Member Beekeeping Articles

OK . Not sure where to post this, as Grant generally moves things around to keep my ramblings neat and tidy ..... So, I been thinking about the State of the Nation today. The Beekeeping Nation. That was spurred by a look on Trade Me this morning .... I quite like to check out Jobs for Beekeepers as I might find something that would be more lucrative than what I pay myself .... but on reflection I bin there and done that , the six figure salary plus vehicle and bonus, plus, wait, there's more .... 50 percent of the crop .... Ah, the Glory days ..... The Glory days have been and gone.... not that they lasted for that long as I had a falling out with my business partner and his Accounts Ant ..... History eh. Hah ,the Glory days. They...

The midday day sun strikes the verandah, chasing the frost to the shadows and catching the glint of silver spiders webs hanging from the rafters. The late summer colours paint the valley golden red , and the txt comes through on the phone ..... 'we working tomorrow Boss ...... fishings looking good ....' We is almost done on the bees for the year, just a bit of Honey Dew to pull and pump into a drum ..... God's own nectar for a guy I know who puts down a brew of mead to make us Invincible in war and Irresistable in love..... And as the world grapples with Covid and bubbles and supply chain woes my soul is filled with peace. We have a contract for the contents of my honey shed's three years of production. And let me tell you that...

Sooo, as the days shorten and we get our minds around hunkering down with a shed full of firewood and a freezer full of wild pig and venison ..... we are wintering our bees. All our hives are now sitting on Honey dew sites. The main crop is in the drum and we are thankfull for a good crop. Funnily enough , now is the time to prepare for next year..... I guess we'll do it againn next year... we listed the bees for sale on trade me a few months ago after I had a melt down when the Missus complained that there was more going out than coming in, if you get my drift .... for we all know that apparantly a Happy wife gives rise to a Happy life ..... Hmmmm. We had a couple of bites, most wanted to buy the trucks .... but without the...

More thoughts from the day ... not sure this is the place for it, but in an effort to lower Grant's stress level ..... We been on the bees again today, escaping honey, disease checking, and the Apivar arrived so we are putting that in too. The interesting part is looking at the hives , the strength of the bees at this time of year, and the crops they have produced. There was a lot of clover around this year, but the yields have been a bit ho hum. Hives that came home from the coast a month ago onto paddocks white with clover produced us another box and a half. Compared to bees we left on the Rata that made us another three boxes. The bees on the clover paddocks have no bees ...... correction ..... they have bees and slabs of brood...

OK ... so this part of the forum is about Glyphosate ... chemicals right .... I was gonna put it into the apiary diary as it was an event in February ..... but then I thought Grant might take umbrage.... so. Our game plan for the year was diversification, Split the risk with bees in multiple locations ..... I would have liked to have gone back up north and made some real coin, but the Missus said NO , so being a real bloke I kowtowed and obeyed . Instead we went East and West .... 'Destination East or West I don't care'.... It's been interesting to see the difference. Our Eastern hives all went onto paid pollination, guaranteed income, assuming the landowners pay up, because for many of our new customers, paying for beehives is a new...