Spring Time – Busy, Busy Again

What do spring rounds look like in the Bay of Plenty? Aimz reports in as she begins her third full season wielding the hive tool in the family business.

The winter blues. Windy nights and wet days seem intolerable, until the spring blue kicks in. Those endless blue skies. Warmth and growth. The perfect beekeeping weather.

Everything is on the up and up, including my frame of mind.

Spring rounds are drawing tighter. Stimulating the colonies through light manipulation and regular feeding encourages brood rearing, as we fool the bees with an artificial flow.  

Artificial swarming is next on the agenda, splitting strong hives to increase our numbers, with the first order of overwintered queens due to arrive any day now.  

After a couple of years beekeeping, my brain is in the game. Being the daughter of a great beekeeper meant that as soon as I stuck my hand up, I was thrown in the deep end. I admit, I was really winging it that first year – monkey see, monkey do.

Healthy hives. The way it should be.

The punt paid off though, and the vocation is all me. It really is an exciting career.

With great power comes great responsibility. Scaling the ladder and becoming a leading member of our enterprise means I am in that decision making circle. Which also implies accountability.

Hard working and worn-out Swedish cloths.

This is the job that never ends, it just goes on and on my friends. Out of the field, the beekeeper’s brain is still planning, calculating and rehashing, maybe with a hint of worrying. Life is good though, and I can’t help but bee optimistic.

I’m positively elevated going into this season with healthy bees and strong hives.  

Varroa levels are negligible, as we have been hard on them ever since they thrashed us the other year. Oxalic acid is where it’s at. After a full round of vaporizing – five applications where we use three grams of acid per hive, applied every four to five days, we can reasonably assume that we are not harbouring mites in the brood. To minimize re-infestation our hives were bolstered with oxalic staples and the new Swedish cloth in strong overwintering doubles.

While vaporizing to those time frames on a commercial level can be a bit of a pain, we are streamlining our operation by upgrading our weapons of mite destruction, and adding another faster unit to our arsenal.

The next treatment date has not been set, and we are currently monitoring mite levels for self-assurance. With the warmer weather comes the ability to use formic acid for mite control, and I know Dad is hanging out to use it – his personal favourite, as it acts like a cleanser and disinfectant in the hive, while permeating brood cappings to kill mites lurking beneath.

The last of the honey goes off to market, clearing out the shed for the new season…

Enough about the dreaded lurgy, they are not our problem right now. Pollination looms, as the kiwifruit industry beckons. Hold that thought, the focus is on getting around our hives in good time, marking splitters and putting out brood boxes, while pumping them with enough feed to survive until next time.

And so, busy, busy, until next time,

Aimz.

Aimz is a second-generation commercial beekeeper in the Bay of Plenty who took up the hive-tool fulltime at the end of the 2024 honey season. Formerly a stay-at-home mum to four kids, she has now found her footing in the family business.