The queen and other questions

That sums in up for me too - fascination and pollination!
Lavender honey? What’s that? Not literally but how is it (so) different?

Lavender honey has a very characteristic flavour. It doesn’t taste like lavender flowers smell, but it has a lovely, light, slightly exotic taste and aroma. When I taste it, it fills me with happiness and calm. Wonderful stuff! You have to get the reliable pure variety though. The best is from Provence in southern France. Some of the ancient abbeys there are surrounded by enormous expanses of lavender, which was used by monks to make products they could sell. If you are interested, you can see what I mean here:

You need large fields like this to make sure that the lavender is not diluted with other nectar sources. The nectar flow is quite short too, just 2 months starting in June. When we go to France, I get some from a local beekeeper that I trust. You can buy some quite good lavender honey online, but his is orders of magnitude better. Just don’t get any that has had lavender flavour or essential oil added - not the same thing at all!

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Thanks! Appreciate the info. I had a look at in online and doesn’t seem to be available in Australia - it can even be bought online from Fortnum & Mason in London and delivered worldwide - except Aust and NZ!. I’ll just have to tuck that away in the memory banks for when I next travel to Europe.

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Lavender grows best in a cooler climate so maybe a bee keeper in Tassie might have it during the flowering season if they have access to a lavender farm that is producing for the oil.
Cheers

Lavander doesn’t grow best in cooler climate. It is a native plant to the dry heat of western Mediterranean regions.

Here in Perth it only thrives in the hottest, sunniest spots in our garden with minimal water. Some varieties can be adapted to some other climates though.

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True it is thick in the Mediterranean but in Tassie there are several farms growing it in their cooler climate commercially, I guess they have a variety that suits there cooler climate.

Hi @BooBees, I am a newbee only got my nuc less than 2 weeks ago, thus the reason why I am only now making this comment. I’m not all that fussy about honey either, but bought these bees as I had notice a huge drop off in bee numbers in our fruit trees and garden. Since then I found out that a local commercial hive had been poisoned, I don’t know whether it was deliberate or by accident through farmers spraying crops to rid them of pests. At this time I find myself sitting at my flowhive watching my young hive of bees coming and going, and it fascinates me, though I HATE getting stung, only once so far :crossed_fingers::crossed_fingers:.

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