Late summer flowering report

Alf Brugman Beekeeping Blog, Flowering report

As of the second half of February, our bees are working many species in both northern and southern Victoria. Hives in both areas have excellent brood and good populations of bees, so that if the flowers yield nectar, there should be good honey yields. In the northern country the Grey box(Eucalyptus microcarpa) is well budded and flowering has just commenced …

Flowering Eucalypts Report

Alf Brugman Beekeeping Blog, Flowering report

As of late January 2012, there a several species of flowering eucalypts that our bees are working.  North of the Divide, Yellow Box (Eucalyptus melliodora) is still flowering heavily and has been going since late November.  Red Stringybark (E. macrorhyncha) is well budded and due to start flowering any day now, this tree provides good pollen and nectar for the …

Beekeeping Lessons for Beginners

Sharon Livesey Beekeeping Blog

On the 7th January, 2012, we conducted our first beekeeping lesson for beginners.  Our students were very enthusiastic and the day seemed to fly by. The weather held out and it was almost perfect conditions for opening up the hives in the afternoon after a pleasant lunch.  Our students, to their delight, viewed brood in many stages and spotted the …

Soldier bees discovered

Julian Beekeeping Blog

There is an interesting taster article (and ensuing discussion) on a new caste of soldier bees in a stingless bee of South America – the Jatai bee (Tetragonisca angustula). Soldier bees guard their nest against attack by robbers The study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that Jatai soldiers are 30% heavier than their …

Website hackers

Julian Web and Technology Blog

I hate hackers with a passion now. Our website was hacked five times over the last six months – the most recent being today  – leading to drastic measures including a complete reset. It’s just so senseless. My deepest thanks go to my bro – Rob – who has been helping us with the wordpress side of the site – …

Yellow Gum honey flow

Alf Brugman Beekeeping Blog

Yellow Gum or Eucalyptus leucoxylon has been flowering throughout the winter in the northern country of Victoria where we have some hives. It has been yielding nectar freely and is expected to flower until the end of November. Last week I visited the hives and found that each one had up to three boxes full of honey. I have extracted …

The spring dwindle

Alf Brugman Beekeeping Blog

This spring around Melbourne has seen a quite severe cold snap having a detrimental effect on our beehives. Queens have produced a lot of brood in October and the cold and windy weather into November has stopped the field bees from flying and so, instead of gathering pollen and nectar, bees have been eating into their stores in the hive. …

Requeening day

Alf Brugman Beekeeping Blog

This morning we picked up a post bag containing 15 Italian queens from our local post office. They came in the little queen cages which are about the size of a matchbox and contain a young queen and about a half dozen workers as attendants. We immediately went to our home bee yard and started searching for the old queens …