Sailabee

Planted a hedge of it, because I went on a garden tour where one was covered in bees, and bees love it - excellent feed in spring. Very easy to propagate from a cutting. Best cut back yearly to ensue it forms a dense bush and doesn't get straggly.

That will work far better where Goran is, because the varroa mite has been there for many years longer than in NZ, so they have developed bees with better VSH to enable them to cope.

It is an utter frustration when hobbyist newbees read this sort of stuff, try it, and when it turns to custard, it becomes everyone else's problem to solve, while carefully avoiding stating that the main hives in NZ are Langstroth for many reasons of practically, so as not to criticise the OP.

Please don't try to get up to a greater number of colonies too quickly, finding the time, and keeping too many is often the thing that slows people down in learning the basics.

A couple of years ago, out West Auck there was a plague of abandoned hives - the beek disappeared back to country of origin, so NZ mobile phone number NBG. Many had AFB.

I sincerely hope this is just a hypothetical situation, but it does beg the question as to why so many with honey for Africa already in the shed are still increasing hive numbers. The yield/hive will continue to drop until such time as the hive numbers halve nationally, which in itself would in the longer view reduce the financial pressure on those without a corporate board to gouge shareholders for more money. Finding a short term way to manage fewer hives would be a lot more tenable I would think. The price/hive has very little to do with the solving of the problem, because the alternative

One of my granddaughters went into anaphylaxis with mango - had no idea that could be a trigger - my daughter was choosing between fire station and ER Dept as to which was closest - lucky she is in central Auck.

I think that if the OP bought an Epipen, and unexpectedly a fellow worker needed it, could be a right lil earner.

Having spent more time than most involved in the manufacturing sector, I see it the opposite way. I think the insane regulations for honey extraction and packing has racked up the overheads so that hive to jar operations are few and far between, so two new levels have developed - extraction and marketing so there is are now three segments of the pie, each trying to make a profit, and carry two extra levels of overheads and outgoings. The corporates are a whole different load of stupidity, unprofitable, but seriously impacting everyone, from the hobbyists up.

As a hobbyist, I would think a more important question to consider is - do you have a LOT of spare time - particularly spring/summer? Every year people start with one or two hives, and then 'get too busy' to keep up with gear and workload, so their hives have many swarms, and failing colonies.

Bet Watson is still laughing, and spending!

I also made mine with a wooden 5 frame nuc box on the bottom, single frame on top, which if only needed for 3 or 4 hours, made a mesh base which fitted inside the underside of the base, I only needed to take top of it. Has a queen excluder between top and box on bottom usually. I put blue tack under the ends of the frame on top to help stop it slopping in transit, and small pieces of wood either side of the bottom of top frame - same reason - originally used poly styrene, and the bees found sodding beads for several years after I switched to wooden ones - which every child told me about - give

With those extractors that have a bearing under the main spindle, when the extractor is new, take one bearing to the likes of Saeco, and for about a dollar, you can buy a matching spare, as often people forget the bearing is there, and when cleaning up after use, pour it away with the wash water.

There are specialist places that will turn harder plastic which last better than nylon as they are a harder synthetic. I got pintle mountings for a boat to hang the rudder through made.

I think that overall most swarms are collected by those who started as hobbyist beeks as we are the ones contacted - often though bee groups about local swarms, so we have all developed systems to make it easier - whereas for commercials only catch their own swarms, so can immediately load into own gear without quarantining. I use large styrene bins with mesh panels for ventilation - they are light and large enough to fit around pretty much every swarm - providing they are within reach. I use the usual 10 litre inverted water bottle with bottom cut off on extendable pole for those too high.