The light honey is probably from early summer and the darker stuff more recent - red flowering gum and marri.
Hi All,
Looking for a plant ID if possible, the Marriās are still going in my next of the woods but starting to wain, I have this tree bursting into flower over the last week. It was freebie giveaway from large hardware store on Arbor day some years back. It is completely covered with bees and has a distinct hum going on.
Eucalyptus leucoxylon
Much nectar, not so good for pollen?
Came across that tree, but it is not WAn, so must be planted.
Probably a good follow up, but canāt beat the Marri, right?
Cheers busso shame its not a local. (Enjoy your holiday)
Looks like itās all necter to me, no pollen spotten on the foragers that I can see.
I googled it and one of its uses is for honey production
Having just started a new nuc about a month ago. My question for those in the Perth hills is should I put my flow box on given the brood box is looking full and healthy or should I leave until after winter.
Hiya Cavalli, this year up here in the hills has been slow so I wouldnāt expect to get a harvest out of the FF now. What you could which I have done is to add the super on, provided you have a full box of bees, and see if the bees can start filling the gaps in the frames to save them some work next season.
I will be removing my Flow supers for winter.
Thanks, That was my thinking I certainly wasnāt expecting a harvest just wasnāt sure if any benefit would come with putting the super on before winter, maybe extra food storage for them to if needed
Iām not sure the flow is quite over here just yet, although the Marri is coming to an end Iām seeing a lot of other Aussie natives budding up. Most of the trees have already flowered in spring yet it looks like they are about to have a second wind! Iām sure there will be plenty of pollen however nectar wise, which is needed for wax production, Iām not so sure.
Hi skeggley
Was reading about your comment about the packaging, in another thread.
Just wanted to let you know that Iāve getting my plastic & glass jars from Cospak in Welshpool. Quite reasonably priced if buying in bulk
Cheers
Just jars has a huge selection of jars. Ordered a selection to see how they look with honey in. Could be
www.justjars.com.au
?
Thanks guys! The thing about plastic packaging is that when you are selling pure unfiltered unprocessed honey selling in plastic can put some hippies off. I know Flow frames are plastic and all but⦠Iāll look into it for personal storage as we have used up all our empty bought honey pots which are all plastic.
For a premium price I think glass must be used and with small amounts premium price is desirable.
@Webclan, the glass jars are cool but are still over $1 each for the smaller sizes which still adds to the selling price. One of the cheaper though, thanks.
Back on the Perth region topic, the Marri flow is slowly winding down. itās lasted a while though! Iāve noticed the paperbark flowering as mentioned earlier and many of the gum trees are budding up nicely so itās possible another harvest could be on the cards even though the weather has begun to cool. The bees are still out in force between the showers and Iām seeing a few cells receiving honey again already.
I still think another warm spell will happen here before winter and the trees arenāt dropping leaves yet soā¦
How is it very one going down in the flatlands?
These Ball Mason jars go like hot cakes. Sometimes I think people buy the honey for the jars.
They look great and shiny and are reusable. Sure worth a dollar. I sell 12oz quilted jars for $12. With honey.
Correction: these are 8oz.
My bees in Esperance bringing in red pollen from red leucoxylons but their colour can vary from red thro to yellowish white.
Surprisingly, the paper bark gumsā flowering has dwindled. Bottlebrush opposite my house is flowering again, so that is good. Lavender is coming around in a few buds
I also saw some bees on my curry leaf tree flowers. Strangely, I saw a dead bee on the flowers and my initial thought was āAre they poisonous to the bees??ā On deeper examination, I found a white crab spider hidden among the flowers and it was preying on my girls!! Phew!! That was a relief
Can anyone explain what an āidealā super is please. Just reading some posts from Canberra/Tassie referring to removing the flow super over winter and replacing with an ideal super.
@demak it is a size of super (depth varies).
https://www.qualitybeekeepingsupplies.com.au/index.php/faqs/26-sizes-of-supers
The internal length of the Langstroth hive is 18 1/4 inches (463.6 mm), and internal width of 14 1/4 inches (362.0 mm). The exact size varies from country to country, and also depends upon machinery and manufacturer.
ā¦snipā¦
Full Depth - A depth of 9 1/2 inches (241.3 mm)
Manley - 6 5/8 inches (168.3 mm)
WSP - 7 1/2 inches (190.5 mm)
Ideal - 5 3/4 inches (146.1 mm)
Half Depth - 4 7/8 inches ( 124 mm )
The frame depth is usually 5/16 - 3/8 inch (7.9 - 9.5 mm) less than the depth of the super.
I use full depth and half depth. I think over here in Perth/WA we typically would get WSP not Ideal size supersā¦someone else can correct me.
We love our āidealsā here in Tassieā¦they get their name for a reasonā¦
From what Iāve seen in beek suppliers you are correct, only the two sizes. Not having too much choice is good however why are the WSP boxes the norm over here?
Probably due to whatever gained traction in the past.
WSP was developed on the east coast, so I still find it interesting that itās so popular over there.
Here are some of my ideal sized frames:
This is a comparison of full depth and ideal depth frame end bars:
This is a WSP frame being used for brood:
Nice thing about WSP is you can still run it for brood (as shown above in one of our hives). Ideal is getting a little shallow⦠but in saying that iāve seen it done⦠and pretty sure in areas of Tassie they run ideals for brood.