dansar

I will definitely be using a bee vacuum to clear them off the comb. Looks like lots of honey in there too so it’s going to be an interesting process. I’m thinking that after the bees are removed from the comb I will relocate the chair to home to do the cut out.

A mates wife went to collect what was thought to be a swam. looks like we’ve got a job to do this weekend.🤔 Two armchairs dumped under some trees down a service alley in our little town. looks like two boxes worth of comb and bees 🐝

I had a group of beekeeping students today and they were struggling to get boxes apart due to burr comb. I suggested they use the tool exactly as you described. It worked like a charm👍

Others have used Ovaboard as well. Durable cardboard that builders lay over finished floors while working on inside of house.

One apiary I went to today had fresh Catsear nectar. Bees actively working the Catsear close by too. It looks like the only thing flowering.

I’m going to try a few hives with the strips cut in half. Suspended with a toothpick and zigzagging them throughout the box.

No. I worked at Kiwi Lumber across the road. Unfortunately for Pacific Pine they needed to make milling and marketing changes 4 years ago. In NZ there is huge reduction in Pruned log supply due to a change in forest management (less pruning). They needed to develop a structural timber market which would have needed a huge financial investment (Kiwi Lumber did this). A change like this would have been very difficult being a single sawmill such as Pacific Pine.

South Waikato is getting very dry. Checked an apiary today. No honey surplus collected in 3 weeks. In fact we took a honey super off Some hives as they won’t be filling it any time before winter. 🙁

Some pretty simple energy storage in this unit. Recharging isn’t too costly. The waste from making the stored energy can safely be recycled. Only needs a + and a - to make a new one and if you’re really lucky you get 2 new units. And there are not too many issues with end of life disposal.

I agree with your comment re the FGMO/Oxalic fogging method. The fog it not located specifically to the hive it travels outside of the apiary area as well. I would not like to expose neighbors and animals to a toxic cloud drifting to them. Aside from that the level of PPE that is required to administer treatment with this method will make it cost prohibitive from the start.

Analytica offer pollen count testing, although they don’t identify every pollen that is in a sample. High percentage of unidentified pollens in our samples last season. I think that comes down to the lab technician building up a library of samples to recognise.

Unfortunately as the worlds social (and NZ’s) problems hit closer to home every day many people become apathetic to it as nothing they can do will ever have an effect on fixing the situation. So many people become insular.

Good idea. I’ve done something similar using it as a pheromone board when rearing queens before. Some of the sites fill up a complete FD box with Broome pollen, drives me absolutely nuts. It’s good if you’re splitting all the hives but a nightmare trying to keep the brood nest open.

Yeah I have always wintered as singles. There’s been a change in my work load through late winter when I would normally be doing checks for feed stores. That caught me unprepared last season and a number of hives starved. That won’t happen next season. I’ll just be trying to control swarming instead!🤣