BEEINFORMED newsletter mentions that manuka seedlings are available from tintuppa nursery.
I will look them up :). There is a company in Manjimup growing and testing activity levels of Manuka. I have emailed them to check when they plan to start selling seedlings, but no reply yetā¦
So, in general, how is the nectar flow for people? Iāve just returned from two weeks away and through the viewing windows my hive still seems to be bringing in alot of nectar.
Just before I left I robbed all 9 flow frames and swapped the supers (to put the hybrid above the brood and the full flow at the top; the colony was still too big to remove the full flow super). To my surprise the bees appeared to be capping the outside frame in the full flow superā¦and they never preferentially work the full flow super!
Hopefully I can find time tomorrow to get in and have a look, otherwise Iāll look over Easter.
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Mine seems to have slowed down a fair bit but population is down too. But i think they are still storing rather than consuming.
My hive gets a fair bit of shade through the middle of the day and so i wonder if the cooler weather has slowed them down.
There are still drones present and a few capped drone cells.
Like Dunc Iāve still drones around however the bees donāt seem to have slowed down. There are still a couple of marri trees in the area however I donāt see as much pollen being brought back. Not seeing many native flowers out at the moment, some on the way. The bees are still bearding outside in these cooler nights which I find interesting and the supers are still full of bees yet there doesnāt seem to be much being deposited, if any.
Im looking forward to doing inspections tomorrow.
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@Dunc My hive is positioned on the south side of my house but it close against the house, so likely benefits from radiant heat from the house. It is reasonably protected and certainly doesnāt get early morning sun (usually gets mid morning to afternoon sun in summer and late morning to early afternoon sun in winter). Iāve still got Drones in my hive but Iāve noticed the numbers reducing.
@skeggley Iād be interested to hear what comes of your inspection. I seem to be observing similar to what you have described (in relation to the hive). I havenāt had a good look around today the area to see what is in bloom but I did notice that Iāve got a lot of grevilleas and banksias around my area in bloom with the odd bottle brush in partial bloom (and yes, Iāve seen a small number of my bees working the banksia in my garden)
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Here in the NOR flatlands, it has slowed down. Only a small number of bottlebrushes have flowers.
But the bee numbers are still high. Still have 4 boxes on. Will reduce it to 3 this week after harvesting
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Well i went in about 4/5 weeks ago and stripped 30kgs of honey from my triple but still left frames in the middle super for bees full of capped honey, so could have had another 4 to 6kgs possibly. but i wanted to leave some stores in here for the girls.
Had a peek on friday and would you believe they have virtually filled the whole lot up again. The middle super is full and capped and the flow frames are nearly full and capped also
So took 6 frames from the middle and ill take a couple from the top flow frames in a couple of weeksā¦My bees seem to be very good producersā¦Slightly aggressive but that doesnt bother me to much, keeps the hive free from interlopers and production is great, its a strong hive and always has been
Oh sorry im in the Stirling Balcatta area near well established trees parks and water supplies
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Hi Rodadon
If itās possible, maybe I can pay you a visit and look at your set-up (and hopefully share some tips) before you close up for winter. Iām in Ballajura area
Cheers
ok mate send me yr mob number via email and ill text you over the easter
break and ill tee up a time with you
So I did the hive inspection todayā¦keeping in mind I had totally extracted all my 9 flow frames 3 to 4weeks agoā¦
Iāll check again in a few weeks with the view to removing the full flow super for winter.
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We did my last inspection of our hives today for the season, so I thought Iād do a quick update.
Last time we checked was around 6 weeks ago, and All 3 hives were backfilling their brood nest and I was freaking out that they were starting swarm prep, so gave a standard super to each (as they were largely ignoring the flow frames).
Today I simply wanted to ensure we have queens going into winter, so we were looking for signs of some brood and young larvae. What we saw was a lot of brood! The bees have essentially moved all their honey up to the supers and the brood box is again pretty much wall to wall worker brood, larvae and a couple of drones dotted around 
We didnāt look to hard for the queen as all looked so good in them all. They also each have a full standard super of mostly capped honey that we will be leaving them for winter.
I must say I did not expect this much brood as I thought they were winding down for winter weeks ago but clearly there was a space issue which we rectified by adding standard supers. I guess the warm weather and still flowering Marri has led them to breed in strength. My only slight concern is that they are going to have a lot of mouths to feed over winter, but as we are leaving them lots of honey it shouldnāt be a problem. I think we should have some extremely strong hives coming out of winter and going into the spring flow. I predict next year will be a good one up on our hill 
Cheers,
Julia
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Spotted gums are flowering in metro.
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Iāve seen a few pepper trees around here flowering and the bees are all over them. Personally I donāt like the trees so would never plant one fortunately the neibours have.
The lemon scented gum aborted most of its blossom however Iām seeing other eucalypts starting to flower, again. Perhaps more profusely than the spring bloom. All very weird.
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The paper bark gums are flowering again, not on all of them but maybe 40% of them that line the roads
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Iāve got a few unknowns on my property. All are flowering right now so it seems plenty of food.
Even though Iāve planted them, but that was many years ago.
The Hakea I know
Not sure if the other is a Pepper Gum
and I have no idea what the last Yellow flowering thing is. Very scruffy .An Acacia?
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the pincushions here flowered in spring too.
I canāt recall everything flowering twice a year before but then again I canāt say I was really lookingā¦ Hopefully they will still flower next yearā¦
I still havenāt gotten round to inspect but the supers are still full of bees even on these cooler mornings. Still a few drones about, this weekend is a must inspect weekend for me.
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In thd metro spring flowers often reflower in the autumn but not necessarily in the same way. E.g. the bottle brush has plenty of pollen in the Spring but barely any now.
The paperbarks are definitely doing another autumn flower and i would say more profusely than a month ago.
I was out in the country on monday and oil mallees were flowering and i think some flooded gum.
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Well unexpectedly Iāll be extracting the BW colony again after doing an inspection yesterday and finding all the frames full again. The cheeky buggers still wonāt fill the end frames! All the colonies are packed with bees and full of brood still even though there are few flowers in the area. I want to empty the FF, which are predominantly marri, before the unexpected onset of the coming eucalyptus bloom which looks to be a cracker. Hopefully there will be plenty of nectar for perhaps even another harvest before winter sets inā¦ Keep in mind that I have hybrids and leave the outer frames, which are full, for winter stores.
I was chatting to our botanist the other day and asked about the double bloom and was told that the Aussie natives are opportunistic and due to the summer rains are making the most of theā¦ oportunityā¦ Unusual but not unheard of. It was also said that this years marri bloom was off the charts with marri still blooming in areas.
I see the honey festival is coming soon to the swan valley. Unfortunately it is sponsored by Capillanos so I will be boycotting it.
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