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 thing ..... so in once sense it was a relief to secure a real job for our bees and be able to budget on new tyres and repairs and RMP payments, not to mention Varroa treatments.
We went down into the flatlands today. It was hot and dusty.
The bees had done okay, ish. We escaped a couple of hundy boxes today from several sites. The dilemma is is whether I homogenise the Radish with the Pakchoi and the Phacellia as we extract and end up with several thousand litres of ...... honey laced with chemical from one dodgy site.
Our established pollination contracts know how to look after our bees. The hives looked good.
The worry is the new boys.
In one yard we worked against the clock, missing out on afternoon smoko to beat the irrigator as it cranked round the crop while the bees were in full flight.
Other yards had a couple of boxes on, but no bees. Six frames of brood ready to hatch, but nothing in the honey box.
Some guys might just say 'Hmm' , no bees ......
But after you been in the game for a few years you get too say, ' Hmmm , no bees..... why not, because I know they can do better.'
And I sort of remember a piece of poetry I read in the visitor centre at Arthurs Pass a few years ago that went along the lines of...
'You canna pick a flower and not alter a star.'
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 thing ..... so in once sense it was a relief to secure a real job for our bees and be able to budget on new tyres and repairs and RMP payments, not to mention Varroa treatments.
We went down into the flatlands today. It was hot and dusty.
The bees had done okay, ish. We escaped a couple of hundy boxes today from several sites. The dilemma is is whether I homogenise the Radish with the Pakchoi and the Phacellia as we extract and end up with several thousand litres of ...... honey laced with chemical from one dodgy site.
Our established pollination contracts know how to look after our bees. The hives looked good.
The worry is the new boys.
In one yard we worked against the clock, missing out on afternoon smoko to beat the irrigator as it cranked round the crop while the bees were in full flight.
Other yards had a couple of boxes on, but no bees. Six frames of brood ready to hatch, but nothing in the honey box.
Some guys might just say 'Hmm' , no bees ......
But after you been in the game for a few years you get too say, ' Hmmm , no bees..... why not, because I know they can do better.'
And I sort of remember a piece of poetry I read in the visitor centre at Arthurs Pass a few years ago that went along the lines of...
'You canna pick a flower and not alter a star.'
