Q. I’m a second-year beekeeper, I lost my hives last winter. Should I check my hives in the winter? A. It depends. Like most things in beekeeping, context is everything. There is the dilemma that going into a hive will actually set it back, but a hive needs to be managed and not going [...]
Q. Why don't drones sting? A. Only female insects sting. This is because the sting has evolved from the ovipositor, which lays eggs. We can see this today in parasitoid wasps where she lays an egg inside an immobilised host which the young wasp consumes as it develops. The sting of the honey bee [...]
4 June 2024 New Zealand Honey Strategy receives funding boost The New Zealand’s honey sector’s plan for a more sustainable and future has received a funding boost through MPI’s Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures fund. The MPI funding will support and enable a work programme to act on the recommendations made in the sector [...]
29 May 2024 Honey has a plan and is sticking to it By Karin Kos, Chief Executive of Apiculture New Zealand Farmers Weekly’s front-page article last week would have readers believing the end is nigh for the New Zealand honey-producing industry. But that is far from the case. That is not for a moment to deny [...]
Q. My queen came outside the hive for some reason. A. With so little context, it is difficult to give a definitive answer as to why this happened. Assuming that she came out alone and went back in, we can eliminate swarming, absconding and being ejected after having been superseded. If she’s a virgin, [...]
Q. Who is in charge inside the hive? The queen or the workers (foragers)? Good question. While it is commonly thought that she is called the queen because she is in charge, the hive can be likened to New Zealand and its form of government which is a constitutional monarchy. The queen is the [...]
Q. If a colony is queenless and there's no brood to raise a new queen, would they stay, swarm or die? A. If there isn’t any viable brood, they can’t raise a queen. A queen can only be raised from a fertilised larva that is about 24 to 36 hours old. Therefore, a broodless [...]
Q. Do bees grieve? A. A very interesting question. First, we must ask if bees have the capacity to grieve or even feel any emotions. With only one million neurons, it is unlikely that they have the physical hardware required for the mental computational power to express emotions. Bees do have a certain level [...]
Q. I treat my hives regularly and follow the manufacturers’ instructions to the letter. Is it really necessary to test for [varroa] mites? A. While checking for American foulbrood (AFB) is a legal obligation, checking for varroa is not. Some say that it is an absolutely essential beekeeping tool, while others don’t think it [...]
Q: What good are drones in my hive? Do they just eat stores and help mites? Should I remove them? A: There are between a few hundred to a couple of thousand drones in a hive during the summer. Many people think of them as freeloaders that consume stores and don’t contribute anything for [...]