>Hi Stan, trust Robert to tell all, just because he left Australia and went
>to live and work in New Zealand.
>
>I am one of those beekeepers that work the Yapunyah,  it is a great tree as
>it can start flowering in late March and still be flowering at the end of
>October.
>
>I guess that is nature way of providing because in the Yapunyah area, it is
>the only tree producing nectar.  I could talk for hours on the area and
>still not tell all.  I guess that 1/2 the beekeepers that work the area
>have permanent plants out there.
>
>If you would like to know more let me know I maybe I could write of my
>experience out there
>
>Rod Palmer
>[log in to unmask]
 
Hi Rod.  It's a pleasure to hear from you.  I would be quite interested in
your experiences.  I am not familiar with the area, but I am not totally
ignorant of the country having toured every state a bit (Queensland only on
the coast) and worked for six months in a bush camp outside of Darwin (but
this was all over 25 years ago).
 
In Robert's letter he described several moves in the migration.  It sounds
like the Yapunyah area is a major one since it blooms for so long.  How many
extracting plants do you have?  Do you move the equipment each time?
 
I would be happy to correspond personally with you, but I think that other
people on the bee-list might also be quite interested  in hearing about
beekeeping in the outback.  So I am going to take the liberty of sending a
copy of this reply (it includes your letter) to the bee-list.  If anyone
else is interested in your posting through the list we will probably hear.
I would like to encourage people to write about their beekeeping around the
world.  I find it a really enjoyable armchair travel.  We have had two
beekeepers stay with us for a while, one was from Togo and the other was
from Surinam (north of the Amazon).  Both were used to working with African
or Africanized honey bees and were pretty surprised at the gentleness of our
colonies and the low level of swarming.
 
Personally I am a most sedentary beekeeper, having not figured out how to
migrate around with a herd of dairy cows.  My furthest beeyards are 30 miles
away, and I try to keep my yards around fifteen hives.  We also cannot move
hives in or out of our small island province, since we do not have either
varroa or tracheal mites here.  The only place bees can be imported from is
Australia and New Zealand.
 
I am looking forward to hearing more from you.  Regards,  Stan