Burnsy's Bees

Burnsy · **Posted:** Thu Dec 12, 2013 12:07 am

Wow, I thought I had a thread here. Best create one.

Been a crappy season here surprisingly. Pulled the top box off a hive four weeks ago after the marri finished flowering expecting around 15kg based on last year and di not even get one frame. Seems the late wet really messed with the hive.

Swarming is late as well, been fielding calls for the last week whereas it is often September. Just got home from picking up a swarm from a backyard in Roleystone, would be lucky if it is a cup of bees. Could not see the queen so may not be one, maybe a larger swarm that got split by the easterlies or something :dunno:

Will have to have a better look for the queen tomorrow and then incorporate into another hive if there is no queen. If there is one they will need a frame of brood and plenty of feeding to survive.

Will check the topbar hive in the coming week and see if that has any golden bounty for the taking.........onto our last jar of honey :ahhh:

rmcpb · **Posted:** Thu Dec 12, 2013 3:15 pm

Have those flowering gums over there done their thing yet. I would have thought each flower would be worth a bucket of honey.

Seriously though, we have had a rough start to the season over here as well. The hot, dry spring really stopped the flow and its just starting again now. Going to be a hard year maybe.

Burnsy · **Posted:** Thu Dec 12, 2013 6:17 pm

Marri which is usually a big producer flowered but there was a lot of wet weather so that may have reduced foraging. Some of the river and lemon scented gums are just starting now and so are the melaleucas so we might get a late harvest in a few weeks.

Peasants · **Posted:** Mon Dec 30, 2013 10:06 pm

Fingers crossed!

Burnsy · **Posted:** Sat May 17, 2014 10:00 pm

Big rearrange of the garden at home prompted me to transfer my Topbar colony into a Lanstroth hive so I can shut it up and move it. Luckily when I designed the topar hive I did so with this possibility in mind so the bars were designed to fit in a Lang box. All that was involved was cutting the bottom off each topbar comb. Over time I will swap out the topbars for normal lang frames.

Empty Topbar

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New Hive

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The aftermath waiting the bees to clean it all up.

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Burnsy · **Posted:** Sat May 17, 2014 10:07 pm

All this reaped some honey during the comb cull so I also took the chance to take some photos of my honey strainer as I promised someone a year or so ago :duck:

Overall - two 20 litre buckets, the top one has holes (around 8mm drilled in the bottom to correspond with the strainer fitted to the lid of the bottom one. The bottom bucket has a plastic honey gate fitted.

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Comb with capped honey put in top bucket and cut up / crushed with kitchen knife. Honey drains through holes into secondary strainer in bottom bucket lid.

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Bottom bucket lid has a stainless kitchen strainer fitted into it. This is the only straining I do, after this it is bottled direct from the gate.

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Peasants · **Posted:** Sun May 18, 2014 10:17 am

Looks great- we use the same straining method but use a nylex bag in a larger hole, with the same sized hole in the top bucket.
Hope the bees are happy!!

Burnsy · **Posted:** Tue Sep 02, 2014 11:49 pm

Collected my first swarm of the season today at work - what a bonus. It was a big one too. Wore a chest camera so will post up vid of it once the owner of the camera sorts it out.

arbe · **Posted:** Mon Sep 08, 2014 1:01 am

Would love to see the vid when you put it up.

I'm hoping to get a couple of bee hives but I need to wait for the tube stock I have planted to get established. Fingers crossed.

red beard · **Posted:** Sun Sep 14, 2014 12:23 pm

You two are just showing off :swear:

I wish I could keep bee's

katmac · **Posted:** Wed Sep 24, 2014 5:53 pm

Thanks to this and the Peasants' thread, I've just emailed my council to see if I'm allowed to have a hive at home

Peasants · **Posted:** Mon Jan 05, 2015 5:30 pm

katmac did you find out if you could have bees?

Burnsy, we are thinking of getting a topbar hive- we recently caught a swarm and put them in a box, which they have filled!! We are interested in the fact that you made yours so the frames would also fit in the Langstroth...do you have a design or any feedback on the two hive types?

katmac · **Posted:** Fri Jan 09, 2015 2:26 pm

Yep unforuntely the response was "No, unless you fit all the exemption criteria - which includes having the hive/s at least 10m away from: fences, footpaths, dwellings, roads etc etc."
So no matter where on our suburban property we put it we would be breaking the rules.

I also worked out a few months ago that our neighbours have put a pool RIGHT next to our boundary fence (hope it's reinforced adequately) so I'm sure their kids wouldn't enjoy a few thousand thirsty bees joining them for a dip. Although I'd hope that the bees would stop at our unchlorinated open pond first...

At least we have a few visiting the newly opened sunflowers now

Also Burnsy I just saw your message so I'll give you a buzz after work - thanks!

Perpetuitas · **Posted:** Thu Jan 29, 2015 9:53 am

I had bees myself back in 2005 when I was still in school.

There are so fascinating to watch and work with!

Well, but how do you cope with the heat an any protection you use against stings?

arbe · **Posted:** Sat Feb 07, 2015 5:44 pm

@katmac. Could you put the hive on the roof? Lol

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Burnsy's Bees

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Burnsy's Bees

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