Hiya Jim, I noticed the way it’s creeping down south too. I marked it at Australind and will see where it’s at later this month. January the only flowers were the red ones on the shrubs in the nature strip between the freeway.
You can put a spare super in top of the crown board with the pail in that. I just made a box out of an old board that was kicking around and use that with the hive lid. I use a 1kg honey bucket as a pail. Easy to lift the lid of the hive and see how much liquid is left. I’ve only had to feed a couple of colonys this season, the newer ones, they were feeling light. They are also the only 1 brood box colonys I have. Once they strengthen I’ll add a wsp to them like the others. I only add the second box because of the dearth I get in the area and it works for me, I don’t like having to feed.
Possibly like you I rely on the native flora and I’m realising it’s not so predictable.
Jack at Beewise has:
CERACELL TOP FEEDERS
The new Ceracell Top Feeder with 5 feeding points out performs outdated single chimney feeders, as they offer better bees access. When feeding the bees in a top feeder with only a centre chimney cap there is always half a litre that the bees can’t get to; now with the Ceracell patented protected corner system bees have access to all the syrup you feed them, even when the hive is on a slight slope.
Made from food polypropylene, the 8-Frame Top Feeders have a capacity of 7.5L while the 10-Frame Top
Feeders have a generous capacity of 8.5L.
- 8-Frame $34.00
- 10-Frame $36.50
Both come with first quality NZ grown and milled pine rims, treated with Lanogard (no painting necessary).
I still prefer to use a rapid feeder. I’m able to put it on and off using a hole in the cover board. The Ceracell type feeders, and others, to put on and off the hive you need to expose the frames below.
The smaller rapid feeders 1l are perfect for the flow hive as you can slide them on moving the cover you’ve placed over the hive. Feed in small lots and then slide off after feeding replacing the cover (screened or solid).
Adam
@SouthEastScarp have you imported any of the wood items from NZ or elsewhere? Do they end up needing to be chemically treated to get them through quarrantine, or no issues so far?
I buy local. I leave it to the importers to deal with quarantine issues, however I suspect that new, unused timber bee equipment would be no more drama than any other timber coming into the company.
Thanks Skeggley. Great solution! I’ll give that a try!
Thanks Terence. I saw those at Beewise and thought I’d get away with a cheaper lower cost cost/volume alternative. Skeggley’s idea seems pretty good as well!
Thanks Adam! Good to get multiple ideas from the Forum!
I received this back from Flowhive website:
Hi Jacky, this is very interesting! So fun to watch. Honey bees collect plant or tree resins or sap and bring it into the hive to treat the inner surfaces of the hive cavity. 
Thanks for sharing your videos – Leah.
We are starting to see some redgum blossom finally starting to appear in our town. Very selective at the moment, fingers crossed we’ll have nectar & pollen for our bees 
Where are you situated? Still waiting at Bridgetown!
I’m in Bridgetown, the redgum near the Repertory is blossoming, yay.
Fantastic! We’re close at Ecclesiastic Close just up Brockman Hwy. Neither of our hives (FH1 and FH2) have anything in the Supers! Maybe after last nights rain we’ll see some flowers!
With the Marri in full bloom the bees are filling the supers and issuing swarms, beware fellow Sandgropers. I was at a site in Bentley yesterday and a swarm turned up. It gave me an oportunity to educate some people about bees and proved that running away swatting at the bees flying around wasn’t a particularly wise move. Most were impressed that I could stand so close to the bees without them attacking me. I was at work so couldn’t capture and when I checked on it later in the arvo a truck had driven over it and killed the queen, deliberately debatably, it was in a carpark… The queen was still intact, just must have clipped it so I was able to pick it up and show some of the workers on site who were milling around shaking their head at me, crazy they were saying. 
So what I was trying to say before I got carried away was that keep an eye on your colonys, beware of swarms.
The Marri here are a bit like me, with no bloom this year. 
and only the memories to cling to. 
.
But hey maybe like the Marri I will bloom again…wow, never thought of it that way. 
Or maybe you will lose your memory and it won’t be an issue either…
Still waiting in Bridgetown!!!
Im in the metro area Perth around osborne park
Have 3 hives out the back and inspected all 3 on Sunday.
One have had about 50% capped frames on all 8, sol left them be (langstrom)
2nd hive i extracted about 3 fully capped frames and were replaced with previous stickies out of the freezer, the fh frames are still being filled as i run my FH’s as triples
And boy oh boy the last hive, full of super aggressive nasty lil critters, extracted 4 frames of fully capped frames, quickly replaced with thawed stickies and replaced the FH super which is choc oh block full of honey, and will be extracted this or next week
So there are some of us who are extracting some honey, fyi
My little patch in Bunbury saw the first marri flower a week or so ago with more trees coming on. Very sporadic though. The red cap gums have also started flowering at the same time. Starting to see some honey stored.
Also starting to see and hear of swarms too. Hopefully we’ll get a harvest this year. Although I may just leave it on over winter and take what the bees don’t use when it starts to warm again.
Adam
Is any one else having large amounts of washboarding bees…? I have a small beard under the landing pad and the whole front of three boxes covered with washboarding bees. I’m in the eastern Perth suburbs.
My hive gets a few hours sun in the morning then full shade the rest of the day, plenty of water and they have had the super on now for nearly three months as the hive was still filling the bottom boxes for the first time.
Cheers.