Perth (WA, AU) Flowhives and honey flow

Thanks Aaron - will certainly keep at it.

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Any water or lot of heavy condensation on the frames That may do it.

Didnā€™t see anything like that.

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Hi Alan,
Just wondering if you are still using the Broodminder and if so how do you find it works? Iā€™m thinking of some sort of monitoring temp/humidity of my long hive. Cheers Tim

Just saw this as I was skimming through for something else.
And yes it can take two months from bud to flower. Most Eucalyptus species take at least 3 to 6 months and some as long as 12 months from bud to flower.

Just for interest Eucalyptus is from the Greek meaning covered or well covered. Each bud has a cap covering the flower and when the bud bursts it looses that cap and we have a flowerā€¦

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Gā€™day Perthites ,can some1 please answer this for me.

Extracted some honey on the weekend from both Flow frames and some normal frames, but seems to be quite runny. Frames were mostly fully capped with some partially filled. I run a triple, 1 brood, 2 supers.

i had to remove most of the frames from the middle super as it was the 1st inspection for a while due to cold weather and the bees were going every which way with comb, so thought it a good opportunity to put fresh frames in there to clean it up. put in a mixture of foundationless and some with foundation, as an experiment to see what they do.

Yes i did leave some 1 full frame in the middle and 3 full frames in the f.h

Your thoughts as to why the honey is quite runny, ta

Likely due to forage source. Some honey is very runny, like acacia and clover. Some is very thick or even thixotropic, like heather and jellybush or manuka. One of the reasons I love having my honey refractometer ($30 investment) is that I can test the honey if it seems runny. As long as it is 18.6% water or less, it is commercially acceptable real honey. :blush:

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@Timbo2 Iā€™ve unfortunately stopped using the Broodminder as Iā€™ve had issues with reliability (unexplained battery drainage). I originally got one of the very first Indiegogo products and it turned out that had a fault. That was replaced free of charge. The replacement seemed to be working okay but went flat quicker than I expected (within a month). When I replaced the battery it then went flat within two weeks. I could probably go back and try for a third device but I havenā€™t come across anything to say the issue has been fixed, so have just left it be. Itā€™s a pity really because the data was interesting.

Thanks for the reply Alan, it is a shame, I would really like to monitor the brood temp. Might keep looking for something, maybe a BBQ temp monitoršŸ˜œ
Cheers Tim

Dawn, thanks for the reply. Upside is because i gravity extract inside a spare room in my house, its a tad quicker in this cooler weatherā€¦ta

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This is worth a cross-post in my opinion (apologies if you disagreeā€¦)

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I think it sad that somebody would callously import queens, honey (unprocessed or not) and any other material and jepardise our industry.

I mean it is not as if they can be unaware. Even bee-keepers in NZ, Indonesia and Vietnam are aware you canā€™t take Honey products in to Western Australia. It would be a deliberate act not accidental

And there are good sources of queens in WA, you just have to look.

This makes me mad so I wonā€™t rant any more about it.

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I have a new nuc arriving mid December and would like to know from those that know, if I can put the nuc in the existing hive that has lost its queen. The hive is barely surviving. Thoughts please, or do I just start again with a completely new hive.

By mid December all your bees will be dead if they are queenless, as they only live for around 6 weeks. I would add a frame of brood/ eggs to them from another hive so they can make a new queen. Otherwise you could combine them with another hive now, but December will be far too late unfortunately. Also, the longer you leave them the more likely you will start getting laying workers which makes the whole job a lot harder, so you really need to act very quickly.

If you put your location on here, maybe someone near will be able to spare some brood, or perhaps you could buy a queen quickly - not sure of supply this year!

Cheers,

Julia

Yep thanks Jingles, that was what I was thinking. We may have access to a compete hive, so will look into that also. All very sad, but we live and learn.

Not sure if it is a WA native but does anyone know what type of tree this is? The bees are mad for itā€¦

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Acer negundo I think or sometimes called the box elder ???

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Thanks Suses70 that is it. :slight_smile:

They love it donā€™t they !!! I wish it lasted longer, hard to tell but all finnished here, with this storm that came through this morning.
Cheers

Very very new to this
Got box finished 2 days ago. Swarm lands in backyard yesterday. Took everything out of the plastic. Put on suit, took two attempts to get the smoker going, dropped the swarm in the hive thenā€¦ The showers hit!!! Still raining. Will they be OK or do I need to feed them if they canā€™t forage? Thanks in advance.