Fresh combs:
That looks Yummy yummyā¦
Deliciously capped!!
I am biased- but it is exceptionally delicious honey! Low water content (15.8%) - light colour- and with a citrus tang! The two foundation-less frames were so good- with such fresh wax- I now think perhaps I should have harvested them as comb honey. But I was happy to see that I could spin them out without breaking them. One thing is for certain: the traditional spinning method is a lot more work than flow frames! I took me about 3 hours all up- removing the frames, getting the bees off- uncapping, spinning, replacing the frames in the hive, filtering the honey and decanting from the spinner- then straining the wax cappings and finally cleaning up.
Thought Iād share a few pics I took this morning of the bees gathering from some of the plants currently flowering in our yard. Iām on the south coast of Western Australia and the weather gods have been kind to us for the past week, so plenty of activity still happening.
Absolutely gorgeous. What plants are those? Iāve made one image into my phone wallpaper - cheers
Hi. I think the top one is a Protea, the next is a Pin Cushion Hakea, and Iām not sure about the small pink flower. I think it may be a Geraldton Wax, but I could be wrong.
Tacking on to this post from one year ago thereabout a few days. I added the flow frames, last night. Iāve had a rough late winter and spring. I had something get inside my hive around February 1 of my mentors thinks it was a mouse and somehow ended up killing my Queen. The Queen that they created did not have many drones to mate with due to the season. She was laying sporadically. I found multiple queen cells in the middle of the frames. So I knew they were trying to replace her or at least thinking about it. Still due to the season I decided to remove those. When I finally had a queen I could replace her with, which was only two weeks ago. Going into the hive several days later to see if she was doing okay I could not find her. Going into the hive last night I found yet another queen, could not find the Queen that I had placed in the hive. Overall the hive is doing well with a number of bees and the amount of pollen and brood it was just not a good laying pattern and sporadic and the fact that the bees thought something was wrong with Queen by the number of queen cells they were creating. Looking at my investigation last night, there were no queen cells anywhere and the new queen was laying well. So letās see how this goes.
Iām really glad I had a very very good first year and Iām glad even though itās rough learning what a week hive looks like and the issues around it. Overall, itās all good itās all learning
Hi Marty! Good luck to your bees, let us know how it goes!
Took this pic two days ago - so wonderful to see bees in my garden again
Wow, beautiful pic,s and the flowers! wow, My picture is now on the flow hive site, the one with the artichoke. But this! wow
I Think im gonna emigrate just for the climate haha
Deryck, what is the Lepidoptera called?
Tiger swallowtail i think. Very abundant over here. Beautiful
WOW!! I am seeing stored Honey already in the flow frames I bet they just needed the space to move some honey around
A bee on the clover cover crop they planted at one of the farms I keep a few hives
Hereās a look at the whole plot of clover
Wow, what a beeās dream that clover patch is!
Iāve never seen clover like thatā¦certainly canāt recall seeing it in Tasmania. Amazing. Our clover here is generally a creamy little flower low to the ground.
We have the little cream colored kind here too, common in most every plot of grass. The red one isnāt seen like that but is used by farmers & gardeners as a cover crop - itās called crimson clover.