Hobby beekeeping growing
in popularity
GRANT MATTHEW/FAIRFAX NZ
Hobby beekeeper Dave Deverall, at home in his garden, Palmerston North, with one of his hives.
More people are getting into keeping a few honey bee hives as a hobby. Jill Galloway talks to a bee keeper.
Dave Deverall started bee keeping as a hobby last Christmas. Less than a year later, he is passionate about bee hives and has 14 scattered around Palmerston North.
Deverall's gentle nature seems to placate the bees when he works around them.
He is also full of interesting facts.
For example, the male bee, known as a drone, can mate with a queen only once - then their penis explodes and they die.
The drone has no sting, no father and only a mother. The queen flies into an area about the size of a house where drones congregate, mates with about 15 of them and then flies back to the hive.
The workers are all females, so it's a matrilineal society.
Deverall says the city by-laws say you can have two hives on an average section of 500 square metres.
"Hobby beekeeping is growing. Everyone wants hives on their place. I have around 10-20 people who want hives.'
His hobby consumes about five hours each week - any more and it would eat into family time and his paying job.
"Bee keeping grabbed me when I got my first hive on December 27 last year. My great grandfather and uncle kept bees and for some reason I knew quite a bit about it, before I started."
He says his great grandfather was a successful beekeeper with more than 100 hives.
Since then, Deverall has been passionate about keeping bees, making his own hives and honey boxes. He uses 'Thermo Wood', already burnt. It is durable, keeps the rain out and is chemical-free.
A keen gardener, he prefers permaculture and does not use any chemicals.
"I would recommend having two hives, then if anything happens to one, you have another."
Deverall has researched bee health issues such as american and european foulbrood, nosema and of course varroa mite and is worried about hive collapse.
Like many other broad-spectrum insecticides, neonicotinoids are acutely toxic to bees and many beekeepers believe they are part of the problem, he says. Neonicotinoids are toxic to bees and they become addicted to the insecticide, he says.
He says it weakens hives, and lets other diseases and organisms invade.
Deverall says neonicotinoids are banned in many countries, but seeds continued to be coated with the chemical in New Zealand to stop insect attack.
He says he doesn't use a miticide strip to stop the varroa mite.
"I have some bees which bite the legs off mites. The mites are haemophiliacs, so they bleed to death. I have bred from the queen and her daughter."
Deverall hopes that might be the answer.
One of his hives is at a property owned by an older woman.
"Everybody likes bees, and she said 'every time I see them I smile'. She has no relatives in New Zealand. I can check on bees and have a talk to her at the same time."
Deverall says he makes hives for the love of beekeeping and gives his honey to a charity. "Well it's the bees honey really," says Deverall.
"I am far more aware of gardens now. I know when the flax is about to flower. I have been happy with the way the cabbage trees have bloomed. Even people who don't mow their lawn very often - the clover is bee feed. Don't mow it, I think now."
As a member of the Manawatu Beekeepers Club he has seen membership growing.
"It started with perhaps 50 people when I first went. Now there are about 200. Other people at the club are knowledgeable and they pass that on. But they learn from me too. I am one of the youngest and use U-Tube and multi-media."
Bee facts
Bees produce about 50 to 150 kilograms of honey from each hive. A hive has between 20,000 and 60,000 bees.
A queen takes 16 days to hatch.
She mates with about 15 drones early in her life. The queen bee lays nearly 1500 eggs a day and lives for up to two years.
The drone, whose only job it is to mate with the queen bee, has no sting.
A drone takes 24 days to hatch. The hive kicks them out when the weather cools. The drones are in their prime after 42 days of life and mate only once, killed by an exploding penis.
The term queen bee is typically used to refer to an adult, mated female that lives in a hive. She is usually the mother of most, if not all, the bees in the beehive.
The queens are developed from larvae selected by worker bees, and specially fed in order to become sexually mature.
Normally only one adult mated queen is in a hive and bees will usually follow and fiercely protect her.
New Zealand sends bees all around the world.
Most honey is collected after pohutakawa trees flower in March.
The young bees make wax from a plate under their belly. Making wax is labour intensive.
- Stuff