It's close to November and it's the time of year when there can be a dearth of nectar before the flow starts. The bees have built up strongly and they are using all the nectar they can get to feed themselves. Our Horsham Downs, Glen Massey and Marokopa apiaries are low on stores, so we are watching them carefully.
Tasks over the last two months have been collecting bee pollen (many different plants are now flowering), feeding hives where necessary, splitting hives, adding new queen cells and checking for disease. All hives are now at site.
Very exciting to see the Heketara (NZ's native tree daisy) flowering strongly this year and we hope to collect a spring crop from it at Marokopa. We have had only one crop of Heketara in the past 5 years and everyone loved the toffee taste. Look out for it, its a medium size tree with masses of white flowers (like a daisy) and sawtooth leaves.
We have our bees on a new coastal site at Kawhia and they are close to lupins - what an amazing orange red pollen the bees have been collecting. They are nestled in a sunny shallow valley, out of the wind(!), and the bees are going for it. We are looking forward to trying the honey from this site.In the next month we will complete more hive splits and start adding supers (honey boxes) to the hives for honey collection.
