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Author Topic: What's flowering: Queensland  (Read 144323 times)

Offline eltalia

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Re: What's flowering: Queensland
« Reply #80 on: July 19, 2018, 07:26:01 pm »
That weed with purple flowers is in full roar everywhere
here... purple pollen, wooohoo!

Bill

Offline max2

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Offline Bamboo

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Re: What's flowering: Queensland
« Reply #82 on: July 21, 2018, 07:42:48 pm »
That weed with purple flowers is in full roar everywhere
here... purple pollen, wooohoo!

Bill
Patersons Curse?

Offline eltalia

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Re: What's flowering: Queensland
« Reply #83 on: July 22, 2018, 06:16:57 am »
Dunno fellas... it's a passive weed so never had my attention much.
I am going up to the yard tamorra so I'll get some piccys.

Bill

Offline max2

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Re: What's flowering: Queensland
« Reply #84 on: July 23, 2018, 04:31:40 am »
Went for a walk along the river today ( the Mary River)

Peaches and Nectarines are flowering and a weed - Devils apple (?) and there is a lot of it. On the River Flats the Cobblers Pegs ahve been burned off in the last frosts but Clower is starting to move - promising.

Glycine which has grown high up into trees is also still flowering. The bees love it.
Blue Gums are still powering on.

The smell of Honey is in the air.

I hear from the Montville area that drones have been noticed in numbers in hives.

Offline eltalia

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Re: What's flowering: Queensland
« Reply #85 on: July 23, 2018, 06:24:51 am »
"The smell of Honey is in the air."

...got a yarn about that, read on :-))

Soooo...attached hopefully is the purple weed I was on about, a new one on me,  it is still going hard
with new brackets clustered all over so it should last a while. Funnily enough there were no bees seen
working it but it was a bit late in my day by the time I got to grab some. Both colonies own significant
deposits of what I assume are it's pollen.


Long have I maintained bees are like mossies in that they are everywhere at all times just that they are
not so obvious, particularly scouts.
Today I was reminded of the evidence of truth in that.
In contrast to any of that I am a bugger for names, actually a tad dyslexic I reckon, buuut I do fancy
myself as a somewhat amateur horticulturalist specialising on those 'harder' plants to propagate, the
ones which require grafting or marcotting to get a pup out of.
Soooo today I had some grafts to do around the apiary (5 acres), and in the process what happened
flicked a memory of what power melted (ing) old comb has for bees.
Grafts set I heated up my brew and began painting the tapes, within 30secs I had 4 bees in tow.
Another 20minutes or so in finishing up I had the better part of 50+ hitting on me for a handout!
This is not new to me as it happens often buuut it triggered the memory of the lengths some go to
in building apparatus to attract bees. Not all were my bees as those are bright golden yellow and
hairy, and among this crowd were well dark bees of differing sizes.

So, when it is known there are flows on all around - "the smell of honey is in the air" - yet these
scouts are straight onto my brew!!
That alone has to illustrate the attractant power of fresh laid old wax, yeh?

Bill

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Offline max2

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Re: What's flowering: Queensland
« Reply #86 on: July 23, 2018, 08:02:21 am »
Good story - thanks!

And the plant is Ageratum.

Down South it is sold as a border plant. I assume it is a Dwarf Selection.
Here it is a weed - also known as "Billy-Goat Weed" - cows will not eat it. Indeed I doubt that a Billy-Goat would touch it.

It is a sign of degraded soil. If you keep a horse long enough in a paddock all you will have left is this plant.
Did you say Purple Pollen? I always seen it as more greyish but I will call it purple now. Sounds much more exciting:)

Offline eltalia

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Re: What's flowering: Queensland
« Reply #87 on: July 24, 2018, 06:30:08 am »
Hey good one Max... without you Costa types [Gardening Australia - ABC TV]
us philistines would be propagating Prickly Pear!!
Muchos Graitas!
Your posts are valued at this desk, believe. :-)))
Indeed BGW is growing profusely [now] on what was cattle country for
decades, now busted up into 20 to 5 acre lots for the refugee cashed up
mohecians (sp?) from Cairns, those escaping the Tourista influx post maybe
1997/2000. How long both flower and mandrift last, who knows, heh.

Not one to argue colour perspective it is just so prominent in cells as to take
the eye, factoring in I am only doing a "one plus two equals five" in thinking
the pollen is from BGW :-))
Our mangos are about to bust so it's time to clear the decks in order to
separate that honey from the year's turnout. Some love it!

Cheerio..

Bill

Offline Jburkey

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Re: What's flowering: Queensland
« Reply #88 on: July 24, 2018, 09:23:38 am »
Do bees actually work mangoes much? This is my first mango flowering season in Queensland since moving from Victoria. We have 6 mature mangoes at our new place. Need to get ready if they do, especially seeing as it'll be following the bluegum flow.

Offline max2

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Offline max2

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Re: What's flowering: Queensland
« Reply #90 on: August 07, 2018, 02:46:08 am »
The Blue Gum keep on flowering and the flow is on. I checked some hives on Sunday ( about 10 days after harvest) and frames I extracted about 10 days ago are approx 1/4 to 1/3 capped again.  From most hives I took 8 frames of fully capped, Full Depth frames - about 15 kg in each case and left 2 full frames plus all the honey in the brood box for the bees. You never know when winter returns:)

Blake/Roff in " The honey flora of Qld" say that Blue Gum can deliver up to 40 lb of honey per hive. We seem to have these conditions this year.

Worth to remember - the Blue Gum's flowered heavily after a long dry spell, followed by good and soaking rain followed by an above average warm Winter.

We took honey off and I made a total of 9 splits so far - no more for a while as the weather has cooled. I checked 3 of the nuc' s I made up on the 29. July and two had a number of Queen cells but one had none. I transferred  one of the spare ones into the one missing a cell - bees and all. No fighting at all as has been my experience in the past as well.

6 nuc's are in a different yard ( made on the 6. August) and I will check these on day 12 or close to it so that I can move any spare cells to nuc's needing it. Hoping for some warm, clear weather so the queen can mate successfully.

A bit of rain would be most welcome now to get the Clover  going.

Offline Jburkey

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Re: What's flowering: Queensland
« Reply #91 on: August 11, 2018, 08:57:29 am »
The blue gum is definitely looking great, smelling great also. As long as i keep hearing the lorikeets in the morning im happy. Am i correct in thinking tallowwood is also going? Lots of rough bark eucalyptus going around gympie at the moment. What's normally next up gympie way?

Offline max2

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Re: What's flowering: Queensland
« Reply #92 on: August 11, 2018, 08:20:16 pm »
The Blue Gum will keep going for a while yet - it needs a bit of rain. Tallowood is going strong.

Up Gympie way - it depends on the soils and if you are E or W of the Highway. Generally I travel via Imbil, Kandanga  - don't see much of the coast.

Glycine is flowering in frost-free areas. The frost knocked it back in low areas. There should be some Grey Ironbark and some Narrow Leaved Ironbark coming out. Scribbly Gum on coastal areas and White Clover on better soils. From now on we will depend a lot on rainfall to keep things moving.

( your location says " Melbourne"?)

Offline eltalia

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Re: What's flowering: Queensland
« Reply #93 on: August 13, 2018, 04:07:41 am »
Mango/Citrus/Lychee/Avacado and on top of that the corn patch chose to bud up at
half height! Now the work starts in getting rid of all that darn honey, bummer. :->>>
Nights are dropping to low teens yet it's high twentys low thirtys by lunchtime.. weird!
Dry as too.. no rain.


Bill

Offline Jburkey

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Re: What's flowering: Queensland
« Reply #94 on: August 14, 2018, 08:03:43 am »
Ah must have forgotten to change my location after i moved. Im not far from imbil. Same side and same sort of forests. 
The tallowwood is going off just around the exit to maroochydore. It glows in the morning.
We get frost here and never noticed any glycine around here but I'll keep an eye out. My mangoes are going but i haven't seen 1 bee even near it. Then again if i was a bee I'd be going the bluegum at the moment.
So if some bluegums haven't opened up yet but massive buds will they still go soon or needs rain, or drop bud completely?

Offline eltalia

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Re: What's flowering: Queensland
« Reply #95 on: August 14, 2018, 08:01:46 pm »
My mangoes are going but i haven't seen 1 bee even near it. Then again if i was a bee I'd be
going the bluegum at the moment.

The day Man can figure bee preference by season us b'keeps will be wholly engaged
doing the Scrooge McDuck dive!
We put in a half dozen or so swamp bloodwoods when we moved here 3 years ago, they
are having their first burst right now, brilliant displays we hoped for but the bees won't
leave the avacado or lychee only a dozen metres away!
On mangoes... in our outyard there is a small grove of Nambok Myer now done as forage
but again for the second year running barely a mango set despite a magnificent display.
The original >49yr old 'Commons" are groaning with peas, and a second bloom coming
on which will likely fail due to foggy mornings.
So everybody this year and last shagged the Commons into fruit yet ignored the much more
spectacular Nambok flower spikes. Bees gotta be wearing Raybans(ttm)!

Bill

Offline max2

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Re: What's flowering: Queensland
« Reply #96 on: August 15, 2018, 02:46:33 am »
JB - you are not far from us. My wifes family had settled in Imbil ( Zillman mob). You are close to Norm - a big beekeeper. You know that Velley Bees meets at Kandanga - just down the raod - every second Sunday of the month. On the 15. September the big bee meeting is on again in Imbil.

We don't know that much about Blue Gum. I have not come across a beekeeper yet who has seen such a heavy flowering There are still plenty of buds yet to open up. We are getting some fog in the morning and I would expect that the trees  are soaking up every drop at the moment.

We have been taking more honey off - sadly the extractor stopped on us - maybe a switch issue. Absolute pain.

You are in Glycine country. You will see it along the roads, growing over fences. It is less popular as cattle feed these days but it is still around.

eltalia - I hear that the Mac farmers can't get the bees to pollinate their trees - the bees seem to prefer the Blue Gum.

Offline Jburkey

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Re: What's flowering: Queensland
« Reply #97 on: August 15, 2018, 07:34:57 am »
Im never heard of Norm. Do you know his last name? Yeah i try to get to the meetings as often as i can but I'll be going to the imbil day.
And yes, you're right i have seen glycine. It's all over my property ive just noticed. But the frost has gotten to it. Which is good because i hate the stuff.
Im really hoping this flow keeps going. This is my first season with bees up here and never saw anything like this in Vic. It's impressive.
I know mine are going straight to the bluegums. Every bee that leaves the hives are going straight to a big one we have.

Offline Jburkey

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Re: What's flowering: Queensland
« Reply #98 on: August 15, 2018, 07:44:16 am »
Where abouts are you? My mangoes are only just really starting to bloom good now.
I've never heard of nambok. Does it have a different name? Strange that you're not getting fruit from it though.
I didn't know about the fog affecting fruit set, hopefully still get a good showing this year.

Offline eltalia

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Re: What's flowering: Queensland
« Reply #99 on: August 15, 2018, 09:51:35 pm »
Where abouts are you? My mangoes are only just really starting to bloom good now.
I've never heard of nambok. Does it have a different name? Strange that you're not getting fruit from it though.
I didn't know about the fog affecting fruit set, hopefully still get a good showing this year.

Sorry JB.. not much on names, memory like a sieve!
"Nam Doc Mia" from Thailand.
The fog sets off Downy Mildew which covers the flower spike in what
appears as a greyish colour, it can set in just one event. The 'cure' is
copper sulphate or mangozed(tm) however timing is crucial as the very
same chemical (?) will affect the strength of any flowering.
Best applied just as budding begins leaving the parent crown, buds even
partly open will die off, fast.
Location is shown in my avatar and screen ID.
Cheers.

Bill

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