Evening from Australia

[mikethebee]

I hope you don?t mind me posting this it?s a ray of hope to other young lads in beekeeping there is work for them anywhere in the world without exams no degrees no collage courses all you need is the basics in beekeeping and the enthusiasm , How to handle bees, When Dan joined us at 17 years old, nearly two years ago we could see he had the potential of becoming a very good beekeeper by sending him out to Australia it will make or brake him,
No girls no motorbike no fast cars, just bees and more bees in the outback "bush country" from now untill March, Earning loads of money and cant spend it.
I?m hoping he will be an asset to the business next year. I deleted his email for obvious reasons But I will ask if he would like to recive other beekeepers Emails.

I fly out to Perth W/A On the 28Dec for 6 weeks on a business/holiday visiting beekeepers in W/A- Adelaide and Sydney I will call in to see Dan, take a few pics, if I can find him out in the bush?
All the best mike

Evening from Australia
Wednesday, 3 December, 2008 6:36 AM
From: This sender is DomainKeys verified
"Daniel Bates" email ---------------
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Evening Mike how are things over there cold?

Just thought I'd give you a quick email to say every thing is going
great so far .

Not long finished queen catching and putting a load in the queen bank same as we do,
earlier we were taking some honey off and yesterday we went around the
sites putting clearer boards on (do we use them at all?) to clear the
supers off ready for today. Got stung ALLOT but there was less hassle
because we didnt have to use the blowers.

Started work 8am Monday morning eventhough I just arrived sunday and
felt really rough but I have finally got used to the time zone here.

Went down the pub last night with all the lads here had a few drinks
on Ben! Then went back had some food watched a few films so all is
good, theres another 2 english blokes here one lad who is 20 and
another bloke who's in his 30's or so.

I am learning quite a bit and its only been 3 days but it has been
solid working on the bee's. Ben will be teaching me Grafting soon I've
been watching him do it looks quite interesting and different from us.

Also yesterday we had to go through a site to change the plastic
frames from the brood chambers into the top boxes as the Bee's dont
seem to accept them very well to draw out but they dont seem to mind
them in the top boxes?

I will try and send you some pictures some time but it is quite hard
as there is only a slow dial up connection over here as we are right
out in the sticks! Nearest town is an hour or so away.

How is Tris doing? You taken him out feeding yet? He will be in for a shock!

Hope to hear from you soon

Daniel

 

[mikethebee]

Just had a email letter from Australia re plastic foundation
They are taking it off 180 super colonies and replacing with WAX the bees don?t like it. Now if you think about it they have better conditions than we do?WHY
ALL THE BEST MIKE

 

[Markbee]

Mike this is realy intresting, look forward to more stories from Daniel.

 

[BKF Admin]

Did they coat the plastic frames first Mike?

Tell Dan to keep us updated on what he is doing,I find the whole thing most interesting.

 

[Poly Hive]

Mike?

Murray runs a lot of plastic foundation and it NEEDS to be waxed over first.

Pete

 

[mikethebee]

Re: DAN YOU LASY BUGGER‏
From: Daniel Bates ()

Sent: 06 December 2008 02:32:36
To: mike roberts ([email protected])
easybeeproducts
Sounds like Tris is having some great fun your way in the cold then! Why wont Bob
do the 180langstoths then I thought he was quite involved with the ones over in Stroud?

I have some pictures of the packaged bee boxes and have to ask the guy
for the messurement but I'm having trouble uploading them because the
Internet is so slow over here! We have had to strip out 100deds of plastic frames the bees don?t like um replace with wax don?t ask y?

Good atleast you got them down and dirty, now they can see what its
like to be us! I heard its a white xmas comin your way! I'm loving the
sun here going brown slowly will be the brownest english man when I
arrive back!

Explain what you mean about their queen bank? Are you refering to the
way it is set out? its the same as ours I could take some pictures next time we have been catching queens?

Yeah it came in handy but catching and marking was one of the first
things I did with you anyway so I can do that quite easily... they are
just as tame as ours out here too dont need to wear a suit on the nuc's at all,
although I still get the odd sting! Does get very hot sat out in that
sun though.

Yeah Sam Barbers the kid's name seems to really know what he's doing,
but he's grown up with them.

The other bloke is from Kent I think he's called Allen Hurst I think?

Oh, I thought the cut off date was Nov 27th? for Viktor Do you see it likely you will be able to get him back over for work next March?

I'm back off out now, working weekends for the next 3 weeks so we can
have a few days off at xmas and new year!

Dan

 

[mikethebee]

Re: DAN YOU LASY BUGGER‏From: Daniel Bates ()

Sent: 07 December 2008 06:26:15
To: mike roberts ([email protected])
Easybeeproducts
On a but lare arent you? I'm feeling rough as anything today! Ben
decided to have a last minute piss up at his house and I think
everyone drank way too much! Went to do my shopping earlier in town
and I just couldnt do it, so I'm sleeping the rest of the day!

Haha TRISH he will get used to it I know I have over here, you should see Ben's hands they swell up really bad, his fingers are like thumbs, I bet the girls love it haha.

I can store hundreds photos and If I run out of space I have my laptop tocopy the pictures over so space isnt an issue.

Yeah thanks for the warning mike I've been donated one of them Aussie hat's, its a bit battered about but its a laugh!

Your buying more?! Thought we just got rid of the last lot! So you
have usage of the warming cubourd again?

Yeah I have been keeping in contact with everyone, email my family
every day also gave Sue a few emails, kept in contact with Tris
through MSN Messenger as well as my gf "scrappy" as you say, she is
missing me like hell and its only been a week. I should be using the
phone later if I'm lucky Ben just had a phone put in at his place.

Just gave Victor a quick email, have your forwarded my emails to him?

Yeah I've been on the Aussie beer "Tooheys" in them little glasses.
Erm I cant say the bar girls a very nice "skimpy" but I saw some nice
ones in town today eventhough I looked a bag of crap.

I'm trying to save the $$ at the moment I cant actually get to it!
Terry set me up a bank account monday and I am waiting to get my card
through. Ben's been buying me all my drinks so far so its not too bad
the only thing thats costing me is food, which is what I intend to
keep it to so I can come back wit ha bit of money to spare.

Dan

 

[Hivemaker.]

Good letters Mike,sounds like Dan is getting on great out there.He might get to like it so much he wants to stay.

 

[mikethebee]

any bod out there that would like to ask DAN a question?
ALL THE BEST MIKE.

 

[Hivemaker.]

How many queens do they rear per season approx,and what are the bee's working on at the moment.

 

[mikethebee]

Re: DAN YOU LASY BUGGER‏
From: Daniel Bates ()

Sent: 09 December 2008 01:58:46
To: mike roberts ([email protected])

Easybeeproducts

Hey mike, I'd rather that hat s so hot working in this weather today
we are going through boxes to see if queens are performing or if they
are even there then re-queening tomorrow its no different than what we do with the nucs back home.

They dip plastic frames in hot wax before they are put out, I have some pictures of this and was doing some supers today just before lunch. Once they have been drawn out in the supers and extracted they seem to take to them fine in the bottom boxes.

In all honesty Ben says they very rarely feed them! None of the boxes
I have seen have had frame feeders or top feeders like ours have.
We have back home 6/700 5 frame nucs over wintering we make that up in a day and shake out 100 or so into 4/5 pound packages for the USA

The only ones I have seen that we fed today are the cell builder boxes
which I was doing with Ben today, he said he wouldnt normally feed
them but the honey production on them was down so he made his vitamin
mixture with very THIN syrup. He says they love it and take to it very
well, gives them longer life, better production and breading?

Erm I've seen big harmless spiders but no snakes thank f----!
Seen soem red backs but they are really hard to spot, the Swiss guy
here has pointed out a few to me.
No wasps as of yet.
Seen some abbos in town, cant say I've speaken to any!!
They are all on Langs over here
I gatta run anyway my lunch break is up... speak to you soon

Dan