Called in on Cheryll Gibson at Daisey Dell on the way home from a turtle adventure to check on her hive development, in particular the log hive that was being attacked by termites. Cheryll now has an eduction hive hooked up to it and appears to be going extremely well. Speaking with Cheryll and her husband Bruce and they reported that all their fruit trees were performing very well including their 30 year old guava which had never fruited before and they are suddenly getting buckets full of fruit off it which Bruce has been feeding to their neighbor’s pigs. The put this down to the presence of their native bees.
Trap Hive – Last issue I reported a call to local Gladstone School to swarming bees and we set up a trap hive using a very small amount of brood from another hive split as bait in a new box. Immediately the swarming bees start-ed entering to box and swarming ceased. With the onset of Easter school holidays, we were concerned that it may be subjected to vandalism so we made a decision to relocate it. Despite it only being there for 14 days, when we removed the lid, we were totally amazed by the development inside. The box has now been relocated and appears to be performing exceptionally well as a single stage box at the moment with the brood more than doubled in size.
On Thursday 30th March 3 of our members attended an information evening at the Boyne Island Environmental Education Centre. This was an inaugural Nature and Nibbles evening for members of the public to learn about the Centre and in particular one of their projects, Bee Sustainable Project – This project is supported by local business Boyne Smelters Limited and ANBA Gladstone Branch. We were invited to provide information to the public on the work of ANBA organisation. Principal Michael has offered support of resources at the Centre to our Branch and we look forward to continuing the relationship.
At a special Management Committee meeting on Sunday 2nd April, we had a lot of discussion around our Glad-stone Regional Council water meter rescue program and planning of more regular events / meetings for our Branch to keep members informed and interested. Nanette and John are in the process of drafting up a management procedure for our rescue hives.
On Sat 15th April we held a meet and greet day for members at the residence of Nanette Collingwood to provide feedback from our Management Committee meeting and discuss bees in general over morning tea.
From Ian Anderson
For more info on branch activities, visit our Facebook page ANBA Gladstone Branch, https://www.facebook.com/groups/480678232538075