Perth (WA, AU) Flowhives and honey flow

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 Marri’s 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.

1 Like

Eucalyptus leucoxylon

1 Like

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 can’t beat the Marri, right?

Cheers busso shame its not a local. (Enjoy your holiday)
Looks like it’s 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 :grin: :yum:

1 Like

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 wouldn’t 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 wasn’t expecting a harvest just wasn’t sure if any benefit would come with putting the super on before winter, maybe extra food storage for them to if needed

I’m not sure the flow is quite over here just yet, although the Marri is coming to an end I’m 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! I’m sure there will be plenty of pollen however nectar wise, which is needed for wax production, I’m not so sure.

Hi skeggley

Was reading about your comment about the packaging, in another thread.

Just wanted to let you know that I’ve getting my plastic & glass jars from Cospak in Welshpool. Quite reasonably priced if buying in bulk

Cheers

1 Like

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. :wink: I know Flow frames are plastic and all but… I’ll look into it for personal storage as we have used up all our empty bought honey pots which are all plastic. :+1:
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. it’s lasted a while though! I’ve noticed the paperbark flowering as mentioned earlier and many of the gum trees are budding up nicely so it’s 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 I’m seeing a few cells receiving honey again already.
I still think another warm spell will happen here before winter and the trees aren’t dropping leaves yet so…

How is it very one going down in the flatlands?

1 Like

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.

2 Likes

My bees in Esperance bringing in red pollen from red leucoxylons but their colour can vary from red thro to yellowish white.

2 Likes

Surprisingly, the paper bark gums’ 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 ā€œAre 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

1 Like

Can anyone explain what an ā€œidealā€ 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.
…snip…
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 supers…someone else can correct me.

1 Like

We love our ā€œidealsā€ here in Tassie…they get their name for a reason…

1 Like

From what I’ve 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 it’s 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 i’ve seen it done… and pretty sure in areas of Tassie they run ideals for brood.

2 Likes