The season, as many of you will already know, has been an awful one for most people, with record lows recorded in most regions across the country, not just in bee-keeping, but agriculture and horticulture generally. Marlborough has been pretty hard hit, with many grape harvest, fruit and honey being of minimal or poor quality due to wind, rain and cool or eratic temperatures.
We were asked to rescue a swarm from the Fairhall golf course ...
Urban bees in Get Growing
We are hoping to get more bees into the Marlborough environment. We still get calls from people who haven't seen bees in their garden, who have fruit trees in blossom but no bees - and we're here to help.
View the Urban Bees Photo Album
The queens are busy laying up to 200 eggs an hour, some of them new queen cells, to get their population up and going for the summer 'honey flow', when many flowers are in full nectar production.
Urban Bees on Radio NZ
Click here to listen to Urban Bees on Radio NZ - Thursday 17 May 2012
It's been an odd summer, as you know, with a reduced honey crop (by about 40%) Some hives were fantastic, some produced enough for their feed over the season and for winter, and some needed to be fed! Very odd, they seemed to produce in 'pockets'.
Some updates to answer a few questions we got this month . . .
Want extra harmony in your garden? Consider adding a beehive.
That's a suggestion of Matthew Wells who, with his partner Catherine Gordon operates a "hives for hire" business in Picton, Blenheim and Nelson. There was only one protest when they started Urban Bees in 2009 – a letter to the editor questioning the wisdom of putting bees in private gardens.
