points of the compass

[mbc]

I've seen a photo of cart loads of honey boxes full of manuka honey being washed out in a river ready for trying to fill with clover honey for the "white" honey export market, long before they'd invented UMF and honey millionaires.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I've seen a photo of cart loads of honey boxes full of manuka honey being washed out in a river ready for trying to fill with clover honey for the "white" honey export market, long before they'd invented UMF and honey millionaires.

It's wonderful stuff manooky - it's amazing that the 20% of the entire annual crop the New Zealand Ministry of Primary Industries have calculated gets exported to the UK has grown to five fold the volume by the time it gets on to the shelves over here!!

 

[mbc]

Oh they do...or rather DID. I used to pack it for Fortnum and Mason.

However many of these mid coloured honey types have vanished from the international market in recent seasons.........................

Comes to something when canola gets a better price than a barrel of delicious raewaraewa.
Beekeepers worldwide would benefit from educating the consumer palate on the more refined honey tastes out there. You dont find wine merchants underselling fine wines just because theres a limited supply.

 

[mbc]

It's wonderful stuff manooky - it's amazing that the 20% of the entire annual crop the New Zealand Ministry of Primary Industries have calculated gets exported to the UK has grown to five fold the volume by the time it gets on to the shelves over here!!

The top brand, comvita, wouldnt dream of selling adulterated stuff.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

The top brand, comvita, wouldnt dream of selling adulterated stuff.

Spoils the flavour?

IIRC from skimming that report (and others) most of their (NZ's) exports go out pre-bottled for retail which would mean that the remaining 80% sold in this country is totally fake!!

 

[Finman]

Comes to something when canola gets a better price than a barrel of delicious raewaraewa.
.

Value of rape/canola honey on international markets is about £ 1.5 / kg. Draw from that.

A small beekeeper in Finland gets £ 4.5/ kg as stock price. That is the money what reseller pays.

Prices paid to Canadian Beekeepers for unprocessed, bulk honey by
packers and importers in U. S. currency, f.o.b. shipping point, containers
included unless otherwise stated. Duty and crossing charges extra. Cents
per pound.
Canola White $0.95 - $.97 = £ 1.5 / kg
Canola Extra Light $0.95
Mixed Flowers White $1.10
Organic White $1.75

 

[Into the lions den]

Obviously you have not been in Norway (according you generalization)

Oslo is at same latitude as Helsinki, or just like me in my soffa.

Honey yield per hive in Norway 15-30 kg....

Rain days in Oslo during summer months: 14-16 days / 30, June, July ,August

.
.

LOL Finny......I was a ships officer for a decade.....yes been to Norway...AND NZ.

SW NZ....called Fjordland btw due to the fjords there....is very like SW Norway indeed. Latitude only of passing significance as we have a false climate in Scotland and Norway due to the North Atlantic drift bringing mild wet air across us much of the time from latitudes lower than we sit at. Finland on the other hand is more continental and is more normal climate wise for where it sits.....colder winters warmer summers. SW NZ is exposed to the unimpeded west to east circulation north of Antarctica. The eastern part of South Island benefits strongly from the 'Fohn Effect' and has a radically different climate from the west side.

Southern hemisphere weather is not like the northern hemisphere at higher latitudes.......and Helsinki and Oslo are the same latitude as some of the islands off the tip of the Antarctic peninsula.......I'd challenge you to get a honey crop there.

Have never been to Finland though. I'll give you that one.

 

[oxnatbees]

which way do you orientate your hives, do you have a reason why ?

I myself run the frames longitudinally Nth to Sth , with the landing board to the Nth , ..our winds are prevailing westerly. I haven't really done a trial to test for best. but I know this way the brood nest always forms and expands from the west side ( more heat after midday )

My hives are in the back garden, about 10 metres from the house. I used to orient my hives parallel to the fence, which runs a few degrees off West-East, which looked neater and meant the entrances were not pointing across the garden, so the bees did not fly at us in the garden. This meant the sun hit the entrances, which faced slightly SW, around 9:30 to 10AM.

But the hives did not thrive. So I asked around (including on this forum) about whether there was any truth in the story you see in old beekeeping books, about turning your entrances so the morning sun hits them. It is meant to make the bees rise earlier, and then they go get more nectar (before the other hives in the area wake up). Opinions were divided 50/50, yes/no.

So I tried rotating the hives about 30 degrees. Turns out it still looks tidy next to the fence, even though they are not parallel. And the sun hits the entrances earlier. The bees now go flying 30-60 minutes earlier and the hives seem to be doing OK.

So my first answer is: in the UK point your entrances South or SE.

There are other considerations. In the UK (and I imagine in NZ) it gets hot at midday in the summer sun. At this point some shade is desirable. So if you have the option, place your hives on the East side of a tree which will shade it from noon on.

Also I am lucky because as the sun goes lower in the sky now, as winter approaches, the house blocks early morning sun on the hives. This means the bees do not come out when it is too cold. I have heard and read several times (once from Finman) that if bees are tricked by bright light to come out when it is really cold, as soon as they settle on something they freeze and die.

I run my comb "warm way" so it blocks draughts from the entrance.

With regards the 30 hives versus 4 hives thing. Finland is a very different climate and forage to the UK. I have seen large numbers of hives in one apiary (the biggest was 80 hives) but they were breeding apiaries where the operator was trying to flood the area with a particular strain. Even for pollination services, which need lots of hives, I imagine bee farmers would spread hives out in batches of say 4 because that would be more efficient than 30 hives in one field. A bee farmer told me our rural village could probably support 20 hives because there is a good variety of forage round here, not just fields of OSR. Right now there are probably 13 hives between 5 beekeepers plus 4 feral colonies (so you could view us as one 17 hive apiary) and our honey crops are not huge.

Hives in a circle would be a great way to tease un-scientific people. You could tell them the hives are arranged like an ancient stone circle to draw on the Earth Energy. And at midsummer we have to dance naked round them.

 

[Into the lions den]

Comes to something when canola gets a better price than a barrel of delicious raewaraewa.
Beekeepers worldwide would benefit from educating the consumer palate on the more refined honey tastes out there. You dont find wine merchants underselling fine wines just because theres a limited supply.

You will not get it now for much less than £7000 per tonne. It IS still available, but even NZ clover goes out at over £6000 now.

It is not true that almost all NZ honey goes out bottled. There is still a very significant bulk trade to the EU and Japan.

The Manuka that comes into the UK in drums to be bottled here is tested severely and is genuine.

 

[Finman]

LOL Finny......I was a ships officer for a decade.....yes been to Norway...AND NZ.
one.

Ok. Then your attitude is that all oversee people are Idiots with big letter.

Great British adults have such Style, that they think the explanation the most stupid way and they push their own thoughts to oversee mouth.

I have accustomed that Style but in my culture it belongs to elementary school level poking..

.people travel nowadays in foreign countries that Great Britain people do not need to explain geography.

Not LOL.

 

[Finman]

The Manuka that comes into the UK in drums to be bottled here is tested severely and is genuine.

Do not let Manuka make you mad..

Your beekeeping stuff price level is such that prices compete very well with Manuka. Do not be jealous.

 

[Finman]

.
Our biggest honey seller is SAM, owner Kari Koivulehto. His father was a big Ford Car importer to Finland, and I suppose, that Kari learned business quite early

He imports honey from different continents and he sells prairier honey, jungle honey, mountain honey and what ever. He did big marketing work, what we have ever seen in Finland. He moved jaring works to cheaper country.
SAM does not sell Finnish honey.

Another big honey seller is Danish company. It gets its honey from different countries like SAM and makes its own mixtures.

Lidl is Europe wide company. Its honey prices here are different than in Germany. Lidl prices follow local prices. Sold product names are few.

Our own Finnish honey prices have wide fork. I do not know, how prices are developed. Same honey but 20 product names in one super market.
.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

The Manuka that comes into the UK in drums to be bottled here is tested severely and is genuine.

I didn't for one minute think it wasn't or that New Zealand is complicit in the fraud - doesn't change the fact that New Zealand maintain they sell 20% of their genuine Manuka to the UK yet annual manuka sales in the UK are in excess of New Zealand's total annual manuka harvest!
It's more highlighting the stupidity/naiivety of a large swathe of the British public.

 

[Finman]

!
It's more highlighting the stupidity/naiivety of a large swathe of the British public.

We sell dry birch leaves to Germany and they sell them back to us as health product.

We have high alcohol tax in Finland. We import beer to Estonia, and our tourists bring it back from capitall city Tallinna. And everyone is happy.
.

 

[Into the lions den]

I didn't for one minute think it wasn't or that New Zealand is complicit in the fraud - doesn't change the fact that New Zealand maintain they sell 20% of their genuine Manuka to the UK yet annual manuka sales in the UK are in excess of New Zealand's total annual manuka harvest!
It's more highlighting the stupidity/naiivety of a large swathe of the British public.

Unfortunately this 'truth' has its origins in a single ill researched newspaper article. It has been repeated countless times but is actually dead wrong. Just a piece of total nonsense.

 

[Into the lions den]

Ok. Then your attitude is that all oversee people are Idiots with big letter.

Great British adults have such Style, that they think the explanation the most stupid way and they push their own thoughts to oversee mouth.

I have accustomed that Style but in my culture it belongs to elementary school level poking..

.people travel nowadays in foreign countries that Great Britain people do not need to explain geography.

Not LOL.

You can be as stroppy as you like.

Three subjects of significance in this thread you will NOT get the better of me on are Geography (apart from on your local stuff), Meteorology, and Climatology. I had studies all three and they are ongoing interests of mines.

And...FWIW, I am one of those British people who does NOT see anything foreign or not in English as inferior. I see us as all broadly alike.

 

[Finman]

You can be as stroppy as you like.

Three subjects of significance in this thread you will NOT get the better of me on are Geography (apart from on your local stuff), Meteorology, and Climatology. I had studies all three and they are ongoing interests of mines.
.

I have studied them 5 years on university.
But why should I be better than you? Where I need that knowledge, what you have.

And what do you know about city maintenance logistics?,
. I have studied it in England couple of times. Thank you to England. I got very important solution from Birmingham to Finland and now it has been practice in whole Finland.

When I visited in London to accustome with City of London city maintenance logistics, now after 15 years our system are at same levels as yours in London's hearth. It was very new thing in London too 15 years ago.
They were beautifull trips to England and I got huge amount of knowledge via those 6 trips

. These were my top knowledge in the sevice of capital city of Finland.


And my civil engineer bosses were not happy when I found thise solutions and I told, how to execute them

Heh heh heh.
.

 

[Into the lions den]

And what do you know about city maintenance logistics?,
.

Practically zero......but then it is not relevant to this thread either.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

That's telling you Murray - not only do you not have a dozen degrees from Helstinky university (must have been a BOGOF offer after the last war) but you know nothing about car parks either.

 

[Finman]

Practically zero......but then it is not relevant to this thread either.

This whole thread is not relevant in beekeeping.

City maintenance logistics is really more important than put beehives into circle or put NZ hives into 20 hives punch..

And best book, what I used in my researching was Japanese " Visual Control".