July Beekeeper for Web

July Beekeeper for Web

Apiculture NZ conference 9–11 July 2017

JULY 2017 | VOLUME 25 No. 6

It’s conference time! Karin Kos Leptosperin: a chemical marker Steve Howse

New South Wales conference reports Frank Lindsay Apimondia Oceania President’s report Jodie Goldsworthy We don’t know how lucky we are Jody Mitchell

See you at the 2017 APICULTURE Conference

At Comvita we value the relationships we have with our partners. We’re delighted to welcome our apiary operation, Kiwi Bee, and the Manuka Farming team to our stand. Visit us at Stand 58/59 to chat with us about partnership opportunities. comvita.co.nz/supply

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NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPER, JULY 2017

TABLE OF CONTENTS

It’s conference time!

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Agri-Women’s Development Trust wins national governance award

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Leptosperin: a chemical marker being used to authenticate manuka honey 7 Factors shaping bees’ reward preferences 10 Woolly thinker’s brain turns into a hive of activity 11 We don’t know how lucky we are 15 AFB control: time to think ahead 20

NSW conference reports

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Apimondia Oceania President’s report to industry

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From the colonies

37

Wiring in honey houses

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Hive maintenance over winter

42

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Front cover: View of Government Gardens and the Rotorua Museum. The Apiculture New Zealand National Conference is being held from 9 to 11 July at the Rotorua Energy Events Centre. Go to apicultureconference2017.co.nz for registration and other information.

EDITORIAL/PUBLICATION (excluding advertising): Nancy Fithian 8A Awa Road, Miramar, Wellington 6022 Mobile: 027 238 2915 Fax: 04 380 7197 Email: [email protected] ADVERTISING INQUIRIES: Certa Solutions, PO Box 2494, Dunedin 9044. Phone: 0800 404 515 Email: [email protected] PUBLICATIONS FOCUS GROUP: Frank Lindsay 26 Cunliffe Street, Johnsonville, Email: [email protected] DEADLINES FOR ADVERTISING AND ARTICLES: Due on the 6th of the month prior to publication. All articles/letters/photos to be with the Editor via fax, email or post to Nancy Fithian (see details above). Articles published in The New Zealand BeeKeeper are subject to scrutiny by the Apiculture New Zealand Management Team. The content of articles does not necessarily reflect the views of Apiculture New Zealand. Wellington 6037 Ph: 04 478 3367

The New Zealand BeeKeeper is the official journal of Apiculture New Zealand (Inc.). ISSN 0110-6325 ISSN 2537-8058 (Online) Printed by Certa Solutions, PO Box 2494, Dunedin 9013, New Zealand ApiNZ website: www.apinz.org.nz

© The New Zealand BeeKeeper is copyright and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written permission of the Publisher, Apiculture New Zealand (Inc.). CONTACTS TO THE NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPING INDUSTRY: Rex Baynes, AFB PMP Manager PO Box 44282, Lower Hutt 5040 Email: [email protected] Ph: 04 566 0773 American Foulbrood Management Plan www.afb.org.nz

MANAGEMENT TEAM: Chief Executive Officer Karin Kos Email: [email protected] Communications Coordinator Hannah Amante Email: [email protected] Accounts and Subscriptions Pauline Downie Email: [email protected] PO Box 25207, Featherston Street,

AsureQuality Limited Phone: 0508 00 11 22 www.asurequality.com EXOTIC DISEASE AND PEST EMERGENCY HOTLINE 0800 80 99 66 www.biosecurity.govt.nz

Wellington 6146 Ph: 04 471 6254 APICULTURE NZ BOARD REPRESENTATIVES: Dennis Crowley

Pollinator Incident Reporting Form: http://www.epa.govt.nz/Publications/ Pollinator_incident_reporting_form_2014. docx

Barry Foster Stuart Fraser Sean Goodwin John Hartnell Ricki Leahy

Peter Luxton Russell Marsh Paul Martin Bruce Wills (Chair)

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NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPER, JULY 2017

One Source for Beekeepers

Come and see us at the Apiculture NZ Conference 2017

Visit us at the Apiculture NZ Conference 2017, between the 9th-11th July stands 60-63. Come and see us for new innovations, experts on varroa control, and good chat! If you can’t join us this year at the conference, don’t forget you can shop online at ecrotek.co.nz , visit our Auckland or Christchurch stores, or call us on 0800 11 77 66 .

South Island 6a Sheffield Cres, Burnside Christchurch 8542

North Island 15e Kerwyn Ave, East Tamaki Auckland 2013

0800 11 77 66 ecrotek.co.nz [email protected]

4985

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NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPER, JULY 2017

IT’S CONFERENCE TIME! CHIEF EXECUTIVE’S REPORT Karin Kos, Apiculture New Zealand Chief Executive The start of winter heralds the season of industry conferences and field days, including ours this month. I see that this year’s Mystery Creek field day attracted 133,588 people, the biggest number in the history of the four-day event.

NZ honey export volumes down but record prices continue So how did our industry fare to June 2017? As you would expect, given the 2016 poor honey season, export volumes of honey are down 16 percent this year. However, average export prices have increased eight percent to reach $38.50 per kilogram. This is the eighth consecutive year of record prices, driven in part by the market success of New Zealand mānuka honey. Our challenge is continuing to grow our value over the long-term. How we tell our New Zealand honey story across all our wonderful honey varieties will be a key part of that success, as will having a robust definition for New Zealand mānuka honey. Looking ahead, MPI says it’s difficult to predict the size of the honey crop for 2017 because climatic conditions have varied considerably around New Zealand. However, lower production in 2017 may not necessarily have a direct impact on exports in 2017 and 2018. Stock held over from previous years can be used to maintain export volumes.

Traditionally our top three export markets are Australia, China and Hong Kong, which combined usually make up around 50 percent of New Zealand’s honey exports. However, in the first nine months of 2017, the volume of honey exported to these three destinations is 41 percent lower than for the same period in 2016. In contrast, export volumes to Japan and the UK for the first nine months of 2017 are around 40 percent greater than exports for the first nine months of 2016. The volume of honey exported to Japan has been growing strongly since 2015. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues.

This year’s ApiNZ conference in Rotorua is expected to attract well over 1000 attendees, and support a sizeable trade show. These numbers are reflective of the growth of our industry and support the positive outlook for the primary sector and the agribusiness sector, generally. The strong growth story is also reflected in the Ministry for Primary Industries’ latest Situation and Outlook for Primary Industries report (SOPI) to June 2017. This report comes out every quarter and is a useful insight into how we are going as an export industry. Link to SOPI (June 2017): http://www.mpi.govt.nz/ document-vault/18443 Bumper year forecast for primary sector The report forecasts a bumper year ahead for the primary sector, after some challenging past seasons of wet conditions, earthquakes, cyclones and volatile global commodity prices. MPI is forecasting that primary sector exports will grow to $41.6 billion in the year to June 2018—this is an increase of 9.1 percent and would be the highest level ever.

Some of the trade displays at Conference 2016. Photo: Barry Foster.

See you at conference I look forward to meeting those of you attending this year’s ApiNZ Conference in Rotorua (9 to 11 July). Make sure you come and meet me and the team at our industry-good stand, along with members of our ApiNZ Focus Groups who will also be available to talk you through the work they are doing, and answer any questions.

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NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPER, JULY 2017

LEPTOSPERIN: A CHEMICAL MARKER BEING USED TO AUTHENTICATE MANUKA HONEY RESEARCH Steve Howse, Executive Director, Analytica Laboratories

This article gives a brief overview of the background to the discovery of leptosperin and why it is useful for authenticating mānuka honey.

Overview Leptosperin is a naturally occurring chemical compound found in mānuka nectar, which makes its way into honey made from that nectar. It is sometimes referred to as a ‘chemical marker’ for mānuka honey, with higher amounts of leptosperin in a honey indicating that a higher amount of mānuka nectar has been used to make the honey. Testing is able to be carried out quickly and inexpensively by laboratories, along with the other tests normally carried out in mānuka honey. Leptosperin is not included in MPI’s proposed group of mānukamarkers. It is used by the Unique Manuka Factor™ Honey Association (UMFHA) as a part of the UMF™ grading system, and they require any honey labelled with a UMF™ grade to contain at least 100 mg/kg of leptosperin. Leptosperin was first discovered by the Japanese researcher Yoji Kato The first scientific work on mānuka honey was carried out by the late Professor Peter Molan of the University of Waikato. This research focused on mānuka honey’s function, particularly non-peroxide activity (NPA). Over time, it was found that the NPA in mānuka honey was closely linked to the naturally occurring chemical compound methylglyoxal (MG), and later that MG in mānuka honey was formed from another naturally occurring chemical, dihydroxyacetone (DHA), which came from mānuka nectar. Focus then turned to identifying other unique chemical compounds found in mānuka honey. In 2014, a Japanese research team led by Professor Yoji Kato announced (and patented) the discovery of leptosperin—a

Figure 1: Chemical structure of leptosperin.

with the DHA or MG concentration in honey. This means you can’t use a leptosperin test result as an alternative to these for working out the grade of the honey, but despite this, it can be used as an indicator of the amount of mānuka nectar in the honey. Figure 2 shows the average concentration of leptosperin found in the nectar of some of the more common plants used for honey production in New Zealand, arising from UMFHA research carried out in 2013/2014. You can see that while there is no evidence of leptosperin in species like kānuka, kāmahi, and rewarewa (among others), it is found in mānuka. Australian research has shown that leptosperin is also found in the nectar of some Leptospermum species which grow in Australia. In general, if honey is from New Zealand and if there is enough leptosperin in it, you can be confident that it is mānuka honey.

naturally occurring chemical compound found in mānuka honey but not in other types of New Zealand honey (Kato, Fujinaka, Ishisaka, Nitta, Kitamoto, & Takimoto, 2014). This was confirmed soon after by the UMFHA-driven Mānuka ID project, and has been agreed with since then by other international researchers. Leptosperin is a complex chemical compound (Figure 1) that has been shown to be found in mānuka nectar, and makes its way into mānuka honey via the nectar collected by bees. Leptosperin is not a reactive compound, and therefore its concentration remains fairly stable over time. An incubation experiment carried out by Analytica, where honey was stored at 20°C and 27°C over nearly three years, showed that leptosperin concentrations reduced by less than 5% per year. Leptosperin concentration in mānuka nectar does naturally vary between plants and regions, and is not always directly correlated

continued...

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NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPER, JULY 2017

Chloe (Laboratory Technician) loads prepared samples onto the Thermo Ultimate 3000 UHPLC for leptosperin analysis. Photo courtesy of Analytica Laboratories.

Average Leptosperin Levels in Different Floral Nectars

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MPI has not included leptosperin in its proposed GREX MPI has been carrying out a science programme over the past few years to come up with a way of defining mānuka honey for international markets. There are a number of resources related to this on the MPI website (www.mpi.govt.nz). MPI has included laboratory testing for five attributes in honey as part of their proposed General Requirements for Export (GREX), with four of these tests being for chemical markers. MPI has not selected leptosperin as one of these markers, and have explained their reasoning for doing so in the documents released in April 2017 that describe the proposed GREX. Reference Kato, Y., Fujinaka, R., Ishisaka, A., Nitta, Y., Kitamoto, N., & Takimoto, Y. (2014). Plausible authentication of mānuka honey and related products by measuring leptosperin with methyl syringate. Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry, 62 (27), 6400–6407.

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Pōhutukawa Rewarewa

Tawari

Blue Borage Honey Dew Kāmahi

Mānuka

Figure 2: Concentrations of leptosperin in nectar from different species. The nectar >Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 Page 20 Page 21 Page 22 Page 23 Page 24 Page 25 Page 26 Page 27 Page 28 Page 29 Page 30 Page 31 Page 32 Page 33 Page 34 Page 35 Page 36 Page 37 Page 38 Page 39 Page 40 Page 41 Page 42 Page 43 Page 44 Page 45 Page 46 Page 47 Page 48 Page 49 Page 50 Page 51 Page 52 Page 53 Page 54 Page 55 Page 56 Page 57 Page 58 Page 59 Page 60 Page 61 Page 62 Page 63 Page 64

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