Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum

BEEKEEPING LEARNING CENTER => DOWN UNDER BEEKEEPING => Topic started by: TheFuzz on September 07, 2021, 02:38:08 am

Title: Setting up apiary in farmland
Post by: TheFuzz on September 07, 2021, 02:38:08 am
I have an opportunity of moving some beehives to a location that is surrounded in every direction by crop land. The whole area is surrounded by paddocks that farmers are using to grow various crops. I saw wheat, canola, green beans, I'm sure a lot more.

There's also eucalyptus trees and some other native flowers in the scrub along the roads, but there isn't a lot of that. The region has an annual rainfall of 50mm, which is a little higher than some other places. I don't know about other flowers but I know eucalyptus flowers are largely dependent on good rainfall to produce nectar.

I'm wondering if this sounds like it might be a good apiary location for bees, or is relying on large fields of monoculture plants a bad idea? Could the pesticides that the farmers be harmful for the bees health?
Title: Re: Setting up apiary in farmland
Post by: Bee North on September 07, 2021, 05:38:11 am
Hi Fuzz
Mate sounds like a gamble without more details.

Yes pesticides and herbicides are dangerous. Certain crops wont offer much while others do for a period when flowering.

Your fallback are the trees if you have enough of them.

Cant offer much more on the information provided.

Did you get on top of the dying bees at your house?
Title: Re: Setting up apiary in farmland
Post by: TheFuzz on September 08, 2021, 04:08:24 am
I took a satellite image showing what's within 5km of the area:

https://postimg.cc/gallery/vcPJmXg

I've covered up the light that might have been killing bees at that house.
Title: Re: Setting up apiary in farmland
Post by: Bee North on September 08, 2021, 04:33:09 am
Looks a bit scary for your bees to me.
Title: Re: Setting up apiary in farmland
Post by: TheFuzz on September 08, 2021, 04:38:48 am
Why is that?
Title: Re: Setting up apiary in farmland
Post by: max2 on September 08, 2021, 04:44:44 am
About 80% of the nectar bees collect comes form Euc's.
Your spot maybe a good location during certain times of the year when some of the crops are flowering.
Title: Re: Setting up apiary in farmland
Post by: Bee North on September 08, 2021, 06:09:05 am
Why is that?

As you already suggested spraying.... and the lack of trees.

Canola will offer a good flow but as Max suggested what about the rest of the year.

Your could try it and see how it goes. Migration might work....put your bees there when the canola flow is on.
Title: Re: Setting up apiary in farmland
Post by: TheFuzz on September 11, 2021, 07:45:01 pm
I went and had another look and noticed that there's quite a bit of canola fields within 5km distance to the property. Is it true that canola causes bees to be more aggressive and make their stings more painful? I seem to recall that I wasn't a big fan of canola flavour wise, I remember these beekeepers I worked with once were exporting large quantities of canola to Japan as allegedly the Japanese market had high demand for canola honey, unlike the Australian one.
Title: Re: Setting up apiary in farmland
Post by: Bee North on September 11, 2021, 08:41:12 pm
Sorry mate I cant help you there...hopefully someone else can.
Title: Re: Setting up apiary in farmland
Post by: Beelab on September 15, 2021, 10:02:53 am
I?m just a low key stationary beekeeper in the middle of a National park with around 20 hives.

No way would I expose my bees to the pesticides needed for commercial crops in agricultural areas.
I heard farmers often don?t think of notifying beekeepers of times of pesticide spraying.

For Commercial beekeepers, pollination services make for a good income and are a calculated risk, surely weighed up in terms of profit and loss. And agreements of pesticide/fungicide applications.
I applaud our commercial beekeepers for all the hard work hauling hives to the crops that need bee pollination.
Title: Re: Setting up apiary in farmland
Post by: Acebird on September 16, 2021, 08:42:30 am
I think you got some good answers.  Migratory being one of them.  A lot of work and risky even with communication with the farmer.  Not a lot of rain to wash off pesticides when nectar is available.