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 any pollen left and not …
Summer Flowering Ironbark
Summer Flowering Ironbark is currently flowering and yielding nectar in the box- ironbark forest where we have our bees in the northern country of Victoria. This species (Eucalyptus sideroxylon) is better known for its more abundant winter flowering form. It is hard to work out what percentage is summer flowering , but it is less than the other form. The …
Late summer 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 …
My Backyard Bees
During the last Autumn, I placed a small colony of bees which only covered about one frame into a four-frame nucleus box. The bees did not have very long to collect nectar and pollen to complete their winter supplies. I was apprehensive as to whether they would make it through the winter without starving out. Well, here we are in …