kaihoka

Maybe I should plant some . Things that are weeds other places just grow normally here .

Sounds like massive over capitalization to me .

could it be weigela ?

The manuka is flowering better here than I have seen it for yrs. But I have not heard if the bees have been collecting it . I have heard that it is pretty fussy about the conditions its nectar flows in .

That is true , its still a drug but not recreational . Its really the extent of monocultures that I find offensive . But I suppose acres of clover could be called a mono culture . I am old enough to remember the mixed plantings of trees and crops and livestock in blenhiem and nelson area. Conversations of the forum suggest changes in land use to convenient monocultural pasture has affected hive forage. Probably restricted variety of pollen sources too. I wonder if urban hives have a better diet .

In tasman all the berries and black currants have been ripped out for hops. And a whole lot of fruit trees in waihope valley are being ripped out for a cannabis opperation. As if the world needs more drugs and less food .!!

Another convenient swarm in pastoral hives. What do you do with swarms on the coast , leave them in the top of the rata trees .?

That would certainly be an acceptable blend . Sounds very nice .

Do you still do a run of just vipers buglosses ?

Do you mean honey ruined by blending ?

I had two dry springs and sucessfull matings after lots of crappy springs and crappy matings. So I chanced it again this spring , big fail . Queens took ages to mate , one ended up a drone layer , one disappeared and ended up with laying workers . Also migrants who bring good drones came late . So I am making my queens in feb when migrants still here and there is a bit of a flow so my nucs are not robbed .

The weather has turned nice and the bees are spoilt for choice of forage . Its a shame my hives are weak . I took the queen excluder out of two of my hives. In one they were not moving up and in the other the queen was on the outer frame looking to lay . There are lots of frames full of partially caped and uncapped honey so she is not going to lay in them anyway. My new import queen is laying nicely , really showing up the badly mated queen in adjacent hive. One of my weak hives I reduced to a single box and stored the other box above the cover board , under the

This yr has exposed how much wealth is in NZ that normally gets spent overseas. The art market is going gangbusters. The social inequality in NZ is not ripping apart society currently but I do wonder what it will be like in 20 yrs if things continue to change at the same rate.

In the old days most of the beeks I knew had other income in the off season or as well as . Possuming , goldmining, deer culling , dope growing , other horticultural work . Unless they were doing pollination no one seemed to make all their living from honey .

I know people who have sold up in nelson area and moved to the coast and ended up with no mortage and money in the bank . But houses you could buy for $250,000 three yrs ago are $400,000 now .