In the month of reflection and regeneration, we're all looking forward to great times ahead.
I love the forced pause in beekeeping activities that beekeeping away from the equator gives you. Whether you are North or South of the line, were plunged into the annual cycle of the changing seasons.
If you lucky enough to live around the equatorial regions of the world, you can harvest honey all year round, depending on local flowers, but there is never a break. I've recently experienced this first hand in my incredible trips to Hawaii!
Some of the spectacular views from the North coast of Big Island.
Hawaii is just such an amazing place. Did you know that when you on Hawaii you are actually on the tallest mountain in the world!
I first visited in in October 2018 and was completely blown away by its beauty and diversity!
The bees are so Prolific and so gentle!!
A wonderful example of the prolificness of Honey bees and nectar flow on Big island! Any violated bee space left is built in to very quickly if you are not on your toes. It can take as little as one week to be built out!!
This is the back of an AZ Hive, any space is quickly filled. The honey and combs are gorgeous!!
This is the back of an AZ Hive, any space is quickly filled. The honey and combs are gorgeous!!
Honey bees proliferate because there are flowers all year round. There is a pause in the intensity of the nectar flows between November and January but after that, the Macadamia nut trees start to flower, and it all goes crazy.
There are many beekeepers in Big Island as well as the other smaller islands. Some big commercial operations like big island queens, Big Island Bees and the Hawaiian Islands Honey Company, who is one of the main exporters of honey to the mainland USA. Queens are exported all over the world from Hawaii because they can be ready in time for beekeepers elsewhere where their season is not as advanced.
There is also the smaller artisan producers who specialise in specific nectar flows. These you discover at the local shops, where the diversity of flowers is reflected in the overwhelming selection of beautiful jars of honey. I wanted to buy and taste them all.
Some areas on Big island are much drier than others. Hilo generally receives huge amounts of rain on a regular, when it rains boy does it rain! The annual rainfall is around the 120-inch mark, which is quite incredible. The soils are fertile, dark and drain well, indeed they need to! There are numerous valleys where streams quickly become rivers after heavy showers. These are called Gaulches and are spectacular. The diversity of plants and flowers is quite incredible!
Alicia Wills has a beautiful Apiary at her home in Hilo, on the east coast, which is said to be one of the best places to keep bees. She raises open mated queens and also Instrumentally Inseminated queens that are gently and productive, making delicious honey!
Nice strong nucleus colonies.
Alicia with some of her Apimaye 7 framed Nucleus Boxes. Highly practical for Hawaii!
These boxes are perfect for Raising queens and Nucleus colonies for sale.
The amazing Slovenian style AZ Hive House.
Alicia has several small apiaries on the Hamakua coastline. The three areas are divided up to suit the different hives she has, making the management more effortless. There are two distinctive hive types. Already shown is the Apimaye hive above, (which do also come in the standard 10 frames hive)
The second type of hive is the wonderful Slovenian AZ hive. This hive was the design of Anton Znidersic who came up with the concept of having a hive and configuration, which enables you to be able to remove individual frames for inspection, as well as collect honey from individual frames. removing the need to lift heavy supers.
A single person avoids the backbreaking work and can manage frames individually as if opening pages in a book and taking them out to read.
Typically most AZ hives are situated in a beehouse, with the hives cupboard like in appearance. Very practical.
Where Hawian Style meets Slovenian. An amazing Beehouse.
Alicia with the hive open at the rear to inspect the frames. Just look at that lovely brood!! You can see all the hives are perfectly accessible with minimal movement from within the bee house. When a frame of honey is capped and ready for extraction, it can be lifted out, spun directly in the bee house if one wishes, then returned to the colony. Keeping adequate space for the queen to lay and space for honey gathering. Hive configuration is usually 10 or 20 frames, growing to a staggering 30 frames in a well-developed colony.
Heres one of the videos I filmed that gives you an idea of how it all works and some of the fantastic scenery of Hawaii.
I also filmed a video showing how useful the Apimaye hives are.
Being inside the bee house is truly a wonderful experience. When you have bees humming all around you, the energy they emit is quite mesmerising. What an experience to have seen for me how bees perform under really ideal conditions.
Instrumental Insemination.
Alicia is also a trained Queen bee Inseminator. She spends a lot of her time selecting good colonies through rigorous selection criteria. The most important being high mite resistance.
Varroa mites pose the biggest challenges to all Honey bees in Europe and the USA and finding strains that have hygienic behaviour is of the utmost importance. This is where they can detect a foundress reproducing female adult varroa underneath the capping of the brood and butcher the developing larvae, dragging out the infected larvae with the foundress mite and her young, removing it from the colony.
One of the prolific queens with an amazing laying pattern!!
It is so important that we find and breed from these highly desirable hygienic traits. It's not just the mites that suck blood from our bees: The biggest issue is when the mites are feeding transmit Viruses. It's these viruses that cause so much mortality of honey bee populations. There are some 10 different viruses that can cause significant problems to bees, rendering them immobile, wingless or hugely less active and efficient.
Carefully positioning a 4/5 day old queen to receive selective drone semen via the insemination process. This is highly skilled!
They have a lab in Hawaii big Island and in conjunction with Project Apis, The USDA and beekeeper David Thomas of the Hawaiian Island honey company, have made enormous progress producing bees that are 100% resistant to mites.
The insemination process: approximately 10 micro-litres is instrumentally inseminated in to the queen's oviduct. They use SDI (single drone Insemination) or Multi drone insemination (MDI) depending on the selection criteria.
Arista bee Research is going Global!
Alicia will be shortly heading the exciting launch of Arista USA. This is a massive development and will consist of a board of directors that will work with a team of Apiarists, lab technicians and Inseminators that will start new lines in of super hygienic bees in their new base which will be in Texas.
This is just excellent news. I will keep you posted with all developments and how you can support the project even where you are!!
In the meantime, I will sign out and wish you all well in your continuing winter work or early spring prep! I will hopefully be visiting Hawaii again soon as well as Texas in the near future.These boxes are perfect for Raising queens and Nucleus colonies for sale.
The amazing Slovenian style AZ Hive House.
Alicia has several small apiaries on the Hamakua coastline. The three areas are divided up to suit the different hives she has, making the management more effortless. There are two distinctive hive types. Already shown is the Apimaye hive above, (which do also come in the standard 10 frames hive)
The second type of hive is the wonderful Slovenian AZ hive. This hive was the design of Anton Znidersic who came up with the concept of having a hive and configuration, which enables you to be able to remove individual frames for inspection, as well as collect honey from individual frames. removing the need to lift heavy supers.
A single person avoids the backbreaking work and can manage frames individually as if opening pages in a book and taking them out to read.
Typically most AZ hives are situated in a beehouse, with the hives cupboard like in appearance. Very practical.
Heres one of the videos I filmed that gives you an idea of how it all works and some of the fantastic scenery of Hawaii.
I also filmed a video showing how useful the Apimaye hives are.
Instrumental Insemination.
Alicia is also a trained Queen bee Inseminator. She spends a lot of her time selecting good colonies through rigorous selection criteria. The most important being high mite resistance.
Varroa mites pose the biggest challenges to all Honey bees in Europe and the USA and finding strains that have hygienic behaviour is of the utmost importance. This is where they can detect a foundress reproducing female adult varroa underneath the capping of the brood and butcher the developing larvae, dragging out the infected larvae with the foundress mite and her young, removing it from the colony.
It is so important that we find and breed from these highly desirable hygienic traits. It's not just the mites that suck blood from our bees: The biggest issue is when the mites are feeding transmit Viruses. It's these viruses that cause so much mortality of honey bee populations. There are some 10 different viruses that can cause significant problems to bees, rendering them immobile, wingless or hugely less active and efficient.
Carefully positioning a 4/5 day old queen to receive selective drone semen via the insemination process. This is highly skilled!
They have a lab in Hawaii big Island and in conjunction with Project Apis, The USDA and beekeeper David Thomas of the Hawaiian Island honey company, have made enormous progress producing bees that are 100% resistant to mites.
The insemination process: approximately 10 micro-litres is instrumentally inseminated in to the queen's oviduct. They use SDI (single drone Insemination) or Multi drone insemination (MDI) depending on the selection criteria.
Arista bee Research is going Global!
Alicia will be shortly heading the exciting launch of Arista USA. This is a massive development and will consist of a board of directors that will work with a team of Apiarists, lab technicians and Inseminators that will start new lines in of super hygienic bees in their new base which will be in Texas.
This is just excellent news. I will keep you posted with all developments and how you can support the project even where you are!!
Arista Bee Research needs all support possible, we all need to defeat the mite issue!!
Remember: Anything can be achieved if you want it to happen!
Until the next time, Aloha!!❤️
Alicia Wills is on Email: heartybees@gmail.com
Instagram @heartybees.
