Beekeeping
- Thread starter Lesgold
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Ay by gum indeed, now I gotta go an have nother spoon of uney or was was that shovel.
Mackka
Mackka
No problems Doug. See you next time you head north.
Selfish Edit by Tathradj.
See you shortly.
Selfish Edit by Tathradj.
See you shortly.
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Lucky we bought more honey today,
To keep you buggers in a job ,
Got the wild blossom honey,
Goody
To keep you buggers in a job ,
Got the wild blossom honey,
Goody
As for making candles les There is really not much to it.
The main thing if using a container is to make sure it can withstand the heat. The other important thing if using a container is using the right wick thickness. This varies with the width and depth of the container. So you do not get tunneling.
When i started i found these people the most helpful.
https://candlemaking.com.au/
Give em a call when you are ready. Others I spoke to I later realised had no idea.
I made another batch of lip balm recently but that is another ball game again. Don't know if I've mentioned it before but one batch of lip balm I palmed of to a bunch of nurses to test, they liked it but the best comment from one of them was "this is the best heel balm ever, make me more"..hahah
Got a request for about 20 candles for next weekend so i go to get moving. I use the four ounce mason jars and it does not take that long to make them once you get your rhythm up.
The main thing if using a container is to make sure it can withstand the heat. The other important thing if using a container is using the right wick thickness. This varies with the width and depth of the container. So you do not get tunneling.
When i started i found these people the most helpful.
https://candlemaking.com.au/
Give em a call when you are ready. Others I spoke to I later realised had no idea.
I made another batch of lip balm recently but that is another ball game again. Don't know if I've mentioned it before but one batch of lip balm I palmed of to a bunch of nurses to test, they liked it but the best comment from one of them was "this is the best heel balm ever, make me more"..hahah
Got a request for about 20 candles for next weekend so i go to get moving. I use the four ounce mason jars and it does not take that long to make them once you get your rhythm up.
What a crackup. Heel balm.... still laughing. Thanks for the link. Ill have a look tomorrow. Like the idea of the mason jars. Well done goody. Keep eating that honey.
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Thanks so much for this thread Lesgold. I used to go around catching Bumblebees in a jamjar when I was a kid in Ireland and when releasing them the I'd let them crawl around on my hand and pet their furry heads before they flew off. They're beautiful creatures and the Irish ones I'd catch are so much different to look at than any I've seen around the world. I'll post some pictures of them if you like. Then later in life I got stung a couple times by wasps not bees but it made me pretty wary of flying stingers all the same so much so that I'd do a Jim Carey style freakout if a bee or wasp came near me for a few years...I'm alright now though lol. I've been buying honey from an elderly chap down the road who has a few urban hives and the honey is lovely, cheap too in fairness! I've had a few good chats with him about the subject. The last decade or so I have always had the thought of beekeeping as 'something I must get around to' and this thread has been so eye opening, it's great! So thanks again :Y:
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Hi les why is imported munuka the price it is when we have our own cheers still couldnt pic the queen lol thanks for info
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Les.
Is the Queen pregnant? Or is she just a tad over weight? In the photo
How many baby's does she have in a life time?
Goody
Is the Queen pregnant? Or is she just a tad over weight? In the photo
How many baby's does she have in a life time?
Goody
Up roundabout 20,0000 bee's.
What a life,
POP, There goes another one,
POP, There goes another one,
POP, There goes another one,
POP, There goes another one,
POP, There goes another one,
Do that for a few days. :awful:
What a life,
POP, There goes another one,
POP, There goes another one,
POP, There goes another one,
POP, There goes another one,
POP, There goes another one,
Do that for a few days. :awful:
Hi diggit,
Thanks for the positive comments. Im pleased that you have enjoyed what people have posted. Would love to see some of those bee pics. Its all about learning something new. Look forward to seeing what you can put up.
Gday Campfish.
Manuka is pretty expensive but it really comes down to supply and demand. NZ got onto it pretty early. They couldnt sell the stuff years ago. Used to feed it back to the bees because no one would buy it. When they did some testing and found the medicinal properties of the honey, it took quite a few years of marketing before the product took off. To my knowledge, the leptospermum species only grows in NZ and Aus. World wide demand keeps the price high. We have tea tree (leptospermum or Manuka) in Tas, Vic and NSW that are showing the same sort of properties as our NZ counterparts. They have the jump on us in the market place and to be honest, I dont think there has been much published in the media to push our version of Manuka. NZ also has vast areas where only the Manuka scrub grows. They can therefore keep the product quite pure. We tend to have a variety of plants growing in the one area and in many cases it would be difficult to get the purity of the honey without the natural blending that the bees would normally do. Large areas of Jelly bush occur on the north coast of NSW and I believe that some apiarists are getting into that.
Hi goody,
The queen bee needs to keep in good nick as all she does is lay eggs. She is constantly fed a rich diet due to the number off eggs she needs to produce every day. Tathradj was on the right track but in reality she can lay over 1000 eggs per day during the spring and summer months. As the life expectancy of a worker bee is only about 6 weeks during the honey season, large numbers of bees need to be born every day to replace the ones that die.
Cheers everyone
Les
Thanks for the positive comments. Im pleased that you have enjoyed what people have posted. Would love to see some of those bee pics. Its all about learning something new. Look forward to seeing what you can put up.
Gday Campfish.
Manuka is pretty expensive but it really comes down to supply and demand. NZ got onto it pretty early. They couldnt sell the stuff years ago. Used to feed it back to the bees because no one would buy it. When they did some testing and found the medicinal properties of the honey, it took quite a few years of marketing before the product took off. To my knowledge, the leptospermum species only grows in NZ and Aus. World wide demand keeps the price high. We have tea tree (leptospermum or Manuka) in Tas, Vic and NSW that are showing the same sort of properties as our NZ counterparts. They have the jump on us in the market place and to be honest, I dont think there has been much published in the media to push our version of Manuka. NZ also has vast areas where only the Manuka scrub grows. They can therefore keep the product quite pure. We tend to have a variety of plants growing in the one area and in many cases it would be difficult to get the purity of the honey without the natural blending that the bees would normally do. Large areas of Jelly bush occur on the north coast of NSW and I believe that some apiarists are getting into that.
Hi goody,
The queen bee needs to keep in good nick as all she does is lay eggs. She is constantly fed a rich diet due to the number off eggs she needs to produce every day. Tathradj was on the right track but in reality she can lay over 1000 eggs per day during the spring and summer months. As the life expectancy of a worker bee is only about 6 weeks during the honey season, large numbers of bees need to be born every day to replace the ones that die.
Cheers everyone
Les
Hi Folks,
Decided to check the progress of the comb rounds that I was experimenting with. Unfortunately, this particular hive had swarmed a couple of weeks ago and bee numbers were down. This combined with the dry conditions meant that the nectar wasnt coming in as quickly as I would have liked. The rounds were a bit on the skinny side but most of them were just about fully formed.
A bit of a closer look at one of the lower rounds shows that the bees are just starting to cap this piece.
So far the experiment seems to be working well. I will take them out in a week or so for testing purposes.
Cheers for now.
Les
Decided to check the progress of the comb rounds that I was experimenting with. Unfortunately, this particular hive had swarmed a couple of weeks ago and bee numbers were down. This combined with the dry conditions meant that the nectar wasnt coming in as quickly as I would have liked. The rounds were a bit on the skinny side but most of them were just about fully formed.
A bit of a closer look at one of the lower rounds shows that the bees are just starting to cap this piece.
So far the experiment seems to be working well. I will take them out in a week or so for testing purposes.
Cheers for now.
Les
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Hi Les, I'd say that experiment is going very well! They look great!
I suggested making candles when I saw your foundation making process, because I had these candles in mind, which I believe would be quite simple when you have that process already set up so well...
They're great candles that purify the air when burning. They're great for people with allergies.
And I bought some beeswax heel balm for my brother who had really badly cracked heels. It healed them in a week! It was like magic! Good stuff!
Cheers,
Meg
I suggested making candles when I saw your foundation making process, because I had these candles in mind, which I believe would be quite simple when you have that process already set up so well...
They're great candles that purify the air when burning. They're great for people with allergies.
And I bought some beeswax heel balm for my brother who had really badly cracked heels. It healed them in a week! It was like magic! Good stuff!
Cheers,
Meg
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Here are some of the furry Bumblebees and the honeybee that you get in Ireland/UK and I'm sure plenty of other places too..
Credit to copyright holders!
We'd call these 'Suggies', pronounce Shuggies as in Sugar. (Bombus pascuorum, Colin Stanley, Galway 18/09/2013)
As kids we called these 'Red Ar$es'
Ireland has 20 species of bumblebees and they are our most abundant and widespread wild pollinator with 4 out of every 5 wild bees being a bumblebee.
More info here: http://www.biodiversityireland.ie/r...bumblebee-monitoring-scheme/about-bumblebees/
[video=480,360]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q_kdk00sFk[/video]
The Irish HoneyBee, however is separate to the Bumblebee and is much the same as its Australian cousin...at least to the untrained eye....mine!
Credit to copyright holders!
As kids we called these 'Red Ar$es'
Ireland has 20 species of bumblebees and they are our most abundant and widespread wild pollinator with 4 out of every 5 wild bees being a bumblebee.
More info here: http://www.biodiversityireland.ie/r...bumblebee-monitoring-scheme/about-bumblebees/
[video=480,360]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q_kdk00sFk[/video]
The Irish HoneyBee, however is separate to the Bumblebee and is much the same as its Australian cousin...at least to the untrained eye....mine!
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They look so cute
Goody
Goody
Hi Meg,
Those foundation candles look awesome. Looks like you are trying to make work for me. lol. Really like the design and presentation of them. I reckon the coach could get into those. Thanks so much for that. My artistic/ creative abilities would be best described as developing. (This is a politically correct term that we use in the teaching field to describe someone who is an absolute struggler in a particular area.)
Amazing looking critters there diggit. Its interesting how that queen bee built up her body temperature. Looks like it is quite an efficient method as well. Its all about conservation of energy. Bees in a hive use a similar method to maintain the hive temperature at around 35 degrees all year round. Pretty special little critters. Its so important to have a variety of insects to act as pollinators in the wild. Apis mellifera (the common honey bee) is under a lot of pressure world wide and as numbers continue to drop in Europe and America, the consequences for crop pollination are becoming quite serious. Thanks for that info diggit. Really enjoyed listening to the man in the clip.
Those foundation candles look awesome. Looks like you are trying to make work for me. lol. Really like the design and presentation of them. I reckon the coach could get into those. Thanks so much for that. My artistic/ creative abilities would be best described as developing. (This is a politically correct term that we use in the teaching field to describe someone who is an absolute struggler in a particular area.)
Amazing looking critters there diggit. Its interesting how that queen bee built up her body temperature. Looks like it is quite an efficient method as well. Its all about conservation of energy. Bees in a hive use a similar method to maintain the hive temperature at around 35 degrees all year round. Pretty special little critters. Its so important to have a variety of insects to act as pollinators in the wild. Apis mellifera (the common honey bee) is under a lot of pressure world wide and as numbers continue to drop in Europe and America, the consequences for crop pollination are becoming quite serious. Thanks for that info diggit. Really enjoyed listening to the man in the clip.
Hi Folks,
Well it was time to check on a couple of splits that I made about a month ago. A box of bees with brood, eggs, food and bees was taken from a number of hives to knock back bee numbers and also to reduce the chances of swarming. The new box of bees would quickly realise that they are queenless and would try to raise a queen from one of the eggs or young larvae in the new box. Today was the day to check to see if there was in fact a new queen. There is always a risk that the hive did not get things right or the young queen that was raised, may have been eaten or killed during her mating flights. When the box was opened the first thing that was obvious was the build up of burr comb on the hive mat.
This is a good sign that there is a lack of space and the hive needs more room to expand. After lifting the hive mat, it was obvious that there was a lot of bees in the box.
There was a good covering of bees on every frame. Looking down through the frames, honey could be seen. The open and sealed brood which was added at the time of the split had all hatched. An extra box will be added to this hive tomorrow. Sheets of foundation will give these bees plenty of work to do and make the space that they need. The next job was to see if the hive had a laying queen. I rarely look for a queen unless I have to. They can be good at hiding and you can have the hive open for quite a while trying to find her. I generally look for eggs or young brood. After looking through four frames with no obvious signs of a laying queen, the fifth frame provided the information that I was looking for.
If you look closely you may be able to see the small elongated white eggs at the bottom of a number of cells. Thats all the information that was required. A queen had started laying which meant that there was no point in continuing any further. The hive was closed up and a tick of approval could be placed against this box. Checked the next split but did not find a queen or any sign off eggs. Ill get some photos and explain how Ill react to this situation. Anyway, time to start cooking dinner.
Cheers for now
Les
Well it was time to check on a couple of splits that I made about a month ago. A box of bees with brood, eggs, food and bees was taken from a number of hives to knock back bee numbers and also to reduce the chances of swarming. The new box of bees would quickly realise that they are queenless and would try to raise a queen from one of the eggs or young larvae in the new box. Today was the day to check to see if there was in fact a new queen. There is always a risk that the hive did not get things right or the young queen that was raised, may have been eaten or killed during her mating flights. When the box was opened the first thing that was obvious was the build up of burr comb on the hive mat.
This is a good sign that there is a lack of space and the hive needs more room to expand. After lifting the hive mat, it was obvious that there was a lot of bees in the box.
There was a good covering of bees on every frame. Looking down through the frames, honey could be seen. The open and sealed brood which was added at the time of the split had all hatched. An extra box will be added to this hive tomorrow. Sheets of foundation will give these bees plenty of work to do and make the space that they need. The next job was to see if the hive had a laying queen. I rarely look for a queen unless I have to. They can be good at hiding and you can have the hive open for quite a while trying to find her. I generally look for eggs or young brood. After looking through four frames with no obvious signs of a laying queen, the fifth frame provided the information that I was looking for.
If you look closely you may be able to see the small elongated white eggs at the bottom of a number of cells. Thats all the information that was required. A queen had started laying which meant that there was no point in continuing any further. The hive was closed up and a tick of approval could be placed against this box. Checked the next split but did not find a queen or any sign off eggs. Ill get some photos and explain how Ill react to this situation. Anyway, time to start cooking dinner.
Cheers for now
Les
Oh mate, that last photo is a story on its own. Fascinating.
Mackka
Mackka
Its a beauty hey Mackka. My daughter took it with her phone while I was holding the frame. Just noticed another interesting bit in that photo. If you look closely at the eggs close to the bee, you will see that they are standing on their end. This means that the queen only just popped them there. After a short period of time, they will lay down in the bottom of the cell, hatch in two or three days and then they will be fed and GROW.
Les, I have said it before and I will say it again, this story just keeps getting better every day. Honestly, I get home from work , open my iPad just to see if you have written something and the bonus photos.
Well , I love it.
Thanks and Regards
Mackka :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:
Well , I love it.
Thanks and Regards
Mackka :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap: :clap:
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