I know someone who has half a dozen or so hives near the riverland in South Australia. He told me how his hives haven't produced any honey in three years, and wanted me to look at them to see what I thought.
The hives were starving, they're incredibly light and there's barely any honey in there, not much more than a few frames per hive of honey frames.
This person I know wants to keep the bees there, because he likes having them on his property, and they were doing really fantastic five years ago. It seems like locations around South Australia are not producing nectar and bees are starving. This person was telling me that, he thinks it's going to get better soon and the bees will be alright, because we have been having a lot of rain in South Australia, and he thinks it's going to cause the local flowers to produce nectar for the bees.
In the area, the bees mostly rely on Mallee, onion weed, potato weed and pig face flowers.
I'm concerned that the beehives are simply going to perish and not survive this year. He was asking how much sugar would need to be fed to them to sustain the colonies and give them a chance. What do you guys think?
I suggested they need to be moved, but we don't know of a suitable location to move them to. I've noticed numerous locations where people have kept bees, where it used to be good for bees is not resulting in bees starving and not surviving. I don't know of any available locations where bees can produce a decent surplus.
What should I tell him? What do you guys suggest?