deejaycee

I truly hope they throw the book at this guy. He actually called me for advice before he started beekeeping, dropped a yard just 80 metres across the road from one of mine a year later, never attended a single field day/education/community opportunity that I can identify. And he replaced the frames he stole from hives with frames that were often USED. I also believe he may have been responsible for doing the same to other beekeepers locally... that, or we have two thieves with the same MO in the same area in the same timeframe. " A New Zealand ho

not in my case, tommy dave. I check all my filtered folders daily - because I'm in online retail I can't afford to miss a customer email due to an overzealous filter. It just wasn't received in my case at all.

I didn't get the other email it refers to either. Once I managed to get hold of a copy of that, this email suddenly makes a lot of sense. Here's the content of the email referred to: Frequently Asked Questions: Proposal to replace the American Foulbrood Apiary and Beekeeper Levy with a Hive and Beekeeper Levy With consultation on the proposal to replace the American Foulbrood Apiary and Beekeeper Levy with Hive and Beekeeper Levy underway we have been getting some good questions and feedback on the proposal. What is the Management Agency’s goal? To eliminate Am

There's definitely a shift happening/happened, and for the better. The last couple of years when I asked at the beginner's beekeeping course 'who's thinking about making some money/making a living?', half the class raised their hands. This year (a couple of months ago), maybe 10% raised their hands.

It is illegal. Report the listing to Trademe, and to MPI please.

Bindi on the left, Lily on the right. Both complete nutjobs. Neither goes beekeeping, because they are both prone to brain shutdowns, but both are avid beecatchers at home and don't care at all about stings. Bindi suffers from second child syndrome, in that this is the only photo I have of her. Early on, Lily took responsibility for feed quality control Fortunately she doesn't react to stings at all now - but she used to get a swollen lip ocassionally.

Meeting went ahead without you nab We didn't close down, but I have resigned as secretary as I'm just horribly overcommitted at the moment, and while we do have an incoming secretary, she doesn't have the capacity to organise field days and write newsletters as I did previously. As a result we'll be calling a public meeting for beekeepers with the aim of inspiring the formation of a local club. It's going to take me a while to get organised, and there are some key locals I want to attend, so please be patient. I'll get my last buzzsheet out in the next few weeks w

well, that's another 20 minutes of my life I ain't getting back. Although, have to say, the bees were even more impressively obnoxious than other Lusby bees* videos I've seen. * (sorry, I cannot bring myself to call them Dee's bees )

horrible.

pretty much ditto. General rule of thumb for us is Bayvarol in from 1 March, out by 1 May.

Camellias are certainly valuable for bees, and I know Linda Newstrom-Lloyd has found them so for pollen. How useful they might be for nectar I'm not so sure. It's a pretty big family, and whether some varieties are better than others I don't know, but if you do a google image search for camellia you can see the huge variety of flower morphology, from those with complex tight petal arrangements where you can't see a stamen, to those where the flower centre is wide open and stamens prominent. https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=camellia&source=lnms&tbm=isch&s

Give em a bit of time, Ruth. What Alastair said, and the weather is so up and down here at the moment with weird humidity and rain threatening every couple of days... that always sets them on edge. We've got three days rain forecast from this afternoon onwards... none of my girls get a red card for behaviour today.

This'll be going on our new ute later this year: https://www.topmaq.co.nz/shop/automotive/500kg-electric-ute-deck-swivel-crane/ Build a cradle for it to lift the hives, and buy a good quality sack barrow (solid, with fat wheels, long enough toe) to get the hives to the ute, and you're good to go. We built our own ute crane about 8 years ago for our first ute. Still does the job well. Cost about $800 to build the crane and cradle back then. The sack barrow was close to $300, but it's been worth its weight in gold.

Do you not go through Arataki? If so, you are being paid for it, but at the honey price.

Just wash with a bleach soak. For the hive tool, I don't like flaming mine too much, except in the field. -- scrape down and scrub and soak in bleach.