John Berry on Fire, Wind and Rain

By John Berry

When you have been involved in beekeeping for as long as I have, you’re bound to have seen a few disasters and learned from a few mistakes. You wouldn’t think there was much left for me to learn, but the other day I had my nose rubbed firmly in all of the above…

Uh oh – John Berry’s paraffin wax dipper goes up in flames.

It started with the wind blowing the lid off my paraffin dipping plant, followed by rain getting in. Because the paraffin shrinks as it cools, the water can get down the cracks and it’s impossible to get it all out. What you have to do is heat it up slowly and have it very gently boiling until all the water is gone, or it will froth up and boil over, which not only wastes paraffin but also creates an extreme fire risk.

I thought I had everything well under control when I went in for morning tea (I’m semiretired now so my morning teas can be a bit extended…). A friend turned up about the same time as I thought it was time to go put some more wood in the firebox, but when I went outside I could see a huge column of fire and smoke.

The whole thing was a raging inferno. The plant is deliberately placed away from anything important, so nothing was immediately threatened, but it was nevertheless a deeply worrying event. I got the hose and used that to cool down the outside of the plant. It’s very important not to get water in with the hot paraffin or it will just explode.

Meanwhile, some of the staff from Arataki next door had noticed the fire as well and came over to assist. We tried one of their extinguishers, but it didn’t do anything and in the end the consensus was made that it was better to call the fire brigade. I continued to use the hose to stop anything close to it getting too hot and, in the end, managed to extinguish it about one minute before the fire engine turned up.

It’s the first time I’ve ever had to ring the fire brigade and I was expecting a bit of a bollocking for my negligence, but they couldn’t have been nicer or more understanding. This was the second callout that morning for our local volunteer Fire Brigade. In the end the only real loss was a whole lot of paraffin. I have lit this plant or one similar to it so many times over the years without any real problems and was fully aware of what could happen, but I allowed complacency to creep in. It was bloody scary. Lesson hopefully learnt. If you are wondering how hot it got, it melted one of the brass taps.

More Fire

I can only think of one apiary that was partially lost to fire and that was over 50 years ago. It was surrounded by dry gorse and the fire was nothing to do with beekeeping. Some of the hives burnt while hives next door were fine. I have always been extremely careful with my smoker and never put it on the ground and just don’t use it if conditions are extreme. The only thing I have ever set fire to with a smoker is myself. I could smell the stink of burning and was looking for the source when I felt a hot spot on my belly. My veil was quietly smouldering.

I did lose a veil once that was on the back of the truck to a cigarette thrown out the window (not by me). By the time we noticed it was too late to save it, but fortunately the truck was fine.

I do know beekeepers that have lost hives to fires and I know others that have started fires with their smokers. It’s uncommon, but it does happen. I have been singed around the edges a few times while burning American foulbrood hives and once had one full of petrol fumes explode right beside me. Fire needs to be respected.

Wind

I have probably seen more hives lost to wind than any other natural phenomena over the years. Perhaps the most spectacular was an apiary near Te Aroha over 40 years ago. Everything from the apiary was plastered against the fence, boxes, floors, lids, frames. I don’t remember how many of them were killed outright, but it must’ve been a few. I spent several days driving around just putting lids back on hives. I don’t think I’ve ever seen another wind like it, with dozens of power poles in a row snapped off and partially finished houses blown to kindling.

In the days of single hives, most of our hives in Hawke’s Bay had rocks on top, but hives Arataki had in other areas mostly went without. In those days we did not use inner covers and, if the lid blew off, the hives were fully exposed to the elements. In fact they were better off being knocked over on their sides than sitting without a lid. This was of course well before varroa and, in those days, it was losing a lid, wasps or starvation that were about the only things that actually killed hives. Even with the lid off, a surprising number survived the winter.

I don’t know how many hives were lost to wind damage, but I’ll guarantee it far exceeded flood and fire. I’ve seen winds that were literally strong enough to blow the prickles off gorse bushes. I’ve had a pallet of hives blown out from under the ropes on the truck as I drove along the road and many, many times I have been hit by flying lids and top boards.

Changing hives over to pallets almost eliminated the problem of losing lids to wind. It also greatly reduces stock damage and I suspect they will be a lot more durable during an earthquake. I have read an account of what happened to hives in the Hawke’s Bay earthquake and it was not pretty.

Rain

Over the years I have seen a lot of lives go down the rivers. Changing from single hives to pallets made quite a big difference and with my own hives I don’t think I’ve had a single one flooded away. I have lost the odd one because the entrance got completely blocked with silt though.

Hives on single floors tip over very quickly in rising water, whereas hives on pallets tend to stay upright and in worst case scenarios will float. My brother and I once lassoed six pallets of hives in the middle of a small lake and, while it didn’t do them any good, the majority survived. I have even found the odd single hive still alive hundreds of metres down the river.

One of the worst floods I can remember was the Easter storm in 1981. I was working for my uncle at the time looking after hives on the Hauraki Plains and Coromandel. Fortunately the worst of the flooding was on the other side of the river from where most of our hives were, but we did lose one site of 50 hives. In that case the water didn’t go over the top, but actually wore the bank away until all the hives had tumbled into the river.

Rain of course also means mud and mud means getting stuck, but if I was to write about every time I’d ever been stuck it would take a while. Let’s just say I have been stuck often enough to cause me to have recurring bad dreams on the subject.