Category: Beekeeping

OK. I’ll admit it. I’ve never seen a varroa mite. Just the way it was, with timing of varroa entering the industry, and me leaving it, back in 2000. Just never had the opportunity or particular desire to.

But now, based on an article in the latest NZ Beekeeper magazine, I’ve converted the existing floor to allow for the monitoring of mite drop. The idea is the mites, if they fall onto the floor of a hive, simply return to the hive – I’m not sure if they walk or if they catch a ride with a passing worker bee. But if they fall through a mesh (too small for bees to go through), you can trap them on a piece of core flute plastic. Spreading oil on the core flute makes sure the mites that fall are killed. Then, periodically, you remove the core flute, count the mites, wash it off – and put new oil on it to return to the hive.

This is not a varroa control measure. Or at least not really significant. The idea is to monitor the mite drop levels over time, potentially using it as another measure to alcohol washes, which give a proper sort of “mites per 100 bees” sort of measure.

But for me? Stil never seen a mite? We shall see…

My daughter did the woodwork part, using a lovely piece of macracapa. We were at the DIY Shed in Tauranga, where she has some access to the machinery she needs for her ‘real’ woodworking.

Used the joiner, thicknesser, lovely table saw. Drop saw. A wee bit of bandsaw – and she finished her part of the work, giving me beautiful timber.

Me, I used over-sized screws, drilled too-small pilot holes, forced it when needed, applied a hammer to finish. Glue stains everywhere including a lot of No More Nails since I didn’t cut stuff square, did I? I put it all together while she was at her workshop today so she wouldn’t see what a shoddy, but barely-workable, job that I did.

But it is fitted, and the bees have accepted it with no problems. The floor is now reversed, with the original entrance pointing to the back. The new entrance takes the bees in just above the meshed layer. And it should be core flute I’m sliding in the back, but I found a just the right sized piece of glass as a starting point, until I can score some core flute.

Who knows? Might see my first varroa mite tomorrow!

Well, the bees are getting well-settled into the area, hauling in masses of pollen and nectar. And I’m settling into being a beekeeper again. Got my first two stings. Yes, I remember what they are.

Feeding the colony with sugar syrup, as even with a good nectar flow just now, I want to maximise their wax building propensities. They aren’t taking the syrup down really fast, as the feeder is designed to limit the number of bees that can access the feed, as well as keeping them from drowning in it.

“Over the top” feeders I’ve used in the past were mostly egg pulp tins cut in half (that job is not fun), then filled with such as wood wool, fine shavings that would reduce the drowning. But we were feeding large amounts of syrup, and it was not so refined or elegant as the feeder I’m using.

Today’s job? I raised the hive about 30mm. Not to give them a better view, but now have the floor supported by 4 old sockets, one on each corner. And I’ve squirted oil over the sockets. And maybe that will keep the ants at bay – they are a real nuisance in a hive, but almost always there, if you’re feeding syrup.

I first became a “beekeeper” fifty years ago this year, and I wrote about it in an article that was published in Gleanings in Bee Culture, though as I recall it was one of my early instances of seeing something edited badly.

So yesterday I picked up a 5 frame (3/4 depth frames) nuc hive, a “nucleus” with an active young queen that will, hopefully, grow into a full-sized hive to go into the winter. The bees were active almost as soon as I opened the entrance, with colourful pollen being carted avidely.

Sophia and I transferred the frames into a 3/4 depth box, giving them another 5 frames of foundation that they can use to store surplus nectar and for the queen to be able to lay eggs to increase the bee population.

I used to say that beekeeping was a sort of “population management” exercise, trying to help the colony build up to a maximum strength when the maximum amount of nectar and pollen is available. In the time I’ve been away, another layer has been added to that: we will have to manage the varroa mite population, as well, and do it in such a way that it keeps the mite numbers down, but still allows for taking honey.

But for now, I’ll probably spend a lot of time watching the entrance. It’s been a long time…

Most of my beekeeping, I used the traditional “Woodman” veil.

Though you could pull it off your hat and squash it down around your neck when driving between apiaries, it wasn’t ever very comfortable. Having said that, I bought a new one so that ‘visitors’ to the apiary could have their own veil.

But I got sold on the veil made by B.J. Sherriff, and I still have one of the first ones I ever got.

Brian and Pam Sherriff came out to NZ a number of times, and stayed with me in the middle 1980s. Brian told some great stories!

He ‘invented’ the veil as a result of not liking stings much after he decided to buy a heap of beehives. None of the bee veils suited him, so he and Pam made their own. They were, after all, the owners of a brassiere factory, believe it or not! So they had access to materials and serious sewing expertise.

At this point, Brian would reach in his pocket and pull out what looked like a handkerchief – but it was in fact a miniature bra attached to his business card, and folded so that one of the ‘peaks’ would stick out of his pocket.

So Brian and Pam started making a range of veils with the unique zipper across the throat (I used to call it a “throat-slitter veil”) so you can unzip and throw the veil over your head, out of the way until you’re ready for it again. To my mind, they make some of the best veils around, for hobbying or commercial beekeepers. I think they have been heavily immitated – but I’m proud to say mine was made in the UK by the BJ Sherriff company. I’m not sure when I got it – early 1980s for sure…

When I saw the labels on this, it made me curious. So I did a bit of looking to realise that though Pam had died some years back, Brian lived until August 2022, into his 90s. I emailed their daughter, who runs the company now, located in Cornwall, UK.

She related how much Brian and Pam liked travelling the world to beekeeping meetings!

I’m proud to still have one of his early veils to wear in my new beekeeping endeavour…

When I registered as a beekeeper a year or so ago, the AFB PMP Management Agency was able to re-activate my old registration, inactive for about 20 years.

I started making my first hives in 1975, and for the few years from then, the hives were always located on a registered apiary of the beekeeper I was then working for. It wasn’t until late 1978 that I bought some hives up at Lake Okareka, outside Rotorua. So by that time I had maybe 30 or 40 hives, and filled in the (paper) form for the Ministry of Ag and Fish (MAF) to register.

So I was given D0482. The “D” indicated the district at the time of registration, and the numbers would have been assigned sequentially.

I’ve mostly marked my apiary with a 50mm square post in the ground, with the D0482 painted on it, rather than branding or painting the code on the boxes themselves. So there’s another job to put on my list of things to do before the bees arrive…

OK, don’t get excited. The beehive you see doesn’t have any bees in it. That is still to come.

For now, the woodware I got from Ecrotek is just being stored there, waiting until the nuc arrives to populate it.

But it isn’t all new woodware (and new gloves and veil) – I will still be using my hive tool and smoker from about 40 years ago.

I’ve done my best to refurbish the smoker a bit, as it was never all that good. But I’ve plugged up a few holes, and tried to sort out the flap valve that controls the air. We’ll see…