Following the meeting I was asked by a number of the beekeepers whether I would like to look at at their apairies which sounded good to me. Sitting immediately to my left was Joe Boehm from Bracebridge and when he phoned the day after the meeting and said he'd be going to one of his apiaries on Tuesday I didn't hesitate.
Joe's address was intriguing, 100 Covered Bridge Trail. Interesting???
Well the people who named the road were honest and given the amount of snow that falls in the area I have no doubt that the covered bridge is not for show! After a bit of car juggling so Joe's wife could get to her volunteer role at the Bracebridge Hospital. I leapt aboad Joe's van and we headed to one of his apiaries.
With around 50 hives Joe probably has the most hives in the Muskoka-Parry Sound Beekeepers Association and he also mentors a number of beekeepers in and around Bracebridge. He is a knowledgeable contact and more importantly a nice guy.
On arrival at the apiary the first thing I noticed was the electric fence. Yes, bears are an ever-present hazard to beehives in this area and Joe takes no chances. Then my next surprise was that Joe burns a type of fungus in his smoker. He gathers it locally and from what I saw it was good in that once lit the smoker didn't go out, and more importantly the bees accepted the smoke quite well.
Joe's bees are either of Italian or Russian stock and in general the hives were in good condition. The ever present problem for beekeepers here is the Varroa mite and the Russian strain is supposed to be resisting the mite better. Because of that the majority of the bees are a little darker than what I am used to but they were very gentle and happy working a variety of floral sources. There isn't a single source as the apiary was surrounded buy clover (red and sweet), alfalfa, goldenrod, aster and even buckwheat flowering nearby. Whatever the source they were working hard, breeding well and judging by the white tips definitely gaining!!!
Joe, in addition to the more traditional mite controls including Fluvalinate, Coumaphos and Formic Acid in rotation, is trapping immature mites by introducing empty frames so that drone brood is produced. These combs are then taken and destroyed before the drones hatch and the mature mites are introduced to the colony. A lot of work for the bees and the beekeeper but I didn't see a mature mite on a bee in the 8 hives we looked at.
Packed up and left but not before the heat and humidity reminded me of why I will not be going back into full time beekeeping. Not ecstatic about that! Last job before we left the apiary was to turn the bear fence back on. As we left we drove through a small field of buckwheat.
Then back to where else but to the HONEY HOUSE
Not as large as I've seen but it did all the things it needed to do including most importantly extracting what is very nice honey.
Another very important thing that we did in the honey house was to cut the drone brood off the frames and destroy the immature mites. I hope that I never see these in Australia!
Not a pleasant sight for a beekeeper but I think integrated pest management as Joe is following is something that we could use much more in Australia. We finished on a positive by cutting the sealed combs of honey onto a plate for me to take back to 460 Sarah. And finally washed a bit of the bee dust out of my throat with a cold Corona. Mmmmm!
Arrived home to find this outside the front door?????
I guess the Volunteering gods must have been smiling!!!!!!!
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