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 [...]