are so many knockers. If I decide to buy a second hand car, is it wrong for someone to buy a Rolls Royce. Let's stop the jealousy bit and see the clever marketing. I would love to sell my honey for $1800 per pot.

There you have it don't worry about using it. However https://scholar.google.co.nz/scholar?q=lactic%2Bacid%2Bvarroa%2Btreatment&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart#d=gs_qabs&p=&u=%23p%3D1xNmcxTJezcJ. Probably quite good to do some more reading about though.

At an average of only 11 kg a hive, that's not bad at all. For anyone wondering.. that figure is quite compatible with stimulation feeding for pollination and doesn't indicate in any way a beekeeper who is taking too much or trying to pump up honey production with sugar. White sugar, sucrose is C12 H22 O11. Its molecular structure looks rather like a hexagon and a pentagon holding hands. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose It is the most common sugar in nectar, and the sugar most preferred by bees. When bees eat nectar, they add an enzyme called 'invertase' to the nect

I think you mean "through".

People who make sarcastic comments about Taupos weather are not likely to be invited to join @Philbee in his safe remote location when the end of the world comes . I have made it quite clear to my friends to be nice about my weather . Since donald Trumps been elected they have become very polite .

That's why @Philbee has so much spare time inside to play with his sewing machines

And domestics ?

Stop asking questions and get moving. Weather is not going to improve in a hurry.

I’m glad it happened before they went to their new home....Quite funny in some ways.. We have had a lady house guest who “ talks” to animals, staying the last few days. She’d noticed the hive and when I told her the plan for it, asked me, if had told them! ?Who knows what she said to them. ?

these guys must be really onto it . in 4 yrs i have grown to 4 hives.

I don't understand why sometimes the bees have not started on a new Queen when the existing one is clearly bad, sometimes really bad... I think I could write a book on the stupid / bizarre / unfathomable things I've come across while keeping bees. Today I opened a mating nuc and found a newly mated Queen in it and a Virgin Queen. I caged the mated Queen and left the Virgin. Go figure though. Back on Wednesday I cracked open a hive on my favourite site and was admiring some lovely fresh brood on a number of frames while trying to find the Queen. I did f

Exactly and it can be an eye opener IMO you start to learn a lot bout bees once the Varroa are gone Ive gone from being a full time Varroa battler to a student of Bees, much more aware of whats happening in a hive now. Heres a curly one Today I found a very poor hive, about 3 frames of bees with an over wintered marked Queen. She had started to lay about 5 eggs in each cell and I checked for another young Queen and couldn't find one or a super cell etc Is this seen often. Another bit of humor for the day I opened a hive and decided to kill the Queen Moments a

You are obviously still young . I try and leave the bathroom before the steam has cleared .