Hello from Central Vic (Australia)

[emilyjane]

Hi everyone,

I'm a beekeeper, in the (long) process of setting up a small commercial apiary. I'm in the process of testing beeswax products for sale and am learning the hard way that there is quite an art to making candles and that beeswax can be a bit temperamental! So I'm here to learn and improve.

I'm probably not going to be much help with soap or candle making, but if anyone has bee related questions ask away!

Emily

 

[Relle]

Welcome Emily, glad you can join us.

 

[Hazel]

Hi Emily,

Welcome to the forum! :wave:

 

[lsg]

Welcome!

 

[TVivian]

Hi there! Welcome

 

[CaraBou]

Welcome, emilyjane. I have a bee question: do you keep them year 'round there, and if so, what is the average natural lifespan of a worker bee?

 

[fuzz-juzz]

Hello and welcome!

 

[karenbeth]

Hi Emilyjane and welcome. I too am a beekeeper wanting to grow a business to commercial size. I live in Northern Vic and not looking forward to the forecast hot weather. We have 100 hives and want to get to 200. What is your aim?
Carabou our hives in Oz do tend to work all year round where it doesn't snow, but we try to get ours to shut down and semi hibernate in winter by putting them somewhere with minimum blossom. A worker bee lives for about 6 weeks but it does depend on how far they fly for nectar. Their wings wear out after a certain amount of flying distance

 

[roseb]

Welcome to the forum! There is another beekeeper here from S. FL. Maybe she will come around and say hi.

 

[My Mountain Soaps]

Welcome Emily! i once spent a few months in Creswick Victoria, near Ballarat training horses. I had a great time in your beautiful area and then traveling up to the gold coast. The people are amazing! there are always questions popping up about bees and beeswax, so i know we will be pestering you from time to time. welcome!

 

[emilyjane]

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone!

Carabou, what Karenbeth said. Australia is a pretty special place for honeybees because much of our flora is designed to be pollinated by birds and small marsupials so produces epic amounts of nectar - I think colonies can get bigger here than anywhere else in the world.

Karenbeth, the aim is to build up to about 100 Warre hives over the next 7-10 years (currently at 3 hives so have a lot of work ahead of us!). With such a relatively small number of hives in commercial terms we're going to have to value-add like nobody's business to have any hope of making a living off it, hence the candle making. There will also be mead involved!

Now I'm off to go and ask a bunch of annoying newbie questions on the candle making section...

 

[AtraGarden]

Welcome!