I visited my second apiary today but forget to take the camera, which was disappointing because there were a few photos I would have liked to have taken.Before I even opened hive three I knew I was in for some back breaking work. Just tapping on the hive mat (the ceiling) told be it was well sealed and full of honey. Hive one was the same.
The population in hive three seems to be down and it was completely broodless, which is very odd. They have plenty of honey (or had...) and there was also a reasonable amount of pollen in the brood chamber. Even though most of the space was taken up by honey there were still a few frames with mostly empty cells. The weather has been very mixed but the bees have obviously been getting out as evidenced by the amount of stores they have. I sighted the queen and she looked very healthy and large enough to be laying. I removed a full super of honey, including a couple of fully capped frames from the brood chamber, and filled the gaps with some drawn comb. I'll have to pay them another visit in a few weeks and see if the queen has started laying yet.
Hive one was boiling over with bees. I took a three quarter depth super off them and gave them an empty, but drawn, full depth super. They were also broodless, I didn't sight the queen so it could be that the queen in hive three is failing and the queen in hive one is dead but it seems very coincidental that both queens would stop laying at the same time.
As far as food sources go, I know we have the following natives in the foraging area and they will be flowering now, or have just stopped flowering
There are also hundreds of eucalyptus trees that the land owner has planted for firewood.
I'm wondering if the queens have stopped laying because there has been a sudden drop off in available food. October, November and December are the main flowering times for New Zealand natives and we're now entering fruiting time, which is not much help to the bees. Both the queens are at the end of their second season so its probably time to replace them anyway.
The supers I took off weigh 39.1Kg (for the full depth) and 27.2Kg for the ¾ depth, which is about right for 10 fully drawn and capped frames. About a third of this weight is the wood and plastic frame and another third for the wax leaving about one third honey. If this estimation is correct I should have about 25-30Kg of honey after extraction.
There is definitely some manuka or eucalyptus honey in this batch. I haven't tasted it yet but the photo on the right shows what I'm used to seeing, very white wax cappings. The photo to the left shows what several of the frames in the ¾ height super look like, very dark and not white at all. There are ridges running along the surface, instead of the mostly smooth surface of 'multi-flora' honey. It will be interesting to compare the flavors once I've extracted it, if I can extract it. Manuka honey is difficult to extract and used to be an unwanted crop, not many years ago, but now, with the discovery of 'active' manuka honey it is a significant earner for some bee keepers.
I've also heard that the queen I sent north has arrived and seems to be in good condition, despite being in the national mail system for the better part of 5 days.
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