NZ Beekeepers Forum
0 FOLLOWERS
NZ Beekeepers is a New Zealand Beekeeping Forum, promoting bees, beekeeping and apiarys. NZ Beekeepers is rapidly growing into the country's first and largest online resource dedicated towards encouraging New Zealand based beekeeping.
NZ Beekeepers Forum
2d ago
On Tuesday, 30 April at 7 pm Melissa Oddie a Canadian bee scientist who has been working with varoa tolerant bees for several years in Norway will give a short talk on the subject at Arataki honey Havelock North. I have met with Melissa several times in Norway and her research is quite fascinating. She will be in New Zealand on holiday but has kindly volunteered to talk to the beekeeping fraternity. All beekeepers welcome ..read more
NZ Beekeepers Forum
2d ago
I have been loath to try new methods of varoa control but conventional treatments are no longer keeping my hives alive so I have been giving fogging a try. I gave the hives four treatments Five days apart in January and three treatments five days apart in March. The first of the March treatments was after recording and only a few days after the new Queens should have been laying. I did a full check on everything today and they looked remarkably healthy and there was only one queenless hive...
Read more ..read more
NZ Beekeepers Forum
4d ago
What is now the Pest Management Plan was developed back in the 1990’s by a committee of the National Beekeepers’ Assn. Terry Gavin, Whangarei, was the Chairman and Ian Berry, Havelock North, served before him. Members included Bruce Stevenson, Kerikeri; Graham Wilson, Pukekohe; Bryan Clements, Kihikihi; John Moffat, Nelson; Warren Hantz, Leeston; Richard Bensemann, Ashburton; Jan van Hoof, Geraldine; Peter Sales, Port Chalmers; and Allen McCaw, Milton.
Mark Goodwin, Hamilton, was the...
Read more ..read more
NZ Beekeepers Forum
3w ago
After WWII (in fact, after WWI as well) the Govt resettled a number of returning soldiers to be "beekeepers". There were a number of training courses to prepare these 20 some odd year old men to be full time beekeepers. The places they were allocated would almost certainly have to be a place that didn't have existing commercial beekeepers already. Which usually meant somewhere that no one else wanted...
I got to thinking about that 'cohort' of beekeepers, and especially the ones that I...
Read more ..read more
NZ Beekeepers Forum
1M ago
This has been gifted to me by a good beekeeping buddy, a medal awarded 118 years ago to a T. W. Ringer for "display of bee product".
It was awarded at the Crystal Palace, Surrey, which I would assume was in England?
More history of this medal is unknown but I assume T. W. Ringer himself, or one of his family came to NZ and brought it with them, anyone know anything about this gentleman ..read more
NZ Beekeepers Forum
1M ago
This came out today and I have to say for my initial reading it looks like something designed to help out the shaky bottom lines of the corporations and hugely increase cost to the ordinary beekeeper.I have a lot more reading to do but little gems like the compulsory reporting of varoa stand out as an expensive bureaucratic nightmare. Every hive in New Zealand has varoa. Compulsory treatment using only approved products might have got my support 20 years ago when we were trying to slow down...
Read more ..read more
NZ Beekeepers Forum
1M ago
Julie Ryan, Bill Haines' daughter, wrote a book a few years ago that had this same story, but I don't think it had so much detail as this original one.
Beekeepers in Wellington
The meeting described was held in the early 1960's, at a time to deal with emerging issue of tutu poisonings in Northland. It concludes referring to Lloyd Holt's issues with tutu - that's a whole other story again ..read more
NZ Beekeepers Forum
1M ago
I came across this article from a 1954 NZ Journal of Agriculture that describes the features of an "up to date" honey house for extracting manuka honey.
Extracting manuka honey in 1954
It describes most of the home-fabricated equipment used to warm, prick, press, strain, pump, stir - and it draws heavily on the engineering expertise of CR "Roy" Paterson. The article refers to a number of other, more specific, articles that appeared in the few years prior. They give more detail...
Read more ..read more
NZ Beekeepers Forum
2M ago
https://beekeeping.nz/NZBDA/timeline/1982_03_Wax_recovery_controversy.pdf
Here is a set of articles and letters from the NZ Beekeeper magazine, in 1982-1983. They highlight an issue that has probably always existed in beekeeping - that of an intensive versus an extensive approach to things...
The first article described Sandy Richardson's minimal input wax rendering system which avoided both boilers and presses.
But it was Stuart Tweedale's 'one stage wax processing' that caused...
Read more ..read more