Bees/o; Development Journal 79
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CONGRESS
IN AUSTRALIA
Linda Manning
The 8th Asian Apicultural Association (AAA) Conference was held in
Perth, Western Australia from 20-24 March 2006, and was hosted by the Western Australian beekeepers. 162 people from 19 countries
attended the Conference, held in the grounds of the University of Western Australia. The Conference included a welcome reception, three days of lectures, one day of technical tours, bee venom therapy workshop, a a
conference dinner and book launch. Sixty-three papers were presented on pests and diseases, melliferous flora and pollination, bee biology,
beekeeping technology and bee products.
operate the ‘better bees breeding programme’. The bees were feeding on Eucalyptus wandoo and redgum Corymbia calophylia. The
honeybees, Apis mellifera ligustica, are yellow in colour and placid, clinging to the frames when they were removed from the hive. Not one person was stung even though several hives were opened and frames removed and passed around, with people using their fingers to break open the cells to taste the honey.
Beekeeper John Davies and another participant in the ‘better bees breeding programme’, spoke about the 26 years that have contributed to the lines of superior breeding queens. Since 1992, the programme has been owned and managed by six prominent Western Australian beekeeping businesses. These beekeepers expect to harvest
Keynote speakers Professor Marla Spivak from the University of Minnesota, USA gave a keynote address on The impact of the Varroa mite in the USA. She asked, "Are we winning the battle?" and discussed whether honeybees bred for hygienic behaviour would be the saviour of beekeeping for pollination and nectar collection. Professor Spivak explained how to
test for hygienic behaviour in honeybees. She explained that bees bred for hygienic behaviour have great olfactory sensitivity to the odours
associated with diseased brood, and remove such brood lang before reaches the infectious stage.
150-200 kg of honey per colony per year from ‘better bees' stock. The bees were so quiet they were a pleasure to work with. It should be noted that no antibiotics or drugs are used on bees in Western Australia, so hygienic behaviour is not masked by drug use. Beekeepers practise barrier management. where the same four boxes
and frames are rotated within the same hives.
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Keynote speaker, Professor Mandyam Srinivasan from the Australian National University, discussed his recent work on Smal! Brains, Smart Minds: vision, navigation and cognition in honeybees. He provided an insight into honeybee flight and how bees regulate their ground speed by holding constant the speed at which the image of the environment moves across the eye.
Professor Verma from Himachal Pradesh University in India discussed policies and programmes for revitalising the beekeeping industry in Asia.
The Australian and international beekeepers enjoyed visiting the honey houses, apiaries, a pollen drying and packing operation, and the Western Australian honey packer Wescobee Ltd. Most delegates described the visit to Harry East's 96-hive apiary at Bindoon as the high point. Harry is one of the beekeepers who own and
Mr Kim Fewster, AAA's Australian Representative and Convenor of the Conference Organising Committee, with Professor Siriwat Wongsiri. newly appointed President of AAA
Alan Fewster and his son Kim, and David and Leilani Leyland opened their honey house and extraction operation to the delegates. The large commercial beekeeping business has modern honey handling facilities with stainless stee! uncapping machines, horizontal radial extractors and facilities for handling honey in bulk, using forklifts. They are moving over to square plastic 1,000 litre containers and away from 200 litre steel drums. The Fewsters are large-scale beekeepers by
Australian standards and own 1,800 hives. They practise migratory beekeeping, moving their apiaries from one honey flow to another.
Their trucks are specially fitted with a loading gantry for picking up and placing hives.
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Delegates viewing better bees’ stock at Harry East's apiary in Bindoon. Western Australia.
They usually harvest 50-60 tonnes of Jarrah honey every second year. The nectar comes from Eucalyptus marginata known locally as Jarrah, and is the most sought after variety of honey in Western Australia.
Jarrah honey has an extremely high antimicrobial reading and is a highly flavoured, nutritious honey. It is also used in wound dressings, as in the B-Naturals topical product.
