As someone who might like to move to tassie at some point, I would be interested in the answer as well. I have been to tassie twice now, both times in winter. I imagine the bees do nit forage in the winter time there. From what i have read it seems leatherwood and manuka is about all you guys get down there, or am i misinformed?
Definitely misinformed.
Depends where you live of course and some parts are cooler than others. We are close to the coast, 15km south of Hobart CBD and othey were flying on warmer days throughout the winter. Something is usually flowering at or near the coast year-round, particularly in suburbia.
Ours have been playing on eucalypts which have been coming into flower since September and are now hitting up blackberries & prickly box and will fill the supers very shortly; once that's finished and extracted then hoping to put em on leatherwood until late March. There's also the fruit growing down the Huon Valley, the Tamar and parts of the NW which is good in the spring/early summer.
A mate of mine is based in Bothwell (altitude 350m) on the southern edge of the Central Highlands, he's getting honey off several local farm crops, including clover etc.
If up a bit higher of course then it's colder, so the seasons are shorter and winters are harsher.
I'm confident that my suburban apiary I'm hoping to set up for next spring will be very productive.
Bear in mind too that in Summer, sunrise is at 0530 and sunset is 2050. I checked ours last night at 2030 and they were still very busy, leaving as well as arriving, so potentially they're foraging and productive for 15 hours a day, especially when it's warm like at the moment.
I previously "kept" a couple of (borrowed) hives on the East Coast at Falmouth for 12 months in 1999; despite the fact that we were in continuous drought and things looked very bleak flowering-wise, we still finished up with what at the time seemed like an enormous volume of honey.
Topic: Any Tasmanian beekeepers here?? (Read 4499 times)