Newcastle to Sydney route

From Circular Quay took the ferry to Manly. Rode north via Narabeen to Palm Beach. Tiny ferry across

Pittwater to Patonga, then rode up the hill across to Umina Beach, Woy Woy then some busier roads to

Terrigal. From here I had a very pleasant ride north via The Entrance, Budgewoi, crossed the Pacific

Highway then through Freemans Waterholes to the Hunter Valley.

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Spring Beekeeping. Queen Exluders.

It looks like Blogger has combined all my blogs, so reading about bees and bikes ... Anyway! My Merewether bees have ramped up their collective presence these past weeks. There has been a feaux swarm and a bit of aggro. So after a few "emergency" calls from my sister I needed to get to the bottom of it. Adding Supers is a stock response to the Spring Expansion. The bees, like the flowers are growing and being more productive and need space to store nectar. So steps one and two, were to add supers and extract honey. This was for all for hives. But this didn't solve the crowding issue and there was still some major bearding of #2. So, I read up on Queen Exluders. Truthfully, i cannot recall exactly why i twigged to this, I guess it was just intuition? Once I'd read how some Bee'k's refer to then as Honey Excluders and how Workers are reluctant to pass through them and tend to ashore too much honey in the Brood Chamber, my mind was made up to REMOVE

More Spring Bee Lessons

Well my bees beat me up these last two weeks. To be fair though it was mostly my fault. So, I started with radix hives; two at coastal Merewether and two on my property near Paterson. Obviously the Merewether hives produced through winter and with a bit of an up-change in the weather they needed space for brood and honey. This caught me out (Lesson 1: don't procrastinate or aim to do the least amount of work. In other words don't be lazy.) I then had to rush around buying and assembling frames. Penders Bees reported that from their orders it's a bumper season. But I really need to not be so unprepared again. Adding Supers and extracting helped create space, but I'll be extracting again very soon with my spanking new machine. Unfortunately in hive #4 the Queen spent the winter above the Excluder and it really knocked them about. Removing the Excluder (which was a third full of dead Drones) got them working ok again. An emergent issue was the prevalenceI of cr

Spring Bee Status 5/10/2021

Image dated 3/10/2021. MEREWETHER 5/10/2021 #1 High population. 2xDs +"new D. Robbed 3xFs. Needs Splitting. #2 1×D + 2x Is. Robbed 3Fs. #3 2xDs. Took Excluder. #4 2xDs + 1xI. Excluder had locked Q in higher box. Dead drones ++lower D empty. Swarmed today, used D to become #7 . #7 1×D new 8Oct (ex #4) MARTINS CREEK #5 2×Ds. 3/4 × honey stored. Ex removed. #6 2×Ds. Full, Robbed 1Fs only. Swarmed earlier but returned during Inspection. Q piping. #8 1×D @5/10. Ex #5. Work Ahead Merewether #1 & #2 Split Martins Creek #6 Split. Build - 3xIs - 3xB/Bs - 3xLs

Novice Beekeeper

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