Hi Tony,
This is the FlowHive forum in which the thread you posted to is a topic on that forum.
However we welcome all bee keepers whether they have flow hives or not and answer as best we can
There are professional bee keepers on this form whose main body of hives are not Flow so ask away if you have a question.
If you contact the Muresk Institute in Northam, they are starting courses in Beekeeping and would certainly know of beekeepers in the area.
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Thanks @busso, I’ll contact Muresk, sounds like a good place to start.
Tony
Hi peeps hope everyone is staying cool in the area. 
I have a heap of 20mm foil backed foam insulation offcuts some of which I have put inside and on the migratory lid which has been effective reducing bearding in summer and condensation in winter.
If anyone would like some let me know. 
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Hi, would be curious to know how much honey everyone is getting at the moment? We’re in Stirling, this has been our time line:
4 Sept - Hive & bees arrived
13 Oct - put super on
23 Nov - All frames fully capped & harvested
14 Dec - this weekend we will harvest the 4 centre frames that are fully capped - only 3 weeks after our initial harvest. the outer ones look like they’ll be ready mid next week.
You’ve got your bragging rights right there Sammy.
My hives are not even close! Must be doing something wrong.
In Busso, harvested first week November. Flow frames nearly filled quite quickly again but have stagnated last 2 weeks. Centre 3 frames are 90% capped but others 30 to 40% capped. Some blossom out but not widespread. Some odd marri is flowering but bees not into them yet …maybe short of nectar
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Unless your house location is changing you’re probably doing nothing wrong. One of the differences between the suburbs and hills is usually a longer flow in the suburbs but a bigger spike in the bush.
If you look at a few posts last year or the year before from @skeggley (i think) you’ll see similar indications
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Cheers Alan - yes I was aware of that but when I saw Sam’s post, it blew me away. I wasn’t expecting that much difference!
My hives started shortly after his… and I doubt I will harvest a drop of honey this season at this rate. Well I’m waiting for the big Marri spike, and hoping my hives finally take off.
My current hives are insulated with 30mm thick cork, but I reckon your foil backed foam has a better R value. I might use that for the next two hives when they eventually happen.
What is that insulation called and used for skeggz? Does it matter which side the foil is facing?
I don’t need any now, but if you ever think of throwing any of it out, let me know as I’ll grab some.
We got quite a strong, established colony with 6 frames instead of the usual 4… so maybe that made a difference. We also scraped off burr comb from the top of the frames and put it in-between the flow frames when we put the super on (we didn’t scrape it into the frame just placed between - they seem to have got the hint)
We’re in a built-up area too, lots of flower gardens & local parks and verges full of established trees that have been flowering.
So either all those factors made a difference or the hives can just vary a lot in similar conditions…
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That:
and that:
… against a weak nuc to start with, and local native bush with seasonal flowering. Still, I’m impressed with the rapid progress of your hive regardless.
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On the subject of heat… for anyone from over East that reads this thread…
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Well well well… there are now forecasts of back to back 49 and 50°C in remote parts of the south.
That’s fifty degrees Celsius in the shade, bee hives outdoors have zero chance. Let alone native wildlife.
From an article today in The Age:
On present forecasts, the hottest places may be in South Australia, with the Bureau of Meteorology indicating back-to-back days of 49 and 50 degrees in some remote regions for next Wednesday and Thursday.
That my friends, is climate changed, while politicians around the word fiddle.
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The hottest day in my little part of paradise will be 34 on Monday. After that it’s 28, 27, 28 & 30. On the 14 day forecast the hottest day is 30 on Christmas day.
On the subject of climate change: I had a chuckle while hearing that Trump criticized Time magazine for choosing Gretta Thunberg as person of the year for this years cover.
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Actually it is just weather.
Australia and Western Australia have seen many hot and cold periods and our current summer is in fact overall pretty average based on data recorded since 1 June 1829 when the Swan River Colony was Founded.
I wrote a paper around 10 years ago on Western Australian climate change while doing my first Masters degree. The simple truth is that based on the data and modelling at the time, and I haven’t seen any contrary papers to date, Western Australia’s southern regions will benefit from global warming if it occurs at all.
South of Eneabba through to the border and southern coast there will over the next century be areas of increased rainfall in the southern region of Western Australia as well as Southern Africa.
The increase in rainfall in Western Australia and Southern Africa will make some currently marginal inland areas much more productive and open up new farming areas to grow market crops. This will be detrimental to some of the current broad-acre crops grown in these areas but all it really means is that there will be less grain to export and more vegetables to sell to the Eastern States and Asia instead.
Journalistic sensationalism is core training at University, not only for journalist students. Science and Humanities students at higher levels are also taught how to write and promote papers to scare the great unwashed in our society.
Generation Y are very good at sensationalising… EVERYTHING… and even better at being offended whenever they are called on their mistruths.
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Sorry Terry but that is crass bull shit.
I am going to stick with what 99.7 of climate scientists, with no vested interest, say.
This is climate change (global warming is an antiquated term mostly used by denialists)
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Wanna start a climate debate? Start a new thread.
Wanna talk politics? Start a new thread.
As much as I like the heat I’ve gotta say I’m a little bit over it now and summers just begun…
I’ve noticed honey stores going backwards these last few days, minimal bearding which is weird, perhaps something to do with the low humidity?
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Must be the salted rats. 
No, I haven’t installed bussos gift yet, I did get a bit of a giggle out of Martha’s comment on salted water on the heatwave thread though. Don’t need to salt the water if you’re using salted rats. 
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