The honey drought in Victoria has affected our apiary like most beekeeping operations this season. None of our sites anywhere in the state have honey. The hives up north on grey box had to be brought back down south and fed sugar to save them from starving and we are feeding sugar at all sites and all hives. Our main job from now until next spring will be to keep our bee colonies alive and as strong as possible. It is amazing how much sugar a colony will go through in a couple of weeks. We placed a couple of kilos of solid white sugar under the hive lid and on top of the hive mat and found it was all used up in two weeks. We are constantly topping them up and will have to do so formonths. The good news for next season is that red gum, yellow gum and yellow box are budding up for possible flowering north of the divide andMessmate south of the divide.
Comments
4 responses to “Worst honey season ever.”
hi ,its interesting to learn as a fact that bees do get fed sugar to keep them alive whether through winter or drought times .but i personally have heard and believe there are a lot of beekepers in bussiness that take advantage of this especially when industrial or in other words get gready. and use sugar or blend of sugar with bee pollen in which this does not make this beehoney not even honey.most people that buy honey at shops actually believe that they are having beehoney, when not. its because it has bee pictures or figures of honey comb or it says organic honey .i say its fairly important for people to have the real thing then not .so where can i find the real thing bees own natural honey?.please!
Although we have limited tank water, my wife & I planted climbing beans and pumpkin.
Both have flowered for over 4-5 weeks but no sign of fruit. We then realized we have not seen a bee in our garden for the same approximate time! Does the extreme heat we have experienced effect the bee population/production? Is this the reason for our fruiting problem?
The extreme weather does slow the bees down but they still seek out pollen for most of the warmer times of the year. Your problem is that there don’t seem to be bees in your area so you won’t get any pollination without a colony living somewhere nearby.
Thank you Alf for your reply and information. You are right. There was a wild hive in a dead tree nearby until early spring last year when they disappeared.
As pensioners I don’t think we can afford, or have the knowledge, to set up a hive of our own. Do beekeepers ‘hire’ out a hive, or is their some other way we can change the situation?