Don Keith, member of The Royal Society of Queensland and former President of Queensland Beekeepers Association, reports that until the pioneering research of Graham Kleinschmidt in the 1980s, most apiary practice was based on anecdotal narratives passed on between bee-keepers – not necessarily inaccurate, but limited. Graham Kleinschmidt, based at Gatton Agricultural College, conducted scientific research that significantly improved the skills of apiarists and so improved productivity.
His research reports were compiled into a folder dated May 1986. It is reproduced here in three files:
Introduction to page 4.4.2 (58.1 MB)
Pages 4.4.3 to 5.1.6 (31.9 MB)
Page 5.1.7 to the end, including the Charles Roff Memorial Lecture of 1989 delivered by Graham Kleinschmidt, a former colleague. (11.6 MB).
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION
2. POPULATION MANAGEMENT
2.1 Colony management for maximum populations
2.2 Feeding and populations
2.3 Summary of management for the 1980s
2.4 Building large hive populations
3. NUTRITION
3.1 The.influence of crude protein levels on colony production
3.2 The effect of dietary protein on colony performance
3.3 Colony management for low quality pollens
3.4 Advantages and disadvantages of supplementary feeding
3.5 Nutrition for long life bees
4. POLLEN
4.1 The value of plant pollens in honey bee nutrition
4.2 Pollen sources and pollen collection by bees foraging in agricultural areas
4.3 Pollen sources and pollen collection by bees foraging in coastal wallum areas
4.4 Pollen sources and pollen collection by bees foraging on the Darling Downs
4.5 Pollen sources and pollen collection by bees foraging in the coastal ranges
5. QUEEN BEES
5.1 Queen rearing
51 Breeding systems for stock improvement
5.3 Evaluation of honey bee stock
6. DISEASE
6.1 Influence of management on the effects of Nosema disease
6..2 Incidence of Nosema disease
7. HIVE EQUIPMENT
7.1 The influence of hive design on colony production and microclimate
7.2 The influence of hive design on honey production and colony management
8. HONEY PROCESSING AND STORAGE
8.1 Temperature darkening of honey
8.2 Honey creaming machine
9. POLLINATION
9.1 The role of insects in crop production
9.2 Insect pollinators
9.3 Colony food requirements
9.4 Honey bee food selection
9.5 Development of a management system for pollination of field crops
9.6 Insect pollination requirements of hybrid sunflowers
9.7 Encouraging bees to sunflowers
9,8 Relationship between yield/head, yield/hectare and bees
9.9 Pollination requirement of a range of sunflower cultivars
10. PESTICIDES
10.1 Toxicity of insecticides to honey bees in major entomophilous crops in Australia
10.2 Long term effects of systemic pesticides on honey bees.
Charles Roff Lecture.
Don Keith’s writings on bee-keeping
Don Keith has written two insightful papers published in the Proceedings of The Royal Society of Queensland:
The decline of melliferous native flora for European Honey Bees in Queensland: Some reflections, Volume 122.
Native forest changes affecting apiculture and crop production, published in Volume 127, A Rangelands Dialogue.