Beekeeping-Discussion, pics, tips and tricks.

[Danwood]

There's growing interest in the role bees play in our lives, and rightly so.

Not just from the perspective of the honey they can provide us with, but also their importance in ensuring crop success, from backyard vege patches up to commercial operations.

So, this is the thread for all things bees and beekeeping. Information solely on buying honey can be found here http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/88467-pimp-your-honey/ and here http://aussiehomebrewer.com/topic/86678-bulk-honey-buy-eoi-east-melbourne/

Whether you work with the common European or Western Honey bee, or encourage the many native bees into your garden, post up your pics, questions and advice so we can all learn and benefit from their increased presence in our gardens.

Personally, I don't have hives of my own yet, but have been doing some work for my FILs commercial pollination and honey production business.

Firstly, it was working on the coordination of ~100,000 hives required for the Almond pollination contracts for Olam, Select Harvest and Macquarie in the Robinvale area. This was a very busy 4 week period, with Apiarists trucking in up to 6000 hives from all over Aus.

Then, more recently, the splitting and re-queening of ~1000 of his own hives. Afterwards, the weaker single box hives went to Canola sites to build up. The stronger hives went to Orange grove sites and had supers (another, shallower box) placed on top. These would then be removed when full of honey and replaced with an empty for the process to be repeated.

I now have a much greater understanding and respect for the work that goes into the production of honey and the general work that goes into the maintaining of healthy colonies.
10-20 stings and average 12-14hrs work per day ensures this understanding, believe me !

So, show us your hives (no, not that angry-looking rash in your intimate area, thankyou !)


Hives being split. 2-3 frames of brood extracted from a strong hive and moved to a hive with empty frames, which the bees colonise when the brood hatches.


A strong hive, already with a good crop of honey.


Weaker hives at a Canola site. These were queenless at this stage. A day later we introduced an un-hatched queen cell to each of these.

Lastly, some action shots






Cheers, Dan

 

[TimT]

We don't have anywhere near that amount! We have two hives - not harvesting honey from our established one anytime soon because they've had a very slow few months, after being set back with wasps, damp, and chalkbrood over the last few months. We've nadired another box onto the base of them to keep growing over the remainder of spring and summer.

Then there's the swarm we've rehomed - they originally swarmed in Ashburton, we collected them and they're now established in our backyard. They're small in numbers but bringing in pollen so are obviously breeding. The second generation will hopefully come out soon and they'll start to prosper - maybe we can get a few frames of honey from them in late summer or autumn.

We've got another two boxes at a friends land near Seymour, and on my mother-in-law's balcony - hoping a swarm will find them!

And lastly but not leastly the Baron/my wife/partner in crime helped with a swarm that recently established themselves in a friend's upturned recycling bin in Coburg. So. An exciting time of year!

 

[Danwood]

Sounds good, Tim. I'm on the look out for a swarm in nature reserves around here, but no luck yet.

As you say, it's a busy time of year, and bees often out-grow their surroundings and swarm off, looking for a different site.

You say you've added a box to your struggling hives. I'm not sure how big they are, but make sure they need the space right now. Otherwise they might be struggling to heat a home that may be bigger than they need. A common cause of chalkbrood is cold.
Apologies if you already know all this, which you probably do, you seem experienced. You likely meant you added the extra box very recently, since the temps have risen.

Yes, it's been a bad winter for Victorian bees. Very cold and lots of Nosema/Dysentry about.

The bees that came in for the almond job from Queensland compared to Victorian hives had fared much, much better over winter. The QLD hives were largely 10 frame doubles and most had ~15 solid frames of bees in them. Monsters.

 

[TimT]

Yeah we gave them another box on Friday for the warm months.

 

[Mr. No-Tip]

Awesome thread.

I am a flow hive latecomer...I say that with trepidation after some of the opinions I've seen, but I take issue with some of the old school beekepers who assume that it's going to introduce bad practice and disease. Personally I am doing a course right now ahead of getting a swarm maybe late this season or holding till next year. In any case, taking the whole thing fairly seriously. I find the disdain a bit like BIAB or Braumeister opinions back in the day, hehe.

The commercial almond stuff is really interesting. Such an insane amount of bees. What do you think about the vegan campaign 'almonds are not vegan'? http://almondsarenotvegan.com/
I am not a vegan or an advocate at all, but like to hear more about these things. I can't find a reference now, but I've heard it suggested that hives used in the Cali harvest are not well looked after and have a high failure rate. Seeing the almond harvest here, would you give any creedence to those claims?

 

[TimT]

Probably by that definition no vegan food is vegan, since the growing of vegetables will inevitably attract predators of some sort and inevitably they are going to have to be killed.

I don't know how relevant the link is in the Australian context - they're referring to the Californian almond harvest.

 

[Camo6]

Really want to sneak a hive in the backyard when I get a bit more time so:

Suuuuuuuuubscribed!

 

[Danwood]

I'm not sure about all that vegan stuff, but I can comment on the Californian thing.

Their almond farms are all in the same valley over there and are owned by lots of different companies. And the scale of it is massive !

The US is the world leaders in production and they need huge numbers of bees to ensure a good crop set. The price per hive for the pollination is markedly higher than here too.
Currently it's around $80ish per hive here for Almonds, depending on the company/farm you've been allocated to, also the quality of the hives supplied. In the US it's around double that.
Because of this high price, some apiarists over there artificially feed their hives for the whole year leading up to the Almond harvest, finding it more cost efficient only moving the hives once a year as opposed to normal practices where you chase flowering crops, with lots of moves per year.
I'm not exactly sure but I wouldn't be surprised if this wasn't similar to battery farming chickens. There must be something wrong in order for them to get a serious disease named after them...American Foul Brood...one of the worst ones out there.
This is information my BIL told me after after their trip over to California visiting the growers and apiarists for a conference.

 

[Drunk Az]

I don't currently keep bees but am planning to in the next year or two when I have to time to devote to it, so am slowly researching beekeeping. Thought these videos may be interesting

https://apicultureanonymous.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/honey-bees-documentaries-watch/

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

My parents where bee keepers when I was younger....used to travel Sth NSW even to Vic chasing stands of flowering trees

Spent many a weekend making frames and setting in the honey come bases

used to spend a whole weekend just extracting honey the old fashioned way, capping frames, extracting, filtering.....hot work

Amazing the different flavours and colours from different trees.

Clover and Patersons Curse was very light, almost water like, but some of the Ironbarks where very dark and intense

Australia produces the best honey in the world, mainly due to our relatively clean environment

Hard work but the rewards where worth it

Flow hive is a game changer and full marks to the guys who invented it

 

[Danwood]

ABC- 8pm tonight (in 17mins), Australian Story on the invention of the 'Flow Hive'.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Found the thread. Anyone done anything about starting a hive, I realise Tim has and I will either get some bees or get an apiarist to do all the graft for me, what sort of position does the hive have to be in, sunny, shade, partial shade?

 

[manticle]

There is a guy down dingley way - Russian guy who's name escapes me but he is a good source of info, queens etc.
Have sent a text to my dad to find out. His one hive is under a tree but not sure if that's to do with shade. They do need a water source nearby.

Hoping to get a hive going here if I can extend the lease.

Let you know when I hear back from my dad.

 

[TimT]

Morning sun, shade in the afternoon. Especially in Australia where the summer sun is the worst.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Then I have an ideal spot for the hive anything special about the hive size wise, I reckon I can make a centrifuge to extract the honey, going to have to swat up on this now.

 

[manticle]

This guy: http://www.hamptonhives.com.au/buy.html

Not sure about the dingley connection - I had a work colleague who used to look after a couple of hives in parkdale and he told me Dingley. That was a while ago.

 

[TimT]

There are various types of hive, bog standard - the bee boxes you see everywhere one on top of another - are usually Langstroeth hives. Then there are the Kenyans - kind of a long box on stilts that tapers from the broad top down to a narrow bottom, so the frames in it are shaped like a triangle (just google Kenyan hive).

Then there are endless debates about which box size is 'ideal' for bees vs which box size is good for beekeepers.... kinda like the beekeeping equivalent of the rehydrate or not debate here....

 

[wide eyed and legless]

Was looking at a supplier in Parkdale, found plans for a hive, any reason for the bright colours? And if I buy a Queen do I get the swarm with her?

 

[TimT]

Was looking at a supplier in Parkdale, found plans for a hive, any reason for the bright colours?

Nope not as far as I know.

And if I buy a Queen do I get the swarm with her?

Queens are typically bought as replacements for established hives. At any rate you'll need to buy the whole hive - Queen, workers, nurse bees, drones, the lot. Or find a swarm (you'll be waiting until next spring for that).

 

[Grainer]

I have 2 hives in cheltenham on my riof and recently started bee keeping.. my mate is an aparist.. best time to start out a hive is in spring.. he also has contacts for swarms in spring as well.. he could have got 5 last year.. if you are close im happy to give you a few tips.. medium boxes are better cause of the heavy lifting involved... . Full depth can get up to 35kg. And that starts to hurt..