The Big Honey Season

I type up this post now the power's back. I handwrote it by the natural light of the day through the window, starting two hours after dawn.

I'm writing at the dining room table which is the place that affords most light on this bleak stormy morning. It seems appropriate the power's out. It's the last day of May and autumn. Time for me to reflect and record the honey season that has come to a close. It's 8C outside and the bees would be tight and warm in their winter cluster.
The warning breeze of yesterday was valid. The wind grew in ferocity during the night and battered the house while we lay in bed. It roared in the treetops, we half expecting at any moment to have a tree trunk sharing the room with us. After 26 years enduring such storms now and again, when the odd "bong" on the roof comes as a stick wrested from a tree hits the iron above, you roll over and try to ignore what's happening and catch up on the old shut-eye.
It's a far cry from the consistently still, warm, sunny days of last October, in mid spring, when the bees were flying east from dawn till dark working the silvertop and gathering an unprecedented, for me, large crop of spring honey. Not a serious beekeeper by any means, I nevertheless felt exitement at the heavy bee flight. Prior to this on my walks I'd noticed the heavy budding on the messmate trees and anticipated the possibility of a good summer flow, despite messmate being unreliable and often turning off with summer rain.
As a non serious beekeeper, I'm not set up for extracting honey. There's considerable inconvenience organising the work, and finding the time in my busy self employed life and complex family situation. My dad was very ill, Robbie was approaching VCE exams and wanting driving practice, Gord was finishing his TAFE course with parent/ teacher meetings and career nights, not to mention the drought and water restrictions which complicated things at the farm. And Lib broke her wrist badly in a fall in late September. There was a strong dread in realizing the extra work a honey flow would create.
The odd thing was, when I first fired up the smoker one Saturday morning last October, I enjoyed working the through the bees immensely. The smell of fresh nectar and the excited contentment of the bees infected me. The hives were strong and healthy, brimfull of gentle bees, seemingly happy and knowing I was there to help.
The dread was not entirely gone, but I came away glad that decades ago destiny would have it that I learned something of bees and honey. I felt 'switched on' again to the world of the honey bee.
There were four hives in my backyard, and one in the yard of friends' property at 'Sunset'. This hive belongs to my friends. I gave it to the previous owner of 'Sunset' who left it behind when he sold up and moved. The new owners were keen to learn about bees and I've given them a few lessons, but as they've been busy renovating the old house I've looked after it for them until they get the confidence to work it themselves.
One of my four hives swarmed in the spring. After boxing the swarm I took it to 'Sunset'. It was a big swarm that drew out the foundation in no time. So then I had six hives, four strong and productive, and two smaller unproductive till they built up, these being the swarm and the parent it split from. By late summer all six were big and strong and gathering honey.
After the silvertop flow, the weather stayed fine and settled and the honey kept coming. Not as heavy as earlier, but it rained on cue for the blackberries to give a lick and the bees were still flying heavily to the east. I wondered if they were finding some grey strinybark as this honey was noticably frothy when extracted, and it also contained some ti-tree. This extract was markedly different to the earlier silvertop and the later messmate, and, in the end, candied rather quickly and was a mixture of floral sources I would say.
As the summer progressed the messmate yielded heavily and I just managed to keep up with the bees with the little spare time I had, extracting each second weekend or grabbing an hour or two during the week to take supers off and put stickies back. It's also the handling of the honey, the straining and packing, that makes the hobbyist busy in an 'on' season. The hot weather, days and nights, helped. Cold honey slows things down.
Typically, the bees were cranky on the messmate, though not too bad. They were busy and the flow was continuous but if there was a bit of unsettled weather in the wind they'd belt you. At the end of the messmate flow when I went to take honey expecting them to be extra nasty now the flow was over, bracing myself for confrontation, I was pleasantly surprised to find them gentle as lambs again, with a big shake of manna gum and or mountain grey gum nectar in the combs.
By mid April they were closing down fast, reducing broodnests quickly and shrinking down. There was still a shake of nectar but they'd struggle to ripen it. I united the two poorest to others, they'd simply worn themselves out, leaving me three at home and one at 'Sunset'.
I took the last two supers off the united hives in early May, leaving the four hives as doubles with plenty of honey to get them through winter. My last extract that weekend took my tally for the season to 820kg. All my estimates through the season were conservative so the final figure may have been a little higher. That's a lot of honey for 5 beehives left in the one locality all season. Amazingly this bountiful harvest came during a crippling drought when agriculture generally throughout Victoria and beyond was on its knees. Most beekeepers have a tale to tell of a ripper honey flow. Now I do.
The humble honeybee inspires and gives hope, in a world bogged in negativity. During a season of bushfires, drought, climate gloom, and in my own case, the loss of my father in March, the bees showed me you need to keep focused on good things. And to keep on keepin' on.

Wind, More Rain

The rain I wrote about in my last post didn't linger. The Saturday was showery and I noticed on my morning walk that a breeze had come with the change, the first wind for weeks. We had a total of 35 ml at the house over the few wet days, much less than other districts, where it was needed more in any case. I think there was more rain at the farm at Emerald. The big downpour on the Friday that got the frogs singing didn't happen at Gembrook, where 9ml only was in the gauge.
The breeze turned into a gusty wind and kept up through the week. By Friday it had dried the ground back to dusty so you'd never know it had rained at all. I found pine mushrooms every morning, mainly in the drains and low spots where more water had soaked in. The wind kept up; aggravating, disturbing, dischevelling. The trees stopped smiling. Ten days it blew, building in strength, nagging, battering, bullying. Yesterday it roared into a furious gale. The trees contorted and groaned in punishment. Birds disappeared. It rampaged all day. About 3.00pm the rain came, sideways, belting.
There was 24ml in the gauge this morning. A flush of fresh mushies pushed through the grass. The sun is shining. After the warmest May night on record the night before last, the air is bitingly cold. A gentle breeze picks up now and again, as if whispering a warning. Take nothing for granted, it seems to say.

Happy As A Bird In A Tree

It started raining mid morning last Thursday. Light rain for a while, then a little heavier, then it would stop, and spit here and there. Then it would start again. It was dead still, not a breath of wind, the sky overhead grey, it was hard to see.
Disbelieving the rain had set in for the day, I drove to Pat's on the other side of town to do a couple of hours gardening. The weather bureau had forecast six days of showers from the Tuesday but there'd been nothing till Thursday. I started digging a trench for sheets of old iron around a narrow garden bed where Pat wants to grow vegetables. The iron is to keep out the rabbits, and sinking it lower lets in more early sun. I worked in a plastic raincoat and gumboots. Within half an hour my singlet and shirt were wet with sweat. I discarded the coat, prefering the cool rain to the heat and sweat under the coat.
I knocked off wet through and had to change clothes when I got home. I'd left a young bloke laying new carpet in our living room. He'd finished and gone, so Gord and I spent some time carting furniture back in from the deck. On and off the rain continued through the afternoon while I did some business with the bank and solicitor in Emerald.
I had an appointment with my arborist friend Steve Major at 4.00pm in Nobelius Park. At a recent meeting of the sub-committee of the COM, numerous trees and shrubs in zones 1+2, the zones designated by the Vegetation Management Plan as of high priority with action required in the short term, had been earmarked for removal to make way for new plantings. We need quotes on the proposed work. The rain had stopped but it was wet underfoot and we enjoyed the squelching of our boots as we walked. It was eerily calm.
The rain started again in the evening, leaving 25ml in the gauge on Friday morning. On my walk it was raining lightly still. I was aware of strong scents coming to me after the night rain. I could smell the gravel and the bark of trees, and stench from faulty septic systems. Blackbirds, rosellas, crows, magpies, mudlarks, minas, cockatoos, doves, all were busy, noisier than for a long time. I realized how subdued they'd had been of late. The trees and shrubs were washed of their coat of dust and the various shades of green were richer, glistening, wet, leaves like thousands of smiles.
The morning news talked of rain up to 50ml in parts of western Victoria, to follow good rain in early May. 36ml Bendigo, 66 ml at Broken Hill, 30-50 ml in north-east Vic. All drought ravaged areas. Best rain in years. Farmers are out getting crops in, working round the clock.
On my way to the farm I picked some bay foliage at Allison's in Le Souef Rd. and topped a laurel in front of Lilly's unit at Emerald. Lilly is my best honey customer, getting sales from all the oldies in the retirement village. They love the honey. And my price. I'm happy, $6 is better than the $2.50 per kg the wholesaler told me he'd pay me when I rang up have some containers posted.
After lunch the rain started again, heavily. I went out to bunch the bay and the laurel. Jod and Gordo came in under the carport to dodge the rain. They started bunching the bay while Meredith and I worked on the laurel. It was now teeming, sheets of water lying on the lawn and drive, the likes of which we hadn't seen since who knows when. On cue frogs started to let rip, singing with sheer joy. I said to Meredith the birds were so noisy that morning, like they were celebrating, and she replied she'd noticed it too, and that they'd been so quiet previously. We were all happy, watching the rain.
Jod said, "There's old saying, as happy as bird in a tree."
And for the last two mornings I've collected pine mushrooms on my walk and enjoyed them for breakfast.

You Have To Laugh

There are a number of changes that have occurred along my beat that I'll record soon but not today, I don't have much time. Next Sunday is Mother's Day and I have a large order to fill for David Healey of Girrawheen Flowers, who picks up tomorrow morning. I worked on it on Saturday and again yesterday knowing I'd never do it all today. Just for the record he's asked for 50 bunches of camellia foliage, 20 lillypilly, 20 Jap. maple, 20 ivy berries, 30 mixed foliage bunches, 10 flax, 10 magnolia grandiflora, and 30 laurel.
You may recall that early this year I decided to wear my 'authentic Greek fisherman's hat' every morning on my walk. I'm a creature of routine. People, including Janice from Quinn Rd., whom I sometimes meet as she walks down to tend her horses, or walking her dog 'Hannah', have told me the hat suits me. Last week, Janice said my horizontally striped red and blue Melbourne Football Club 'rugby jersey', which I've started wearing now the mornings are cold, worked very well with the hat, adding I looked like I was straight off a Greek fishing boat.
Whatever I look like doesn't matter, but I like wearing the same distinctive gear in the morning and being recognized immediately by my early morning friends. A lot of drivers wave or give their horns a frienly pip and other walkers wave from a distance.
Geoff Howard waved to me from his car as he went passed me in the town this morning and then as I walked past his house on my way back, he was returning, about to pull into his driveway. I was on the other side of the road to where I normally walk, having crossed to look for for pine mushrooms under the pine trees. Alas, there are none to be found as yet, April was very dry and the rain early this month can't have been enough. Geoff slowed his car right down and waved again, then wound his window down.
"You look like 'Where's Wally'," he called out, with a big grin on his face.
I threw my head back and joined him in a deep belly laugh.