I wanted to write a quick update from my harvest post one week ago today. The following three days after the harvest were the hottest my state has recorded. In fact there was one day where the top 10 hottest places on the planet were all in New South Wales – the state where Katoomba is. The bees were bearding nearly non stop. The other thing that happened after I drained one fifth of the middle frame was…
I work from home on Friday’s. So this Friday I decided after much contemplation, research, panic, and inspection I decided to harvest my first honey from the Flow Hive and my bees. Essentially I am robbing the bees of their food. 🙁 There is a 3 day heat wave here, – getting up into late 30’s near 40. Insanely hot. My first concern is for my bees so I decided to trial a…
Oh my. Finally, almost a year to the day when I first received my nuc and set up my flow hive – I’ve done an inspection and there are frames of capped honey. (pictures below). Luscious white capped cells of honey. For so long I’ve been waiting to do an inspection and find capped honey. I was almost beginning to worry the poor girls where incapable, and worried about what they were going to feed on over…
Just like my beautiful Proust – who reminisced his way through an entire 6 volumes of In Search of lost Time – triggered by a taste from his childhood, I am hoping that the scent of a beehive will in future bring back these memories of my happy beekeeping early days. I only realised I could smell this aroma yesterday after closing up the hive from the inspection – and going back to check on the bees, the most intense gorgeous aroma could…
Today was around 21 degrees celsius and mostly sunny. It has been very hot just after Christmas getting above 30 degrees celsius and then cooler, misty, rainy for a few days. Today was however perfect so I did a follow up inspection to one a couple of weeks ago when I was concerned about the wax moth larvae I found. Thankfully I saw absolutely no evidence of anything this time. The inspection went well. I found the…
Last week I did an inspection. After putting the super on – I wanted to see if everything was ok. I’ve read that it’s not uncommon that a new beekeeper will not get honey in their first season. So patience is essential. Given it was January 2016 (southern hemisphere) when I received my nuc – I’m still not sure if I have done one complete season or just a kind of half season. I’m now into the second…
I had some old cast iron chairs from a New Zealand theatre – that I’ve had for 30 years. I’m guessing they are nearing over 100 years old. I bought them intact – but as i’ve left them outdoors for the past 10 years, they have slowly rotted to the point only the cast iron frames remain. The guilt associated with this rotting corpse of history in our hidden part of the garden was getting too much. So this…
I’ve put the super on today. I’ve waited for this moment for 11 months so am a little excited. putting the super on is nothing more than putting another box on top of the bottom box and took about 30 seconds. It’s great how something so simple can reap much joy! The super is the part with the Flow Hive System which is different than Langstroth hives. It’s the part that has the plastic frame/hive system that ultimately the…
I have finally done my beekeeping course. About 10 months after I first received my nuc, I turned up last weekend to Doug Purdie’s (from The Urban Beehive) course. Joint owners of the business Vicki and Doug keep about 100 hives all over rooftops and urban backyards in Sydney. The course was a one day everything course. First half of the day was theory and the afternoon was practical. I chose this one because I liked his…
Last weekend I did another inspection – #7 since receiving my bees in January this year. The last two I have enticed the entire family into helping so I can concentrate on just the hive. So I have one person with me just on standby, I have one of the kids taking photos, and one taking notes. It was 18 degrees, and the bees were very active. I did it at about 2pm. My bees are so…