(1886– ).

Welfare worker.

A new biography of Begg, Jean appears in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography on this site.

Born in Dunedin on 7 October 1886, Jean Begg was educated at Otago University, Dunedin Training College, and the New York School of Social Work. With a wide experience of welfare work for women, she has devoted herself particularly to the YWCA, being General Secretary in Auckland, 1926–31, National General Secretary of the organisation in India, Burma, and Ceylon, and then Head Warden of Helen Graham House, YWCA, London, 1949–51. She was director of YWCA services in the Middle East and Orient, 1940–48, and of later years has been an active organiser of CORSO. She received M.B.E., 1942; O.B.E., 1944; and C.B.E., 1947.

Beetles (order Coleoptera) are represented in New Zealand by about 4,400 known species, about a quarter the number known in Australia. The order comprises 74 families, 55 of which are represented in New Zealand.

Beetles are ubiquitous. They occur in water, soil, forest litter, timber, flowers, fruit, strored foods, skins and furs, clothing and cloths, in decaying animal and vegetable materials, and on animals. In gerneral, the order is recognisable by the presence of hard wing-cases but in some abortive groups these cases are greatly reduced or absent. All beetles go through the usual four stages (egg, larva, pupa, and adult) of the typical insect transformation or metamorphosis. Among beetles are some of man's most serious pest. In New Zealand the common grass grub (Costelytra zealandica) is a good example of an endemic insect which has become a meanace to pasture production. This insect belongs to the family Scarabaeidae, a group which contains pest representatives in all larger land masses of the world. These beetles have larvae which feed voraciously on plant roots (some also feed above ground at night), as well as adults which often defoliate trees and other vegetation. Many serious beetle pests are wood borers of several groups (weevils, longhorn borers of several groups, etc.); others are serious pests as seed feeders (grain beetles, etc.). Not all beetles are harmful and some may be used to great advantage. “Ladybird” beetles (Coccinellidae) are mostly beneficial as predators of scale insects, aphids, and mealybugs. Many “ground beetles” (Carabidae) are beneficial as predators on other insects, while some beetles are useful as controlling agents on weeds.

Among the more conspicuous New Zealand beetles are the “Huhu” (Prionoplus reticularis), a large dead-wood borer of the family Cerambycidae, the black sand-scarab (Pericoptus truncatus) which spends its larval life under drift wood just above high-tide level on sandy beaches, the grass grub beetle, and the manuka beetle (Pyronota festiva). a bright green scarabaeid species sometimes present in countless numbers on manuka during early to mid-summer. This last species is much favoured as food by trout.

by Bruce Boucher Given, M.SC., Entomology Division, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Nelson.

Among the pasture crops of New Zealand are red clover and lucerne which are self-sterile because their flower structure requires certain types of insects to pollinate them. Although honey bees had been introduced in 1839, red clover did not set seed. But in 1885 and 1905 the bumble bee was introduced and proved so successful a pollinator that soon there was seed for export. Today there are four species in the South Island but little is known of their habits and ecology.

Bees belong to the order Hymenoptera, superfamily Apoidea. In this superfamily are 10 families, though only three are represented in New Zealand as native insects. Our total indigenous bee fauna consists of 19 species as compared with 925 in Australia. Probably the most interesting aspect of New Zealand bees is the lack of social species, our only representatives being the introduced honey and bumble bees. All our native species are solitary burrowers, of small size and lacking in conspicuous colour pattern. One group (Hylaeidae) is without pollen-collecting hairs, the others being equipped to transport relatively large pollen masses.

Native bees may frequently be seen during the summer months, feeding and gathering pollen at flowers, particularly on manuka (Leptospermum scoparium). Their burrows are common in dry areas, particularly where bare areas of sandy or friable soils are available for nesting purposes. The larvae are rather smooth, creamy-white, legless grubs with very small mouthparts and no eyes. These remain in the burrows where they are fed by the adult bees.

A slender wasp, sometimes seen with bees, is a parasite which attacks the larvae.

by Bruce Boucher Given, M.SC., Entomology Division, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, Nelson.

Under the Apiaries Act of 1927 all apiaries must be registered with the Horticulture Division, Department of Agriculture. All bees must be kept in hives with removable frames and beekeepers must permit their hives to be inspected by Government officers who keep a close watch for disease. The importation of bees is controlled by legislation to stop diseases being brought in. So far New Zealand has been kept free from Acarine disease, one of the worst and most destructive. American brood disease (Bacillus larvae) is a constant threat, but the rigorous system of inspection of hives by Government officers has kept this at a very low level. Diseased hives are destroyed.

The Government has recognised, by its substantial aid, the industry's great value in providing both a popular food and an invaluable pollinating service for agriculture. Apiaries are constantly inspected by officers of the Department of Agriculture; and the Department has for many years provided research services at the Wallaceville Animal Research Station. The soundness of the industry is due not only to this Government help but also to the ready cooperation of beekeepers through the National Beekeepers Association of New Zealand to keep the industry as efficient as possible, and to the continual effort to keep legislation up to date to cope with new problems.

White clover is the most important source of nectar in New Zealand. It is also one of the most widespread and valuable pasture plants. Honey from this nectar is white, mild flavoured, and very popular. Important native trees which supply nectar are manuka, the southern and northern ratas, the pohutukawa, and the rewarewa or native honeysuckle. Some introduced weeds (dandelion, Scotch thistle, pennyroyal, and blackberry) are also sources of nectar.

The main value to New Zealand of the beekeeping industry is not in the honey produced, but in the pollination of many types of the pasture plants essential for stock feed. For example, seeding of white clover, the country's most important pasture plant, depends almost entirely on honey bees, as do brassicas, fruit trees, and many other crops. Because of this essential service there is statutory control over the spraying of crops in bloom with chemicals harmful to bees. Many of these chemicals once caused heavy losses of bees. The Department of Agriculture tests many agricultural chemicals to find those which will control pests and diseases without harming bees. New Zealand has two varieties of indigenous bee, but as both are useless as honey bees the first settlers did not have honey available as food. In March 1839 the first hive bees (Apis mellifica) were landed from England at Hokianga, followed by later introductions in 1840 and 1842. Further introductions from Australia and America, and the increases resulting from natural swarming, soon produced a large and widespread bee population.

The first methods of producing honey for home use were primitive and wasteful, so that semi-commercial production did not begin until the Langstroth hive was introduced in 1878. Much later, motorised transport made the establishment of out–apiaries economic. These improvements led to the establishment of a progressive, full–time, commercial beekeeping industry.

There are many strains of honey bees, all of the species Apis mellifica. Experiments, have shown that the bees best suited to New Zealand are pure strains of Italian bees, which are good workers and do not swarm excessively. The popularity of these strains has encouraged careful breeding to produce improved strains, and queen breeders can now provide adequate stocks. Black or German strains are still common in New Zealand and there are hybrids produced by crosses between the two. Modern honey houses are equipped with electrically driven machinery for extracting, processing, and packing honey. The standard 10–frame Langstroth hive is used almost exclusively.

Honey for the local market is sold by the beekeepers themselves, but all export honey is distributed by the New Zealand Honey Marketing Authority. In 1964 there were 1,827,012 lb of honey exported, at a value of £125,966.

Honey is a popular food in New Zealand. Each person eats, on the average, nearly 5 lb a year. The annual average production is about 6,000 tons. Most of this is eaten locally, but about a sixth is exported. The thriving local and export trades have grown and been maintained with the help of a modern industrial organisation and of regulations governing disease control and the grading of honey to strict standards. Beeswax is also a valuable product. 210,315 lb was produced in the year ended 31 May 1964.

Registrations under the Apiaries Act show that at May 1963 there were 4,701 beekeepers with a total of 13,071 apiaries and 183,875 established hives. Many beekeepers owned fewer than 30 hives but about 250 were full-time commercial beekeepers having an average of 350 hives. Fifty-eight per cent of the hives and 57 per cent of the apiaries were in the North Island. The establishment cost of the industry is estimated at about £1,250,000.

Beef is the meat from bovines; veal is the meat from bovines younger than 12 months. Beef and veal can therefore be derived from dairy as well as beef cattle. Indeed, most of the veal output comes from the million or more bobby calves slaughtered annually as unwanted stock from the dairy industry. Bobby calves are defined by regulations as being all calves that have a liveweight of less than 100 lb. They are killed when a few days old and yield carcasses of 30–35 lb. These calves are predominantly Jersey, although Friesian, Ayrshire, Milking Shorthorn, and crossbred calves contribute a sizable proportion of the annual kill. Cows and bulls of dairy breeding are also slaughtered in appreciable numbers and their carcasses are usually boned out and the flesh is cartoned, frozen, and exported for use in the manufacturing meat trade.

The carcasses of beef-bred animals are of higher quality than those of dairy cattle, and the meat is very suitable for roasting, grilling (broiling), stewing, and boiling in the case of corned beef.

Of the total production of beef in the 1959–60 season, 46 per cent was consumed locally and the remainder was exported to 27 countries, with the United Kingdom taking 20 per cent and the United States of America 57 per cent of the total exportable surplus of 99,634 tons, comprising 31,384 tons of quarter beef and veal and 68,250 tons of boneless beef and veal.

Most of the beef consumed in New Zealand is fresh killed, while all beef exported is either frozen or chilled or is canned. Markets of any consequence for beef are all in the Northern Hemisphere; consequently, the voyage is long and some deterioration of the product may occur.

Beef may be frozen and exported in quarters wrapped in stockinette and hessian. Frozen beef is carried at a temperature of 12° to 14°F, and is thawed on arrival at its ultimate destination. Thawing may cause a delay of several days before the meat can be cut and sold to customers. During thawing, weight is lost through “drip”, a phenomenon which is being studied scientifically because of its importance in the meat industry.

Chilled beef is quartered and wrapped in sterile materials for export. It is carried in specially constructed lockers on the ship at a temperature of 29° to 30°F, in an atmosphere containing 10 per cent of added carbon dioxide to reduce the amount of spoilage to the product resulting from bacteria and fungi. Chilled beef must be consumed within 40 to 50 days of slaughter if it is to be wholesome and fresh and bright in appearance. Chilled beef is preferred to frozen because it can be cut and sold immediately at the point of retail, and the amount of drip it loses is negligible. The cost of shipping beef in the chilled state is high and consequently only best quality beef–particularly hindquarters–can bear this cost and return a profit to the exporter. The majority of forequarters, because of their lower value, are exported in the frozen state.

Lower quality carcasses are boned out and the flesh is placed in a plastic liner inside a cardboard carton and then frozen for export. Boneless beef must have low amounts of fat (not more than 15 per cent “visual” fat) to comply with the specifications laid down by the North American manufacturing meat industry. The flesh of bobby calves is treated similarly to that of boneless beef. Beef which is canned is usually from low-quality carcasses or cheap cuts.

Selected cuts of top–quality beef, rather than full quarters, are being exported in increasing volume. The cuts are wrapped in plastic and frozen in cartons. The marketing of beef in the form of cuts has decided advantages, since the precise requirements of a market can be met and there is a substantial reduction in shipping space in comparison with the carriage of quarter beef. Future developments may involve the air freighting of best cuts of beef to the valuable North American market.

by Percival George Stevens, DIP.AGR., formerly Senior Lecturer in Animal Science, Lincoln Agricultural College and Robert Aitken Barton, DIP.AGR.M.A.C., M.INST.M., Senior Lecturer in Sheep Husbandry, Massey University of Manawatu.

Quality Beef Production, Barton, R. A. (1959); Grasslands of New Zealand, Levy, E. B. (1951); Beef Cattle Production, MacDonald, M. A. (1958)

The large beef-breeding herds are run under extensive conditions of farming such as the hill country of the North Island and the back country of the South Island. Many smaller breeding herds are kept on intensively managed farms, although these usually undertake cattle fattening as they can more easily provide better nutritional conditions than those often obtaining on the stations and runs. Hence there is a stratification in space and time; cattle are born on the hills and those not required for breeding are moved to farms on the lowlands at weaning time or at one, two, three, or more years of age, depending on policy and circumstances. Breeding cows, culled for age, may also spend a period on the flats raising calves before being slaughtered at eight years or older; in some cases they may be retained for calf raising till the age of 17 or so, but generally their peak of fertility and milk production is passed by about eight years of age.

In practice, beef heifers are mated when about 26 months of age, but if well grown they can be mated as yearlings without pregnancy and lactation adversely affecting their subsequent growth and development, provided they are fed adequately until they reach maturity at about four years of age. Some poorly grown heifers may not be mated until they are three years of age, but this will obviously reduce their lifetime performance.

Puberty is attained by well-grown heifers at the age of eight to 10 months. The normal interval between oestrus (that is, heat periods when the female will accept the services of a bull) is 20 days, and these cycles continue throughout the year or until pregnancy intervenes. Ovulation occurs 14 or more hours after oestrus has terminated, and the duration of pregnancy is approximately 282 days. Oestrous cycles may not resume until 60 or more days have elapsed since parturition. Cows can therefore be mated to calve at yearly intervals, and this is the aim of efficient management of a breeding herd.

Few if any herds achieve a 100 per cent calf-crop; that is, 100 calves born and earmarked from 100 cows mated. The calf-crop percentage for the national herd is not known but a figure of 75 is probably close to the actual percentage. Permanent infertility of cows is uncommon. Increasing numbers of cattlemen are having their breeding cows pregnancy tested in the autumn, and those not in calf are removed from the herd. This practice should lead to increased calving percentages in subsequent years as those females with poor fertility are culled.

The birth of twin beef calves is rare with an incidence of less than 0.5 per cent of all births. When the twin pair is male and female, 90 per cent of the heifers will be sterile and show male features. This is the “freemartin” condition caused by the hormones of the bull calf dominating those of the heifer calf when they were developing together in the uterus of their dam. This phenomenon is of significance only in the case of cattle twins.

Of all twins born, 60 to 8.5 per cent of them in cattle are likely to be identical; that is, they developed from a single fertilised egg, but in early embryonic life the egg divided and two separate but genetically identical calves developed. All other twins have developed from two fertilised eggs; these are referred to as fraternal twins.

Calves are weaned in the late autumn when they are six to eight months old and the cows, if fed adequately, then regain the weight lost during lactation. They should not, however, become fat as this may cause difficulties during parturition. Calves can safely be weaned at four months and, provided they then receive good feed, they develop as well as those weaned at the customary age.

A beef cow nursing its calf produces about 1,500 lb of milk or 46 lb of butterfat during a lactation of eight to nine months. The level of milk production differs among cows, but 1,000 lb of milk above or below the average of 1,500 lb would encompass most of the variation.

A calf's daily milk consumption may amount to 10 to 15 per cent of its body weight, and it will grow at a rate of 1.0 to 2.0 lb per day and attain a weaning weight of up to about 450 lb at eight months. The birth weight of a calf is about 65 lb, with bull calves weighing up to 10 lb heavier than heifer calves. The age of the dam affects the birth weight of its calf, so that heifers have lighter calves than mature cows. Aberdeen Angus cows give birth to calves which are lighter than those of Hereford or Shorthorn cows.

Yearling bulls can be mated to a small number of cows but the usual practice is to use a bull first when it is two years old. At that age he can be depastured with 30 to 35 cows for a mating season lasting three months. The vigour and fertility of a beef bull remains unimpaired until the age of six or seven when its activity tends to decline owing to increased body weight and stiffness in its movements.

Calves are earmarked when they are several weeks old with the registered mark of the property, and bull calves will be castrated at this time. Calves may be hide branded at any age, using either a hot iron or a chemical. The earmark and the hide brand provide evidence of ownership of the stock.

Weaned calves are carried on the best available pasture or on crop during their first winter. Hay or grass silage may also be fed to them during winter and early spring.

Internal parasites, when present in significant numbers, can be controlled by drenching, and body lice which often become numerous in the winter months and adversely affect the well-being of cattle, can be eliminated by spraying with an appropriate chemical at correctly spaced intervals.

The disease incidence in beef-cattle herds is usually very low in New Zealand due, no doubt, to their management on the free-range principle. The so-called metabolic diseases–bloat, grass staggers, and milk fever–take their toll and are difficult to control under the conditions prevailing on many farms. Soil deficiencies of copper, cobalt, selenium, or iodine do cause wastage of cattle in areas where one or other deficiency occurs, but control procedures are well known and readily applied by most stockmen. Diseases like tuberculosis and blackleg (a lethal anaerobic infection controllable by vaccination) are fortunately rare among beef cattle. Probably the most common diseases are lumpy jaw, caused by a fungal infection of the jaw, and wooden tongue, resulting from a bacterial infection of the tongue. Both these conditions are amenable to early treatment. The three main diseases of reproduction in cows–contagious abortion (Brucella abortus), trichomoniasis, and vibrionic abortion–can have serious effects on calving percentages and accordingly they ought to be controlled through calf–hood vaccination of heifers against contagious abortion and by strict adherence to approved breeding procedures in the case of the other two diseases.

Steers comprise the majority of cattle fattened for slaughter. They are slaughtered when about two and a half years old after having been fattened for six months or thereabouts on lowland pastures. The trend is toward slaughtering at a younger age (18 to 20 months) to obtain a lighter carcass with less wasteful fat and more tender meat. To supply this requirement, steers are brought on to fattening pastures at weaning and they may also receive a ration of hay and silage. Alternatively, they may be fed on a crop such as chou moellier and swede turnips for part of the winter. The policy at any event is to feed them well during the winter and early spring and then finish them on pasture by the late summer or autumn.

Aged bullocks are disappearing from the market as their carcasses are too heavy and fatty, and their meat is too tough to satisfy the demands of the modern consumer.

Some heifers are fattened for slaughter and are bought for the local market. They carry more fat than steers of a comparable age and weight and this makes them unpopular in the meat trade. Cows culled for age, reproductive failure, or other reasons may also be fattened, but generally they are slaughtered in an unfinished or store condition, their carcasses are boned out and the product exported and used for manufacturing meat purposes–for example, sausage–like foods and hamburger. When bulls have outlived their usefulness they, too, are slaughtered, and the boneless meat is ideal for the manufacturing trade because of its strong flavour, low fat content, and its considerable water-holding capacity.