G'day from Oz

[SlickMick]

G'day from Oz.

SlickMick here. While all you Beeks from the lands beyond are having a well earned kip :sleep: we are working in temps in the mid to high 90s

I live in Brisbane, Queensland on the east coast of Oz south of the Great Barrier Reef and east of Uluru.

I have been keeping bees for about 15 years until the 2 hives I had were wiped out by the SHB. Didn't know a thing about the pest until then but I sure do know a lot more now.

I have since caught a couple of swarms and bought a nuc over the past 3 weeks so I am in the process of restocking and enjoying the girls once again.

I sell a bit of honey and make a bit of mead so I am really into the game for the fun of it and the interest.

Other interests include spending a lot of time in my suburban garden and playing archery.. I'm retired and married with 2 adult kids and 3 grandchildren so life is pretty full.

Hope to catch up with some of you over time.

See you around:)

[Sundance]

Welcome, and hope to hear more of beekeeping
from the land down under. Of all the places I've
wanted to visit, Australia has been at the top of
the list since I was a kid.

[SlickMick]

Thanks for the welcome, Sundance. You must be a bit of a night owl to respond to my post at this time of day/night ;)

The problem with living in large countries is that you cant manage to see everything or do anything in a month of visiting overseas. We spent 6 weeks in Canada, LA, Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon quite a few years ago and hardly touched the surface.

Still we were glad to have the time to explore what we were able to in the time we had and I am sure you would find it much the same should you ever make it here.

[Alex Cantacuzene]

Hello SlickMick and welcome to this forum. May we be helpful and entertaining! There are so many aspects to beekeeping, never a dull moment. I too am retired and enjoy all the surrounds of it. I build most of the woodwork for about four hives. They are Langstroth and are on eighteen inch high pipe stands as I also do some welding and use mostly what other people throw away. I am also experimenting with various wood joints and am fighting varroa and small hive beetles. On a quiet day alone with our bees you may find an old man talking to those nice little insects.....and they listen!.......maybe.....Take care and have fun

[Ravenseye]

Sounds like we have a lot to learn from you. Glad you're here! Looking forward to your posts.

[USCBeeMan]

Welcome SlickMate. I too have always wanted to visit your wonderful country. Doubt that I will ever be able to afford the trip but I have always yearned to visit.

Years ago I put in for a work visa to maybe move to your country to live a few years. I worked in the IT field and my wife was a nurse. To my surprise they didn't want to give me a visa, they wanted me to move to Australia and become a citizen.

Perhaps I should have done that. Or dual citizenship.

[rw3212]

As has been mentioned, your country has always been on the top of my wish list. Maybe someday. I have lived in the states all my life and not visited most of the places you mentioned here.

We will be awaiting tales of your exploits in beekeeping.

[SlickMick]

Not much to report in terms of exploits I'm afraid, I have collected 3 swarms, dont do cutouts or trapouts, in fact I'm a fairly colourless beek.

The bees are a nice interest for me.. the only interest the rest of my tribe show is that they like the honey.
I like the little bit of cash the honey brings in but the little general checks the credit card pretty closely to see where it is going ;)

At the moment I have 2 swarms in nucs and 1 commercial nuc. My original hives (2) were lost to the small hive beetle and I have been doing a bit of research into their control. I live in inner suburban Brisbane (the capital city.. population >1.2mill) which is half the way up the eastern coast of Oz. It has a subtropical climate which means we never frost and so beeking is an all year thing. There is blossom around all the year mainly from suburban tree plantings and gardens and patches of native bush but there is the usual decline over winter although the girls fly all year. Spring of course brings out things in strength (SHB too) so the introduction of the SHB has presented new year long challenges.

Pulling those hives apart and seeing the devestation the SHB had caused was alarming indeed. I had no idea of their existence as I am beeking as a loner. I know heaps more about them now after a heap of work cleaning up and starting to rebuild.

I am a member of other forums (2 archery forums 3 gardening forums and 1 other beek forum) and this keeps my interest in life going pretty strongly. I find that the forums are pretty friendly and informative places. I was in Denmark a few years ago at an archery tournament and wife and I stayed with a friend in Oslo, Norway with a colleague I had met on one of the archery forums.

The forums certainly give you a different perspective on your interests as you become in contact with people from all over the place who are dealing with issues that whilst similar to your own are often significantly different. Just seasonal differences can change the whole perspective of how people in different locations have to deal with similar issues eg how you winter your bees. I would no more do anything different for wintering than I would do for the coming of spring except take some precautions to deal with swarming or maybe split a hive. I dont have any live losses because of the cold as I am aware some of you guys have in the north of the US have. In fact I had my original hive for 15 years with the occasional requeening to deal with a hive that had gone hot .. the bloke that mows my yard was not impressed by a heap of bees chasing him down the hill.:no: So I dont have to focus on wintering or catching swarms in the spring to rebuild like you guys do, but I now do have to manage the SHB all through our year long "beautiful one day, perfect the next" sub tropical climate.

I have yet to work out how to manage the stickies after extraction as I think this was how the SHB got control over the hives.. plenty of hiding places and not enough bees to cover the frames. So I am thinking to going foundationless with starter strips and doing the crush and strain thing so that I can put empty frames back into the hives and have the bees draw what comb they need.

So there you go.. a bit more of the real me:sleep:

Thanks again for the welcome:)