Next meeting
Nannette Collingwood has offered to provide her Beecher residence as a venue for our next meeting / work-shop and provide an opportunity for a friendly morning tea, and inspection of some of her hives. Thank you, Nannette.
When: Sat 28th May 2022 at 9:30am
Where: Ring Ian for address, 0458 737 760
What to bring: a chair, plate for morning tea, refillable water bottle, anything you would like to share with the group, and a friendly happy face.
If you have a friend who is interested in the preservation of native bees and perhaps interested in joining our group, please don’t hesitate to invite them along.
News
Trap Hive Update: In the previous newsletter, I mentioned a trap hive I had set up as an experiment after moving one of my existing strong hives a short distance of about 6m only to find a lot of disoriented bees the following day. Once placing the trap hive which did have some structure within it some a previous failed rescue all the disoriented bees made it their new home. It is now two months on and the bees are still visiting the box so all is looking good
Recently I had a friend Monique ask my assistance with splitting her hive and was very impressed by the effort and artwork she had put into the new box. It was such a shame to have to split such an attractive box but in the end she was more than impressed with what was inside and now has two very healthy hives
One of our members Liz Case reported recently how her bees were attracted to the sticky label collecting resin in preference to some fresh marigolds she had put out for them and wondered is this was normal behaviour or she had some strange bees around. I noticed that I have an old pair of gloves that have been out in the sun for some time and the rubberized grips are becoming quite sticky. For the past 3 weeks as soon as the sun comes out the bees are all over them
Our local Men’s Shed in Tannum Sands has been busy constructing OATH boxes for us at a very reasonable discount price for some time now and whilst the initial box-es were a little bit rough, they have picked up their game and from feedback received the last batch look good. From the recent sales of these hive boxes, it looks like we will be seeing a healthy population increase of sting-less bees in the Gladstone region soon. This is primarily what ANBA is all about, protecting the species through responsible management.
A note for our members, our Chairman Mark has indicated that due to personal commitments he has indicated that he does not have the time to commit to his role as ANBA Gladstone Branch Rep and we are currently looking for someone to take on this role. The role requires attendance via Zoom every second Tuesday of the month 7pm – 8pm, and reporting any relevant information back to the branch.
From Ian Anderson For more info on branch activities, visit our Facebook page ANBA Gladstone Branch, https://www.facebook.com/groups/480678232538075
