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 [...]
Q. A neighbour has some old hiveware in a barn that he doesn’t want. What is the best way to deal with it? Ken Brown is President of the Auckland Beekeepers’ Club and a Land Based Training Apiculture Tutor (Disclaimer: I am an AP2; these opinions are my own and not those of the [...]
Q. Is bee pollen at risk of tutin contamination, or does tutin only affect honey? Dr Linda Newstrom-Lloyd is a Trees for Bees botanist. A. The green parts and the sap of the tutu plant contain tutin, a neurotoxin, that is harmful to mammals, but bees are unaffected. The tutin toxin is not expressed in [...]
Q. Is there an aphid (or another bug) that lives on mānuka and secretes a honeydew that is active? Dr Ronald van Toor is a Senior Scientist at Plant and Food Research, working in bioprotection. A. I am aware of only three scale insects that excrete excess sap sugars in mānuka sufficient to [...]