Christchurch Beekeepers Club

Christchurch Hobbyist Beekeepers Honey Show
2023-05-06 09:30 - 14:30 (Pacific/Auckland) | Club, 681 Cashmere Road, Christchurch, Canterbury, 8025, New Zealand
The 2023 Honey Show will be held at the Club Site on Sat May 6th 2023, so do come along and enter your hive products.
All members, novice and experienced, can participate in the Honey Show. Follow the rules posted, to be in to win one of the two Club Shields -the 2023 Novice or the Experienced Beekeepers Club Shield. Prizes to be announced later.
A shield is awarded to the entrant with the most points overall and a novice shield is awarded to a first or second year beekeeper. (This must be stated at the time).
General Rules:
• Members may only have one entry per class. If required, guidance will be given as to which class your entry should be exhibited in. The judges decision will be final.
• Exhibits must be delivered at least 10 minutes prior to the start of the judging.
• Liquid and creamed honey must be in standard 500 gm square”round” plastic jars with white lids.
• No labels on jars.
• Only exhibits from Financial members will be accepted.
• Write your initials (which may be on a small sticky label) on the BASE of the exhibit.
Classes:
1. Dark honey creamed
2. Dark honey liquid
3. Light honey creamed
4. Light honey liquid
5. Wax blocks 500 gm minimum weight
6. Mead 750 ml clear glass bottle
Details of each class
1 & 3. Dark creamed honey or light creamed honey
The entrant is to decide which class to enter.
The judge will take notice of flavour, colour, fineness of grain and freedom from foreign material. Please remember to obtain standard show jars. The reason for this uniformity is that different types of jars have varying light densities depending on the thickness of the glass.
2 & 4. Light liquid honey or dark liquid honey the same criteria as above.
5. Wax
Each exhibit must be at least 500gms in weight and from this season. It must be presented as tipped from the mould; points will be lost for chipping or scraping.
The Judge will look for colour, texture and purity. No restriction as to the shape of the mould.
Entrants are advised not to heat wax in iron or enamel containers as this can discolour the wax, for preference use an aluminium container. Do not overheat the wax; strain through stocking or similar; cool very slowly as this makes for uniformity of texture and freedom from cracking. Avoid propolis as this tends to darken the wax. Pure bees wax only to be used. One tea-spoon of vinegar helps to clarify wax.
6. Mead 750 ml clear glass bottle with removable cork or screw top.
No labels on bottle.
Write your initials (which may be on a small sticky label) on the BASE of the exhibit.

Club day
2023-04-01 09:30 - 14:30
At 9.30 there will be a practical session where you will get to learn about how to select, take out, and clean up old frames.
We will answer questions and demonstrate methods for what you can do with the waste wax, honey, pollen or nectar.
We aim to cover these topics and to answer your questions during the main session.
Points covered will be:

Putting wets back on your hive.
What is happening in your hive now what you need to attend to this month in your hive.
A reminder about treatments & completing your AVR on HiveHub.
There will be onsite learning – with our regular inspections of the Club’s hives. Do we need to feed them? Remove and replace any frames?
Upcoming courses and of course a reminder about our 60th Anniversary Dinner.

Club day
2023-03-04 09:30 - 14:30
9.30 am Saturday 4th March 2023 Field Day Timetable

This Saturday is Gadget Day. The best Gadget will be judged -by Brian Pilley from Beeline he will award prizes for 1st, ($50.00 voucher) 2nd, ($35.00 voucher) and 3rd, ($25.00 voucher). Brian is up this weekend so please send him your order by the cut off of Thursday lunchtime.
Are you the going to be a winner in our gadget competition? It doesn’t take much to come up with a little something that helps you as a beekeeper, if you have that little something -please share it with us.
Gordon will be demonstrating how to make oxalic acid strips -: Making oxalic acid strips from a pack- hiveworld.
60th Anniversary Dinner is coming up (see menu included)- please see Kerry if you have any questions. This is our one time opportunity to celebrate together, an evening where both our new beekeepers and older more experienced beekeepers can relax and talk about the Club and what it means to you. We’d love to have as many people along as possible.
If you need any plastic jars for honey we have bags of 50 jars for $30.00 for sale at the Club site.
Don’t forget we will be exchanging honey with our special 60th Anniversary Label on it between club members. (See Gordon for jars or a place to put your honey).
We will be providing tea and coffee as always and you are welcome to bring a plate with something to share. Bring any medication or your suits, we recommend you carry any medication you think you may need – no point in it being locked up in your car in the paddock. If you have borrowed a suit and accidentally taken it home, we love to have them back so we have plenty available for everyone to use on the Field Days.
Together we will open all the hives to: check for disease, varroa, look for food and brood and check if we need to remove any manky frames or move them to the outside of the box ready to be replaced when empty.
Looking forward to holding another successful Saturday or week day working bee. Check board for the date.
1-day Beginners’ Course was run on Saturday 18th February is was very successful and we are looking at dates in April for doing something similar.

We look forward to seeing you all there.

1-day beginners' course
2023-02-18 08:30 - 16:30
Another 1-day beginners’ course will be run in the new year on Saturday 18th February starting 08:30am and finishing 04:30pm at the club site, at the cost of $50.00 for club members and $95.00 for non-club members.
To register your interest please contact either Gordon N or Jeff R, whose details are listed on the committee members list.
Committee

Club day
2023-02-11 09:30 - 14:30
9.30 we will be offering a NUC for our fundraising raffle, tickets are $2.00 each. (Offered to registered beekeepers of course). So, Sat is for you to bring along your questions, queries and $2.00 coins of course.

We will be demonstrating how to make oxalic strips -: Making oxalic acid strips from a pack- hiveworld

Collect your bee gear from Beeline – they will be there this Saturday.

Committee members on site are available for any questions you may have.

If you need any plastic jars for honey we have bags of 50 jars for $30.00 for sale at the Club site.

We will be providing a BBQ and tea and coffee of course and you are welcome to bring a plate with something to share. (Gluten free sausages offered as well.)

We will go over how to open your hives safely and get to the bottom box happily. All hives will be opened.

Working Bee
2023-01-28 08:30 - 12:00
So what needs doing? Can you spend an hour or so helping out to do just one of these tasks? I know you want to help so here’s our dream list to get done:

Hoeing the gardens.. Keep those weeds down
Staking up trees
Helping with framing and prep for pathway
Tidying/cutting up and moving garden waste
Weeding
Raking up

garden waste

pathway

Staking up trees

Hoeing

Weeding

Raking

Club day
2023-01-14 09:30 - 14:30
Happy New Year! This Saturday we will be focusing on how to make the best of your honey harvest and all that extracting honey entails. What makes a great honey harvest? How bees make honey?
We will be covering: what you can do to protect your bees against wasps, how important a good source of water is for your bees, what food bees need to produce a good quantity and quality of honey, harvesting honey, honey extraction, comb cutting, storage of honey frames before and after spinning, how to store extra honey, creaming honey and how to deal with crystallisation and what to check for when opening the hives. Committee members on site are available for any questions you may have.
If you need any plastic jars for honey we have bags of 50 jars for $30.00 for sale at the Club site.
There will be a raffle this Saturday for a NUC (to registered beekeepers only-continued from Dec), tickets are $2.00 each.
Bringing a plate with something to share for morning tea/shared lunch would be really appreciated.
We will go over how to clean up your boxes and frames and rewire them ready to use.
A reminder that next month, February our Field Day falls on Waitangi weekend and will move to the second Saturday of the month, Saturday 11th February.
Looking forward to another Saturday or week day to have a working bee, cleaning up the whare ready for painting and to help in the gardens.

Club day
2022-12-03 09:30 - 14:30
Christmas Party.
How to spin your Honey.

All times are weather depending. If the Hive will be opened.
Happy Season.
Hivemaster Gordon.

Field Day
2022-11-05 10:00 - 15:00
Timetable

10.00am
Education, the following main topics will be covered:

Swarm Control
Splits

11.00am
Opening of hives, please bring your beesuit/veil, no other equipment required

12.00pm
Friendly chatter and socialising with a tea or coffee and barbeque, please bring a salad or plate of something you would like to share

Note that Beeline will be there this Saturday with stock for you to purchase.

Build your own Hive
2022-10-15 08:30 - 16:30
Build Your Our Own Kitset Hive, beginners day.
Contact Gordon Nairn 027 538 9568 to confirm your place.
Bring your own lunch, and some tools, tea and coffee provided.
$50.00 members $95.00 non-members
Held at the Club site -Cashmere Rd

Field Day
2022-10-01 10:00 - 15:00
All members and visitors welcome.
Details to follow
Field Days
