A Walk in the Park
A walk in the Park lead us to Our First Bees
At Christmas 2004 here in Melbourne, we were walking with some friends through a park in Templestowe and noticed several feral bee nests along the Yarrah river bankment, some in tree hollows, some in bird or possum boxes. We watched them for a while and continued our walk, no further thoughts about them.
A few weeks later a work colleague invited us to his house. During this visit we became aware of the beehives in his backyard. The bees became the discussion topic for the rest of the day; one lead to the other and mixed up with childhood memories, I decided to take up beekeeping as a hobby.
I remembered the bees in the park and a week later we picked up a bird nest box with feral bees from there; they became the first bee colony of my apiary.
They became Our first bees
Our first bees in a bird nest box
Our first bees after transfer from bird nest box into a hive.
Two decades of Beekeeping
With the growing number of beehives we also secured access to multiple blocks of land where we could keep our hives, some only temporary for the duration of the flowering season, some others to keep permanently.
Over the years we had "good seasons" and "bad seasons", measured in amount of surplus honey our bees were able to share with us.
Looking back on 18 years of beekeeping my observation is that the trend is on the way down. Gum trees (Eucalyptus) used to have consistently regular flower times and the flowers produced plenty of nectar. For the last decade or so it can be observed that the trees are flowering out of season, if they flower at all, and when they flower and it is too cold to produce nectar. The conclusion is that nature's time table is mixed up - in my mind this is one aspect of Climate Change.
Our Bees in Yea foraging on River Red Gum
Our Bees in Heathcote foraging on Graybox Gum
Hive inspection in Belgrave South
Dietmar the Beekeeper
Beekeeper Dietmar (Mark)