Sock it to him Faroe, When I read your comment I thought “How so Faroe, a really nice compliment”. Then you got a back hander, from an Aussie no less. Loved your reply.
As Dame Edna says “A good one possum”
Show a pic of your setup
Peter48
#439
wasabi
#440
Here is our “Bee Penitentiary” built this past spring after Black Bears tore apart my new prototype bee hives and turned them into kindling. Bacon on the electric fence seems to have worked. No sign of them near apiary since!
busso
#441
Hi,
Your image doesn’t seem to have uploaded as it will not open for me.
Just IMG_20180628_151330|666x500 is present.
Dawn_SD
#442
To upload a photo in Forum format, open a new message (or a reply) and look at the little icons above the window where you type. The seventh from the left is a horizontal bar with an arrow pointing up out of it. If you click on that, a menu will open allowing you to navigate to the photo on your device. Tricky thing, this forum is. 
Semaphore
#443
Dawn_SD
#444
We have a very old (>75 years) avocado in our back garden. The canopy is probably 40 feet across. Before we got bees, we used to have about 20 or 30 fruit from it each year. The tree is right in the flight line from the hive entrances. The last 3 years we have had 200 - 500 fruit. Just amazing!
Semaphore
#445
That’s interesting you should say that Dawn, the owner of this tree said it averages about 50 fruit a year- but one year he hired a beehive and got 300! I’ve put two in so maybe he’ll get even more this year. They are lucky as they have a lot of stone fruit, figs, citrus and other trees. So they should get good value from the bees.
Apparently avocado honey is rubbish- did you notice that? I’m guessing it will only be a small part of their diet and the honey will be fine. Their tree is covered in buds just about to bloom.
Dawn_SD
#446
Our avocados (Fuerte subtype) flower in February/March, which is early Spring. I don’t put supers on until late March or early April. Due to our very dry climate, we don’t get enough nectar flow for the honey to be capped until around June. So honestly, I have not noticed any avocado honey, but I would guess that a lot of it is used to replenish the empty stores in the brood boxes (as I have double deeps for brood), and may not get up into the super.
Semaphore
#447
well- I have a super on one of the hives- and at the rate the other is expanding it will have a super on it in two weeks too. so it’s quite possible I will get some of the avacodo honey. I really wonder how much a single tree could contribute though the amount of honey in a hive. Likely it will be mixed with many other types of nectar. we shall see!
Dawn_SD
#449
Fortunately we don’t get many of those. However, avocados are remarkably firmly attached to the tree, and they actually don’t ripen properly until you pull them off. That means we can use the tree for storage for several months, which makes eating a couple of hundred fruit (sharing of course) much easier! 
