Author: Alf Brugman
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Our wintering bees
Our bees have gone into this winter in excellent condition. Manna Gum (Eucalyptus viminalis), Swamp Gum (Eucalyptus ovata) and Mountain Grey Gum (Eucalyptus cypellocarpa) all flowered profusely in the autumn and the bees had access to copious high quality pollen which gave them plenty of protein to produce winter bees and to keep their bodies…
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Patersons Curse honey.
An article has been published in the daily papers today which describes Australian supermarket honeys as being blended with Patersons curse honey that is harmful to people’s health. It is true that this did occur in the past and is an unfortunate thing that the big companies do to produce a honey that is uniform…
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The new Flow hive
We have all seen the great new invention called the Flow hive which allows honey to be harvested through tubes into a container without opening the hive and disrupting the bees. This is an innovative and brilliant new addition to apiculture and will make it a lot easier for beekeepers to extract honey without having…
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Yellow Box honey harvest
We have just harvested Yellow Box (Eucalyptus melliodora) honey from our beehives in the Northern Country of Victoria. The hives are in excellent condition with large populations of bees and the Red Stringybark has just started flowering which should result in good pollen for brood rearing and the possibility of a good quality honey. We…
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New honey harvest
Our bees have produced a variety of honeys so far this season. We have just harvested beautiful,rich, creamy tasting Yellow Box honey (Eucalyptus melliodora) from our hives in the Box-Ironbark forests in the northern country of Victoria. We have pure, clear Clover honey from West Gippsland which is a subtle boutique honey which we rarely…
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Bees wintering well
The past two honey seasons have been the worst in living memory and there is a severe honey shortage in eastern Australia. Last year’s season was a lot better than the previous year in one significant way. The bees were able to gather enough nectar in autumn to fill their brood chambers with honey and…
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Importance of pollen in autumn
It is vital that honeybee colonies have a good supply of high quality pollen in the autumn. This pollen provides the protein necessary for the winter bees to be produced so that a strong population goes into winter to provide the warmth in the cluster for the colony to survive. Many beekeepers in Victoria are…
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Effect of extreme heat on bees
This summer has seen many days in a row of almost mid 40 degree temperatures in the north of the state where we have some of our hives. After the Red Gum had flowered and bees had collected good stores of high quality pollen, it was surprising to see that as January ended, there wasn’t…
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Red Gum is flowering
River Red Gum is flowering where we have hives in the northern country of Victoria. It hasn’t flowered well for us for several years so we are excited about the possibilities. When checking hives two weeks ago, there was excellent brood and the brood chambers had large areas of creamy pollen stored in them. This…