G'day from Jabba in Australia

[Jabba]

Hi everyone, I'm a noob beekeeper! I live in Melbourne, Australia and I have just been given a hive from a family friend.

We moved into our current home a year or two ago and have been building up our veggie gardens.  We have been slowly replacing the succulents and other weird and wonderful non-flowering plants with bee-friendly flowers or useful herbs and veggies.  The next logical move was to get bees involved to help pollinate and increase their production.  A local guy in our area was asking for people to host hives (he was a new beekeeper looking to get a bunch of hives out).  This seemed like a great idea, he would look after the hive and give us a harvest of honey every now and then, we would get all those lovely bees doing there thing in our garden.  Unfortunately he may have bitten off more than he can chew as he was pretty lax in checking the hive.  We noticed some reduction in bee numbers and asked him to come and check, but he never seemed to have time and we had no gear or knowledge to have a peek :(  Anyway long story short, he neglected the hive and it died off so we returned it.

After that we were a little reluctant to get another hive from him and we decided to have a go at our own.  My wife has an old family friend who is a beekeeper and has 100 or so hives that he has scattered over the place, so he gave us one of his mystery hives (I think has was scaling down or something).  It's currently just one deep with 9 frames (10 was too tight a fit).  It is an old one that has plenty of "character" so it is a bit uneven and full of gaps, but it's ours :)

So here I am looking to learn how to look after this hive by myself and eventually expand it or get another.

[jayj200]

one week to 10 days just to see every thing is good.

ya'll don't have AHB,s over yonder do you?

[Jow4040]

Hi jabber,

I'm new to beekeeping and from Melbourne as well.  If my first few weeks are anything to go by it is a very addictive hobby.

Probably if you already have one box full of brood you will want to get another box to go on top to start building the colony up in strength as this is the time of year that things are going gangbusters and they might swarm if they feel cramped.

If you are after a good book 'the practical bee keeper' by one of the members here, Michael Bush is a great inspiring read that has helped answer a lot of my questions, but if you have a family friend to ask questions and do some hands on learning that might be better.

http://www.bushfarms.com/xstar.htm#The Practical Beekeeperhttp://www.bushfarms.com/xstar.htm#The Practical Beekeeper

Good luck!

Joe.

[Jabba]

one week to 10 days just to see every thing is good.

ya'll don't have AHB,s over yonder do you?

sorry I don't know what AHBs are.

Hi jabber,

I'm new to beekeeping and from Melbourne as well.  If my first few weeks are anything to go by it is a very addictive hobby.

Probably if you already have one box full of brood you will want to get another box to go on top to start building the colony up in strength as this is the time of year that things are going gangbusters and they might swarm if they feel cramped.

If you are after a good book 'the practical bee keeper' by one of the members here, Michael Bush is a great inspiring read that has helped answer a lot of my questions, but if you have a family friend to ask questions and do some hands on learning that might be better.

Good luck!

Joe.

Small world Joe, where about in Melb roughly?  It is really addicting.  I have been up late every night reading all the books I could get my hands on from the local libraries.  The friend lives a fair distance from us, so getting him over to help is a bit of a task.  I did my first check of the hive today by myself and was great!

I think they might be close to swarming.  I found what i think are 2 queen cells being made.  all the frames are being used and the outside frames have a fair amount of honey/nectar in them.  I wasn't able to find the queen, but I'm a noob so I probably missed her.  I could see larvae being capped, so I assume she is in there somewhere.

[Jow4040]

Hi Jabba, I'm in the inner north.

If you can see queen cells, now would be the time to do something about it.

I'm no expert, far from it but you might want to invest in another box to make a split or expand the existing hive. There are many methods to prevent a swarm and I am sure someone more experienced will chip in and give you some good advice about how to go about it.

[jayj200]

Americanized Honey Bees

[Jabba]

Hi Jabba, I'm in the inner north.

If you can see queen cells, now would be the time to do something about it.

I'm no expert, far from it but you might want to invest in another box to make a split or expand the existing hive. There are many methods to prevent a swarm and I am sure someone more experienced will chip in and give you some good advice about how to go about it.

Yeah I need to get on top of it. It was a bit too warm today and I'm still waiting for some kit to arrive. Looking at some Nuplas plastic hives to expand or move over too.

Americanized Honey Bees

Never heard of them. I've heard of africanised honey bees, but either way I don't think they are a problem down under.

[mikebrg]

welcome Jabba

sounds like your on the run straight up ! good Luck

[jayj200]

as I came back to this topic I got a good chuckle African is what I typed try adding ized to them. the bloody spellchecker changes it

[Lone]

G'day Jabba,

AHB stands for Asian Honeybee here, which we do have, but I don't think they'll be in Melbourne for a long time (except perhaps Little Bourke St).

Have fun with your bees.

Leonie

[awootton]

So here I am looking to learn how to look after this hive by myself and eventually expand it or get another.

Hi Jabba, are you interested in swarms/cutouts?  I'm in Melbourne Northern Suburbs and currently being bombarded with calls and need a few contacts to pass enquiries on to.  Why don't you PM me your email or mobile no.  Cheers, Andrew

[Jabba]

as I came back to this topic I got a good chuckle African is what I typed try adding ized to them. the bloody spellchecker changes it

Lol! I had trouble getting my phone to accept Africanised.

So here I am looking to learn how to look after this hive by myself and eventually expand it or get another.

Hi Jabba, are you interested in swarms/cutouts?  I'm in Melbourne Northern Suburbs and currently being bombarded with calls and need a few contacts to pass enquiries on to.  Why don't you PM me your email or mobile no.  Cheers, Andrew

Not sure I'm quite ready for collecting swarms just yet!

It seems that my hive has lost its queen, so I am looking at ways to get a new queen quickly. Might try and introduce a nuc...