THE BEE LINE           

Newsletter of the Mid North Coast Amateur Beekeeping Association                                             

President :  Marcus Lewis ph 6656 2287                                  Secretary : Peter Dickson-Smith

Treasurer:  Mal Banks                                                                    Ph :   02 6649 2009

Ph:  026649 0990 , email-  mjbanks1@bigpond.com        Public Officer : Marcus Lewis

Newsletter :  Mal Banks                                                                Ph : 02 6569 5561

Vice Presidents :  Allan Thomas, Paul Campbell                      Librarian: Fay Karabaic

Keith Harris

                                                               May 2016

Last Meeting

The last meeting was held at Mal & Katrina’s property at Kremnos on May 8th. It was a beautiful warm day and the meeting was well attended with 35 present. The long dry continues, but hopefully June will produce some rain.

However it has been a good season for the bees, with several gum trees flowering over the autumn period. The bees will be going into winter with much better stores of honey and pollen than last year.

Before looking at the hives I melted up some capping wax in a big pot on the BBQ.

This was a second stage process as the previous day I had refined the wax in the pot with two-thirds water and a dash of vinegar.

After the wax was all melted I poured it into plastic moulds with sections of stockings secured around the top to filter out the unwanted remains.

 

Blocks of wax with stocking filters

The final result was three very nice blocks of wax, ready to make candles or for any of the many other uses of beeswax. It can also be sold or traded for fresh foundation.

Following that there was a hive inspection.

Katrina, Don and Frank did the hive activity. The first job was to look at our largest and busiest hive, with three supers.

It was noticed the bottom box and board was deteriorating and this was replaced. All the brood frames were looked at and the queen was spotted. The hive was in good condition with healthy brood. When the hive was reassembled, a clearer board was placed below the top two supers, ready for me to remove and extract the next day.

As the bees were behaving themselves we decided to look at a couple of other hives that were weaker due to summer swarming. They were in a fair condition with fresh eggs indicating a laying queen was present.

The raffle was conducted and thanks to all those who brought raffle prizes and food.

This was the first raffle where our club pitched in with some beekeeping equipment. Some purchases have been made and these items will be included in the raffles at future meetings.

After the usual fine feast and splendid desserts were had, a business meeting was held. This included the last meeting’s

minutes, treasury report and general business.

 

The Colonel Pulling Competition

 

 

The shield

The main focus was on the Col Pulling competition to be held the following week in Mittagong, where our club members, Faye and Frank, and Marcus and Julie, would be representing our club in an attempt to retain the shield.

Well, in case you haven’t heard we came second, behind well deserved winners, Parramatta. That means two wins and two runners up outcomes in our four years of existence. We also came second on handicap, with new club Manning Valley coming first.

Congratulations to everybody on a fine effort and especially to Faye, Frank, Marcus and Julie for making the long trip down there to represent our club.

 

Our products

Next year the AGM and Col. Pulling will be held in the Northern Rivers district, probably at Ballina. So we should be able to give it a good go at getting the shield back!

It was good to see that all 15 clubs had representatives at the AGM.

So again congratulations to Parramatta!

Even if we had got a perfect score in the quiz they still would have won as they were so strong over all sections.

Welcome to new members and thanks also to French Canadian visitor Lydie Paul who gave a talk about her beekeeping experiences in Canada. She is living/working on an organic farm and is keen to get into bees here.

 

Col. Pulling  Results

Mid North Coastscores

 

1) Photography Competition

Relevance to theme – 5/5

Originality – 3/5

Creativity – 3/5

Composition – 4/5

Total 15/20 – Scaled score out of ten – 7.5

 

2) Apiary Products

Liquid Honey

                Light        Medium         Dark

Flavour  20/25         20/25           23/25    

Density    23               23                 23

Colour      21               23                 22

Aroma     8/10           8/10             7/10

Clearness    8               7                    8 

Brightness   4/5         3/5               3/5

Total score   84          84               86   -  84.7

Creamed Honey

88/100                                                      44

Comb Honey

40/50                                                        40

Beeswax

39/50                                                        39

Apiary products total /250                  207.7

Scaled apiary product/ 30                     24.9

 

3) Branch Report /100                           90

Scaled /30                                                27

 

4) Quiz /30                                               20.3

 

Total Score / 100                                   79.7

 

 

COL PULLING 2016 FINAL SCORE SHEET

Central Coast

Hunter

Illawarra

Manning

Mid North

Norther Rivers

Parramatta

Sydney Central

Photography/10

6.5

8

7.5

8.5

9

Apiary Products/30

26.2

26.1

21.8

16.1

24.9

26.7

26.8

20.7

Report/30

28.5

22.8

19.2

25.8

27

22.5

28.5

27.6

Quiz/30

18

18

18

10.5

20.3

13.5

27

20.3

TOTAL/100

72.7

73.4

59

60.4

79.7

62.7

90.8

77.6

RANK

5

4

2

1

3

OPEN WINNER FOR 2016 -

PARRAMATTA

CLUB POPULATION

104

124

127

24

53

83

123

112

Handicap Score*

70

59

46

252

150

76

74

69

Handicap Rank

1

HANDICAP WINNER FOR 2016 -

MANNING VALLEY

Handicap score is points/person in club multiplied by 100 ie total points divided by

club population multiplied by 100

 

Some tips from the judge

Here are some preparation and presentation tips for entering apiary products for competition as advised by the judge.

HONEY should be in the containers specified and labelled as directed. There should be no foam on the surface.

The COMB of honey should be fully capped. White, even cappings are best.

A masking tape border is sometimes allowed, but it is better without.

WAX should be smooth without any pattern from the mould. Edges should

be smooth not fancy. Judges can tell if wax is cooled too quickly or has been

overheated. Bright yellow is preferred with a pleasant aroma.

 

Frank’s Hive Hints No 16

Bees sometimes do things beyond human imagination.  It doesn’t matter how much knowledge you have. It can happen any time of the year.    You open the hive where everything looks normal.  It is well populated with the queen laying normally.  The brood looks normal.  Before you finish examining the combs you find one comb with a couple of occupied queen cells with queens ready to emerge. They are not swarm cells that usually appear on frame edges. What is the reason? The bees know something better than you.  They want to replace the queen though all seems normal.  Why?  They know that the queen will stop laying, she is too old, sick or injured.  If you destroy the queen cellsthey will build new ones straight away.  If that happens, leave them alone for a couple of weeks and let Nature take its course.  Check again.  You may be surprised to find 2 queens laying in the same box, mother and daughter side by side.  Eventually, in a couple of weeks the old queen will disappear.

                                 LOVE THOSE BEES.  

 

 

 

No apiary shots - sorry

 

 

Queueing up for lunch

 

Please note : No June Meeting due to lack of a venue and the fact that it is the Queen’s birthday long weekend.

 

 

 

Honey Roasted Root Vegetables

 

Ingredients:

60 g butter

2 tablespoons honey

4 thyme sprigs

3 carrots, peeled and cut into chunks

2 parsnips, peeled and cut into chunks

1 medium orange sweet potato, peeled and cut into chunks

1 medium white sweet potato, peeled and cut into chunks

8 small pickling onions, peeled

8 Jerusalem artichokes, peeled

1 garlic head

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200°C. Melt butter in a large ovenproof dish over medium heat

Add the honey and thyme and stir.

Remove from the heat and add the carrot, parsnip, sweet potato, onions and artichokes.

Season well with salt and pepper and toss gently so they are coated with the honey butter.

Trim the base of the garlic and wrap in foil. add to the baking dish and place in the oven for 1 hour, turning the vegetables occasionally so they caramelize evenly. When cooked remove the foil from the garlic and pop the cloves from the skin,add to the other vegetables and serve.

Serves 4

From Vegie Food – Murdoch books

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next Meeting

 

Note: This meeting is in July not June

 

The next meeting will be held at the home of our President Marcus Lewis at Sandy Beach on Sunday, 10th July.

Address:  10 Blackbutts Avenue

Sandy Beach

Phone No.  6656 2287

 

-          LOOK FOR THE BEE SIGNS   -

 

Time : 10 am for 10:30 start

 

Activity : There will be an hive activity

 

Please Bring Protective Clothing

 

Please bring chairs

Parking: There is limited parking outside the house. Most parking is available at the top or the bottom of the hill in Blackbutts Ave.

 

AB-B-Q lunch will be at 12:30.

 

Please bring something for lunch, morning tea and the raffles. Cost $5.00

 

 At 1:30 pm a meeting will be held to discuss club business.

 

Enquiries :

 

Contact – Mal Banks-  6649 0990

                           Or

        Peter Dickson-Smith – 6649 2009