VAA Melbourne Section News 25 October 2013 Contents

Transcription

1 VAA Melbourne Section News 25 October 2013 Contents VAA MELBOURNE SECTION MONTHLY MEETINGS 31 st October 2013 Monthly Meeting 28 th November 2013 Monthly Meeting Future Meetings: Got a Good Idea? Questions, Comments and Ideas from Members at Monthly Meetings Victorian Apiarists Association. BEEKEEPING EVENTS Collingwood Children s Farm Apiary Sunday 10 November: Field Day conducted by DEPI Senior Apiary Officer Joe Riordon Whitehorse Spring Festival Report BEE NEWS Stolen Hives Leadbeater s Possum Seminar Beekeeping Movies Traditional Skep Apiary Waggle Dance Steve s Bees CONTACT US Internet Addresses Your Contributions to our Newsletter Unsubscribe VAA MELBOURNE SECTION MONTHLY MEETINGS Our meetings are a great opportunity to meet other beekeepers and share experiences and advice. Meetings occur on the last Thursday of each month (except December). Our next meeting is on Thursday 31 st October Meetings are held at the Church of Christ Hall on the corner of Cherry Rd and Whitehorse Rd, Balwyn (Melway map 46 grid D8). This is on tram route 109. Enter from Cherry Rd. Meetings start at 7:30 pm with Beginners Corner. This provides practical beekeeping advice and demonstrations, particularly to new beekeepers. The meeting proper starts at 8:15 and concludes at 9:45 pm. Books and multimedia can be borrowed from the VAA Library till 8:15 and after 9:45 Supper is available throughout the meeting. Entry is $3 for VAA members and $5 for visitors. First time visitors are free. 31 st October 2013 Monthly Meeting Guest presenter at October s meeting will be Moss MacGibbon from Raw Honey. Raw Honey is a small family apiary business located in North-Eastern Victoria which produces quality cold extracted pure honey varieties. They move their beehives from forest to forest, across Victoria, chasing the nectar of many different eucalypts, fruit trees and ground floras. In her presentation, Moss will describe Raw Honey s beekeeping operations and provide advice to those wishing to market their own honey. A beekeeping focus of the meeting will be the provision of water for your bees which is a recommendation of the Apiary Code of Practice.

2 28 th November 2013 Monthly Meeting Our guest presenters at November s meeting will be representatives, Amelia Young and Richard Hughes, from the Wilderness Society. They will describe the devastating effects that clear felling of forests has on our native plants and animals. They will highlight, not only how this adversely impacts on native animals and plants, but also how it affects beekeepers who use our forests as a sustainable resource. (Before and after photos courtesy Wilderness Society) Future Meetings: Got a Good Idea? In planning future monthly meetings the committee is always interested in receiving feedback from members. The opinion survey that was competed in July at our Annual General Meeting provided much valuable feedback to our committee. If you have a good idea then, please let us know at vaamelbournesection@hotmail.com Questions, Comments and Ideas from Members at Monthly Meetings Usually about 20 minutes is allocated to this part of the meeting agenda. If possible, you are asked to your intent to raise an issue at least the day before the meeting. This will help ensure that there is sufficient time for your issue and that you are not overlooked. If you your intent at least five days before the meeting, then your issue can be placed on the agenda which is ed out three days before a meeting. Victorian Apiarists Association. Membership has its benefits! If you are not yet a member of the Victorian Apiarists Association and would like to join, you can do so by going to membership is $78 per year and includes a copy of the monthly journal, discounted entry to monthly meetings and more! Membership of the VAA will automatically entitle you to membership of the VAA Melbourne Section.

3 BEEKEEPING EVENTS Collingwood Children s Farm Apiary The apiary is jointly managed by the VAA Melbourne Section and Collingwood Children s Farm. Its aim is to educate the public about bees and beekeeping, as well as providing beekeeping advice and practice to current and prospective beekeepers. It is open on the second and fourth Sunday of each month from 10:30 to 3:30.To reach the apiary, go to the end of St Heliers St, Abbotsford, turn right along the bike path and walk approx. 300 metres (Melway map 2D, grid D10). The apiary is a great venue for club members to meet and exchange beekeeping ideas and techniques. At the hives newer members can learn practical beekeeping skills from more experienced beekeepers (see photo). Everyone can interact with the many visitors and help educate them about the importance of bees to food production. If in the past you have been assisted at the apiary, why not return the experience and pass on your knowledge to others? Often relatively new beekeepers can be particularly helpful because they better remember the problems of a new beekeeper. If you are able to come on a regular basis, then please let us know. Even coming once a month or once every two months would be helpful as that would enable the beekeepers who come every time to have an occasional break. The apiary s address is collingwoodbees@gmail.com Sunday 10 November: Field Day conducted by DEPI Senior Apiary Officer Joe Riordon On this day at Collingwood Children s Farm apiary, Joe will conduct two practical demonstrations. All attendees at VAA Melbourne meetings are invited to attend. Session 1. 11:00 to 12:30 Preventing Bee Pests and Diseases Session 2. 1:30 to 3:00 Testing for Varroa As part of the on-going Bee Force Varroa detection program, Joe will demonstrate how varroa is detected in specially constructed hives that are situated around Melbourne and Geelong ports. You may recall that Sabine Perrone described the Bee Force program at our March meeting this year. Joe will also demonstrate the sugar shake varroa detection test and encourage beekeepers to join this program. If required the apiary has a limited number of protective bee suits for you to wear but you may wish to bring your own. For biosecurity reasons you are asked not to bring your own gloves or tools. If required, the apiary will provide these. Photo: Joe conducting a similar workshop in 2011

4 Whitehorse Spring Festival Report As the following photos attest, our stand at the Festival on Sunday 20 th October was a great success. It was widely accepted as being the best educational display at the Festival. Thanks to everyone who helped make it such a great advertisement for beekeeping, the VAA and VAA Melbourne section.

5 BEE NEWS Stolen Hives A member of the Geelong Beekeepers Club has recently had beekeeping equipment, including 48 brand new hives (without bees), stolen from his St Leonards property. As the hives were unbranded, they will be very difficult to recover. This incident serves to emphasise the importance of beekeepers adequately branding their hives, particularly if hives are located in remote locations. For additional security, individual frames can be branded. If your hives are located in a remote location, it is also a good idea to have your contact details displayed on them so that you can be easily contacted. Leadbeater s Possum Seminar by Bernie Heinze Earlier this month I attended a seminar conducted by the Victorian Department of the Environment and Primary Industries. The seminar was focused around the conservation of Leadbeaters Possum, Victoria s animal emblem. Leadbeater's possum is an endangered possum restricted to small pockets of old growth mountain ash forests in the Central Highlands of Victoria, north-east of Melbourne. Even though it is small in size (it would fit into your hand), the possum requires relatively large tree hollows in which to nest. It fills the inside of the hollow with stringy bark which thus insulates it against its cold environment. At first glance beekeeping might thought to be a threat to the possum s survival because of the possibility of bee swarms colonizing tree hollows. I specifically asked the Leadbeater s possum experts whether this could be the case. They stated that in 30 years of observations of hollows in the possum s habitat none had been occupied by bee colonies. It was thought that any swarms that were produced from the managed hives that were temporarily brought into the possum s habitat were unlikely to survive through the very cold and wet winters. For more information about Leadbeater s possum go to Beekeeping Movies by Barry Cooper A Google search for beekeeping movies will reveal a large number to choose from. Although many are focused on beekeeping in other counties, they can provide useful insights for us. Remember though, just because they are posted on the Internet, they may not necessarily describe accurate or relevant information and practices. Traditional Skep Apiary One particular series of movies that I found very interesting are those that describe how bees are managed in a traditional heathland skep apiary in Germany over a year. There are eight titles in the series 1. Spring Work in a Heather Skep Apiary 2. Preparations for Swarming 3. Work during the Prime Swarming Season 4. Work during the Caste Swarming Season 5. Summer Work during the Heather Blossom 6. Autumn Work 7. Harvest of Heather Honey 8. Bees Wax Pressing To find these movies, just search for skep movies. Waggle Dance At the Whitehorse Spring festival we had the path of a bee s waggle dance painted on the grass for visitors to follow. The photo opposite shows the waggle dance being performed at our Honey Week celebrations at the Collingwood Children s Farm apiary on April 28 this year. If you are not exactly sure how bees use the waggle dance to communicate the location of floral sources, click on this picture à or go to

6 Steve s Bees After managing his first hive for almost a year in his Alphington backyard, Steve Demchinsky reports it has been a great success. He has prevented it from swarming and is now awaiting a bumper summer harvest. His bees are certainly very photogenic! (Photos by Steve Demchinsky)

7 CONTACT US Internet Addresses Our address is We have a section on the Victorian Apiarists Association Inc. web site. Go to or more directly to We also have a Facebook page at The Collingwood Children s Farm Apiary has a web site at a Facebook page at and a YouTube channel at Your Contributions to our Newsletter We aim to a newsletter about the 15 th of each month. If you would like to contribute an item, just it to us at vaamelbournesection@hotmail.com before the 13 th of each month. Past editions of newsletters can be read at Unsubscribe If you no longer wish to receive s from the VAA Melbourne Section please reply to this and put unsubscribe as its subject.