I know an 81 years young gentleman who has been keeping bees for many years and he has about 60 hives - he is wanting to downsize and sell some of his bees. Prior to 24th September last, I was going to buy a hive from him that consisted of 10 full frames with bees for $250. but my son caught a swarm for me so I didn’t need to buy them.
His name is Rod Connally, ph. 02 49 828319 and his address is 7 Brocklesbury Road Medowie, which is in the Port Stephens area 50k’s north of Newcastle.
If you are looking to get some bees I’m sure he will be able to help you.
I can’t stress enough to anyone considering purchasing bees this way (ie. from an existing established hive) that you thoroughly check the hive for disease including testing for AFB with a test kit and also inspecting for signs of SHB, wax moth and chalk brood.
If you aren’t confident in identifying disease in a hive, take someone along who is.
Thank you RBK, I’m a newbie and learning as I go – I am unaware that there could be potential problems in buying this way and apologise to all who may have considered what I wrote. I hope any and all will take note of the warning.
A friend and I went to visit Ron yesterday and yes, he does have lots of hives. Don’t think that he is wanting to downsize though as he expressed interest in keeping his boxes and lids. We took our own up so that was our intention anyway, let him keep his. Got the bees much cheaper for this reason.
On inspection of the first 6 hives, no sign/evidence of queen presence, was getting frustrated. Hives 7 to 10 did have queen presence and not a single SHB. No evidence of AFB or other diseases either so we were very happy with getting a 10 and 8 frame nuc each. After the looong wait, we are now beekeepers.
I can recommend Ron’s bees from Medowie, I believe that the trip was most worthwhile. His bees were quite docile, Ron does not even suit up.
He has ready now a 4 frame nuc with a sighted queen plenty of brood and honey and no SHB etc. We did not purchase this one only for the fact that we went for the 8 frame hive, just to get a head start. Don’t think that a desperado will be disappointed with the quality.
You did what I was originally going to do until my son caught a swarm for me and that was a month ago and they have gone from foundationless frames without any comb at all to every frame with comb drawn on them. Of course the frames aren’t fully drawn but the frame in the middle is roughly 2/3 full and the rest varying down in size to palm size on the outside two frames. I have an 8 frame Flow hive with only one brood box at present and I plan to expand that to two when the first box gets to 80% full.
We must have got them at the right time because I can’t believe how quickly the bees have drawn comb and I’m very excited seeing they are my first bees. I have been feeding my bees with sugar syrup, which I believe helps the production of comb in the early stages as it’s obvious the primary job for the workers is to have plenty of comb for the queen to lay brood.
If you decide to feed with sugar syrup you should see the same results.
I found that the bees were building comb off the inside walls on both sides and filling with syrup and pollen but I was scaping it off with the hive tool because I didn’t want it to impinge on the comb in the frames – I don’t know if I’m right in doing that, perhaps someone can tell me.
Do you have a Flow hive and good luck with your bees?
I too am a upstart, been a beehive keeper for far too long b4 finally get my bees on the weekend.
My frames from Medowie and already way past the 80% mark so this coming weekend, I may add another brood box to each hive. Getting these frames from Medowie has given me a good head start in to the season.
I have built myself a horizontal hive with 7 x Flow frames, also got a cedar Flow hive and a Pine Flow hive, so with a total of 19 flow frames, should get plenty of honey.
Thanks Dawn_SD
I’m glad I was doing the right thing and that you kindly responded to my query - I read a lot of your responses to others and I hope you will never tire of doing it. Without people like you the rest of us would struggle with mistake after mistake and sometimes never really understanding the problem.
Again Dawn, thank you.
John.
No plans available, it’s a one off. If you go to the Top Bar Hive flow forum, you will get a lot more info. I basically copied mine off Youtube, Joe Frank from USA and made some modifications.
Semaphore from South Oz (who is on the Flow Forum) has some wizz bang design to go off, his is more upmarket.
Yep, have seen Joe Franks, I am collating designs from various sources, his name comes up fairly often! Definitely prefer his cover board system to other designs with panels / single piece covers I have seen.
Yeah, and Joe has now mentioned that his horizontal is working out better than he expected. Contact Semaphore for more info on his setup - he does not take any shortcuts.
