Mid Summer Bee Report

Since the festive season, when we had a burst of cold weather and 50ml of wonderful rain at Christmas followed by another 10ml around New Yea's Eve, the weather has returned to a dry pattern. The honey flow has continued, steady rather than heavy. Yesterday I took a box of honey from each of the two hives at 'Sunset' and one in our yard. A week ago I did the same, a few boxes from the bees in our yard on the Saturday before the cool change which unfortunately brought no rain to speak of.
I'm unsure of the floral source of the honey. I thought by now it would be messmate as there's plenty of messmate blossom on the trees, although probably the big trees haven't really broken yet. Messmate honey is dark and strong, like molassis, but this honey is mild, clear/medium amber in colour, and dense. Superp honey, as people I'm giving it to are saying. Over the past month or so when the bees gathered it, there's been blackberry flowering, clover, the rain extending the flowering period of both these, mint bush, which the bees worked heavily and is finishing flowering now, and I'm speculating, some white stringybark.
Why am I speculating? I have no way of finding out for sure. That's the thing about beekeeping, you are always wondering what's happening and there's always some mystery or other. I noticed the bees flying high to the east in a similar flight path to that of October when they were working the silvertop. I checked my honey flora book, 'Honey Flora of Victoria' and it seems that white stringbark grows around here and I think I recall seeing a stand on the Kurth Kiln Rd. But a big clue is that the book says that it often grows with silvertop, and that the honey is paler than other stringybarks with the same tendency to froth, and of good flavour and density. As I was uncapping combs last week I noticed a huge number of tiny air bubbles in the honey after the knife had passed over it and also as I filled the bucket at the bottom of the extractor, the amount air bubbles was extraordinary, consistent with 'frothing' mentioned in the book. I tried to ring Dennis Beale who worked in the forests diving log trucks for many years to ask if there's white stingybark growing with the silvertop to the east of the town within bee flight range of our place, but he's not answering his phone and may be away. (Dennis knows his trees and once worked helping a beekeeper in south east South Australia where he came from originally. He came to Gembrook many years ago on deer hunting expeditions with a group that teamed up with local deerhunters and he married one's sister. He goes back to S.A. every year where he has crayfish licence. I'm hoping a good size billy of honey might be a good trade for a couple of lobsters as it was a few years ago)
So it has been a bumper honey crop so far. I think there's about another 110 kg's in the tanks from the last two Saturday's exertions which would make a running total of 340kg. and there's still honey on them, I'm just trying to keep up enough to give each hive a little storage space. I'm tired of it now, tired of getting sticky and cleaning up. Yesterday the bees gave me a bit of a hiding. I have to admit, I had a hangover* so it was my own fault. I was clumsy and dropping things and the hive that swarmed in spring, now built up strong and honey bound, made no allowance for my condition. I had a short sleeved shirt with wide sleeve holes and I lost control of the bees for about ten seconds and they attacked me up the sleeves on the soft underside of the upper arms. They could probably smell the grog coming out of me. "Take that, you pisshead", they probably said. When I went back to put the empty combs back on them an hour or so later they were stinging mad and waiting for me. Man o man, hell hath no fury like a beehive roughly treated. It does bring you back to earth, and it serves me right.
The messmate could well yield yet, peak flowering is yet to come. And there could be honey to follow from manna gum and mountain grey gum or even the mountain ash in Gembrook Park. Who knows?
Winter never looked as appealing as it does to me now. I must get the wood split.

* We went out on Friday night to an Indian restaurant in Beaconsfield. It was a farewell dinner for one of the nurses at Lib's work. I was so tired at the end of the week and drank too much on an empty stomach before we ate late. Robbie was our chauffer and Raylene and John came in our car. When we dropped them off on the way home we went in for a drink as they've sold their house and are moving any day to Mt. Martha, so we had another little farewell drink. I think it was near 3.00 am when we got home and I slept in and missed my morning walk, first miss in 2007. I should not have worked the bees at all and should have rested, given my hangover, but I'm on museum roster today so it was yesterday or not at all this weekend.