Thank you gentlemen, I was curious about how much weight was lost when a colony was confined to home base and the effect of rain on the nectar during a flow. What is most interesting in my mind is the difference in the weight progression between this and last year which I’m assuming is the bottom graph on Adams graph page considering Feb through March is traditionally our main seasonal flow.
Yep you’ve got the bottom right as the total history for the hive scale.
This might give you an indication of what the rain did to foraging. You can see one peak of rain fall over night around 4am. It then rained ~730-11am, with a real dump at 9ish and then foraging resumed (surprisingly). The long term effect on nectar production who knows…
Ahem… Speaking about scales. I am having a hard time finding something like this in Perth:
Maybe, I simply don’t know where to look? I would appreciate if someone could point me to right direction in my search.
In the past I had even more compact model, like this:
but it looks like such type is even harder to find.
New or second hand? Hope you have some way to protect them from the weather.
New
Butcher supply shops carry some, I have also bought from Just in Scales http://justinscales.com/
2nd Hand
Gum tree, auctions, etc they come up on from time to time.
New ones are mostly electronic these days. And main problem, as I understand, they need to be tared to 0 each time when they are powered up. Mechanical like on pictures above could be left under hive. They also resist weather much better. A bit of grease and minimum cover and they last long time. The one I had (second picture) I got second hand. Used them for about 15 years and passed them to another guy. They did not look pretty but were working.
It also was quite common to built some structure over monitored hive to protect scale from weather:
It would be nice to have a monitoring system like yours. Graphs, resolution, convenience. But when I think about my application… cost of equipment, data plan (closest wifi point will be 200 metres away), service subscription, all start to add up pretty quick. And, realistically, all I need to know which way stores moved this week.
I check gumtree occasionally, but so far no luck.
Have you thought of using a luggage scale to attach to the back of the hive to heft it and get the indication you need.
Out of interest you can run the WiFiScales with a reading interval of 90sec on the Aldi Sim $5/year plan so not much at all from the data perspective. I do get the overall system cost.
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Yes, I think this will do as immediate solution. It is inexpensive and tools are readily available, although method lacks elegance 
I didn’t know that such plan exists. Thank you! I just looked at Telstra cheapest offering, sighed and closed this question.
Regarding WiFiScales, I am somewhere between Bargaining and Depression stages of the process 
That is between creasy idea to built long-range wifi scale myself and “why bother to weight them at all?”. Lets see when the next stage comes
Just to finish the story a little. Today they put on 2.5kg. The couple of closest Tuart trees caps are just starting to loosen, so hopefully some longevity to the flow with the Marri and Tuart.
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This is a good news! At least, there is a hope that they will not need to be fed during the winter.
I moved my hives to Morangup a week ago. I hope they will be able to collect something from marri there.
A bit of interesting read about where our local bees are coming from.
Population Genetics of Commercial and Feral Honey Bees in Western Australia. Full text could be downloaded by pressing button on the right.
They compare stock from Better Bees WA programme and feral bees.
Here is what they say among other things:
All but one commercial sample is of A. m. ligustica origin (mitotypes C1 or M7b). The remaining commercial sample was of Apis mellifera iberica origin (mitotype M6).
I guess, they meant A. m. iberiensis.
The feral population consisted of a mix of the two subspecies (mitotypes C1 [12 colonies], M7a [two colonies], and M6 [14 colonies]).
Understandable that improvement programme pushes population to more clean lines, but what is interesting, natural selection in feral population under pressure of local environment favours a mix of origins.
And I was wondering, why some of my “Italians” look funny 
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Thanks ABB for sharing this 2008 article. Some other gems in there about Kangaroo Island source stock, honey bee populations being self sustaining and not reliant on commercial escapes.
It would be interesting what the study would say 15 odd years on as there has been some “new” commercial entrants taking stock to the better bee program on Rottnest Is and an explosion of beekeepers in WA, mostly enthusiasts.
Adam
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There are other articles in this series.
Genetic origins of honey bees (Apis mellifera ) on Kangaroo Island and Norfolk Island (Australia) and the Kingdom of Tonga, 2018
and a wider look at whole Australia:
Hybrid origins of Australian honeybees (Apis mellifera), 2015
I don’t think 15 years changed a lot in absence of import of new lines. Particularly in feral population. And it is unlikely that Australian commercial beekeepers suddenly fell in love with a black bee if they had a choice. This is reflected in 2015 article:
It looks like only in Tasmanian Highlands commercial beeks had to kiss it 
Enthusiasts are different story. Often new starters don’t understand what are the benefits of paying more for bees from “greedy producers” when “honest fellow” around a corner asks a “reasonable” price. “Bees are bees, hey?”. Result is in 2008 paper - they keep something close to feral population - a stock that may carry undesirable traits way more often than something that comes from even amateurish selection programme.
Feral stock in Australia:
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past 2 weeks progression from 2 small swarms , put into a 5 frame box and a 3 frame box, and the progression was really fast with alot of comb, pollen and nectar, they had no boost in recources at all , empty frames and foundation
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It is rather off-topic question, but I don’t know where else to put it and in the same time hope that someone has local knowledge.
Does anyone know if there is any useful application for marri fruits/nuts? Can they be used as a fuel for wood heater? Anything else? Question was raised after removing 5 x 100L wheelbarrows of them from driveway. About the same amount is still there 
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I’m almost certain that a decent shredder would turn them into beautiful mulch for the garden. It might make nice bee smoker fuel as well.
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Umm ABB it’s honkey nut mate. 
And useful for cub or scout toggles, as a bush whistle and yes, in a camp fire.
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Also useful as a slip hazard.
… Use them for property protection when you go on holidays (think Home Alone style)… You’ll just have to clean them up when you get back
… Put them on the drive and let kids/grandkids skate over them on a board
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Wow! So many uses! And one is better than another
Duly noted.
Who would have thought? Where were all this honkey nuts when I was ten or even eleven? On other hand, we had acorn caps. Unfortunately, my supply of whistles exceeds my current interest in the subject by at least one cubic meter and counting.
Can confirm, it works! Even in the driveway. Particularly in the the dark. That actually was the main stimulus to pull wheelbarrow out of shed 
I confess, I misread and misunderstood this at first. I imagined how it was going to work with real skateboards and neighbour’s kids. Though - what a brilliant idea! But, no, it was only wishful thinking 
I guess, this would be the most useful idea. The missing part is garden, but in the future, who knows? A smoker is on the list as well.
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