Bees at Tower Hill

Planted for the bees

Before pigs, William was a commercial beekeeper, so he picked species that are high in nectar and pollen. Different trees and shrubs flower at different times of the year, so between them there should be something in flower almost all year round.

The farm already has mature stands of honeysuckle banksia, prickly box and eucalypt bush, and we've added trees and shrubs that flower at different times through the year. Between the wattles and early gums in spring, the tea-trees, bottlebrushes and prickly box through summer, and the banksias and late-flowering gums into autumn and sometimes early winter, the bees should find something in flower for more months of the year.

Our planned apiary

Undergoing works / planned

We're planning a stationary apiary spread across the farm, close to the new plantings. Our hives will come back once the planting is established and flowering. More natural forage close to the hives should mean less need for supplementary feeding through the lean months.

Winters up here are cold, so we're looking at insulated poly hives. Thick insulated walls hold heat far better than thin timber boxes, so the bees should use less of their stores keeping warm.

At the time of writing, Tasmania remains varroa-free. We want to help keep it that way, so we follow Biosecurity Tasmania's rules on bringing in hive gear.

Honey bee strains

The honey bees kept in Tasmania are European honey bees (Apis mellifera). Beekeepers know them by strain, and the common ones are:

• Italian (A. m. ligustica). Gentle, golden bees that build up fast in spring.
• Caucasian (A. m. caucasica). Calm, darker grey bees known for a long tongue and plenty of propolis.
• Carniolan (A. m. carnica). Quiet, dark bees that winter in small clusters and build up quickly when the flow starts.

Native bees recorded in the area

These native bees have been recorded in the area around the Fingal Valley. Most of the records are museum specimens collected between 1948 and 1979, so they show these bees were here, not that they're here now. More native bees are likely present.

• Yellow-faced bee (Hyleoides concinna). A black and orange native bee that looks like a wasp. It carries pollen inside its body, not on its legs.
• Plasterer bee (Leioproctus carinatus). A solitary bee that nests in the ground and lines its burrow with a waterproof, cellophane-like coating.
• Sweat bees (Lasioglossum clelandi, L. hilactus, L. mundulum, L. orbatum, L. taluchis). Small, dark native bees that nest in the ground.

The European honey bee and the large earth bumblebee are both introduced to Tasmania. Neither is native.

Species pages: Atlas of Living Australia.

Why poly hives

William's hives are HiveIQ commercial 9-frame hives made from EPS, an insulated poly foam. They sit four to a pallet on fold-out legs, which makes them easy to move and work.

Poly holds warmth in winter, so the colony spends less of its honey keeping the cluster warm. In summer the same walls buffer the heat, so the hive stays cooler on hot days.

Trees, meadow and swales

The carbon project. Mostly local native trees and shrubs, including gums, banksias, tea-trees, honey myrtles and bottlebrushes, chosen for nectar and pollen across the seasons. About our carbon project

The Pig Creek bee and fodder planting. A separate planting at Pig Creek for the bees and the stock, not part of the carbon project. About our silvopasture

Tree lucerne at Pig Creek. We're planting tagasaste, or tree lucerne, on our Pig Creek property, in a large planting of thousands of shrubs in rows, which will become a major early-season food source for our bees as it establishes. It flowers from winter to spring (about June-October, peaking July-September, by our estimates), giving the bees early-season pollen and some nectar when little else is out. We'll manage it as browse once established: trimmed back after flowering, before the pods set, and kept away from the bush and the creek, as explained on our silvopasture page.

The meadow. In summer we plan to rest some paddocks long enough for the clovers and other pasture flowers to bloom before the cattle come through, which adds another layer of flowers in the busy months.

The swales. Our swales slow and hold rainwater, which helps the trees and shrubs along them grow and flower. We're planning more flowering native shrubs along the swale rows.

What flowers when

Up here on Tower Hill the seasons run late and every year is different, so we'll see how the flowering plays out as the trees grow.

See the full bee forage calendar

For the bees: species by species

Indicative only. These are not yields we expect from our farm.

Indicative figures only, for a mature stand in a good season, drawn from published studies (e.g. Eva Crane) and our own estimates (est.). Real yields depend on weather, frost, rainfall and grazing, and vary widely from year to year. A mix of flowers matters: single-source eucalypt pollen can be low in key amino acids.