{"id":2003,"date":"2012-03-20T18:11:05","date_gmt":"2012-03-20T07:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/?p=2003"},"modified":"2014-11-13T11:35:47","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T00:35:47","slug":"amateur-apiarists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/amateur-apiarists\/","title":{"rendered":"AMATEUR APIARISTS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-glove.jpg\" data-lightbox=\"gal[2003]\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2005\" title=\"bee-honey-collection-glove\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-glove1.jpg?resize=660%2C495\" alt=\"Honey bee close up on a glove\" width=\"660\" height=\"495\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-lighting-smoker.jpg\" data-lightbox=\"gal[2003]\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2007\" title=\"bee-honey-collection-lighting-smoker\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-lighting-smoker.jpg?resize=660%2C495\" alt=\"Smoker for bees being lit\" width=\"660\" height=\"495\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-removing-bar.jpg\" data-lightbox=\"gal[2003]\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2053\" title=\"bee-honey-collection-removing-bar\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-removing-bar.jpg?resize=660%2C495\" alt=\"Removing bars from top bar hive\" width=\"660\" height=\"495\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-worker-bees.jpg\" data-lightbox=\"gal[2003]\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2054\" title=\"bee-honey-collection-worker-bees\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-worker-bees.jpg?resize=660%2C495\" alt=\"Worker bees on bar\" width=\"660\" height=\"495\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-brushing-bees-off-comb.jpg\" data-lightbox=\"gal[2003]\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2055\" title=\"bee-honey-collection-brushing-bees-off-comb\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-brushing-bees-off-comb.jpg?resize=660%2C495\" alt=\"Jess brushing bees off honeycomb\" width=\"660\" height=\"495\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-honey-comb.jpg\" data-lightbox=\"gal[2003]\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2056\" title=\"bee-honey-collection-honey-comb\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-honey-comb.jpg?resize=660%2C495\" alt=\"Honeycomb oozing with honey\" width=\"660\" height=\"495\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2060\" style=\"border-style: initial; border-color: initial;\" title=\"bee-honey-collection-inspecting-hive\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-inspecting-hive.jpg?resize=660%2C495\" alt=\"Looking up at the comb from below\" width=\"660\" height=\"495\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-dripping-honey.jpg\" data-lightbox=\"gal[2003]\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2057\" title=\"bee-honey-collection-dripping-honey\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-dripping-honey.jpg?resize=660%2C495\" alt=\"Honey dripping off comb\" width=\"660\" height=\"495\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-sting.jpg\" data-lightbox=\"gal[2003]\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2061\" title=\"bee-honey-collection-sting\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-sting.jpg?resize=660%2C495\" alt=\"Jess with a bee sting, taking one for the team\" width=\"660\" height=\"495\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-inside-the-hive.jpg\" data-lightbox=\"gal[2003]\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2058\" title=\"bee-honey-collection-inside-the-hive\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-inside-the-hive.jpg?resize=660%2C495\" alt=\"Top bar hive with roof off\" width=\"660\" height=\"495\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-watching-raised-garden-beds.jpg\" data-lightbox=\"gal[2003]\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2062\" title=\"bee-honey-collection-watching-raised-garden-beds\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-watching-raised-garden-beds.jpg?resize=660%2C495\" alt=\"Jess watching from a safer distance after her sting\" width=\"660\" height=\"495\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-honey.jpg\" data-lightbox=\"gal[2003]\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2063\" title=\"bee-honey-collection-honey\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-honey.jpg?resize=660%2C495\" alt=\"Honey on the raised earthbag garden beds\" width=\"660\" height=\"495\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-brushing-off-bees.jpg\" data-lightbox=\"gal[2003]\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-2064\" title=\"bee-honey-collection-brushing-off-bees\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-brushing-off-bees.jpg?resize=660%2C495\" alt=\"Brushing off bees after the collection\" width=\"660\" height=\"495\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The warm, sweet smell of honey was so strong it had begun to sway towards the sickly side of delicious. We thought it might be time to harvest a few bars.<\/p>\n<p>Last year when bee mania hit our sharehouse the newspaper arrived on our doorstep with a front page cautionary tale of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theage.com.au\/victoria\/bees-beers-a-bad-combination-20110419-1dm37.html\">beekeeping gone wrong in Flemington<\/a>. We considered ourselves safe as long as we steered clear of &#8220;bizarre nocturnal attempt(s) to move a beehive onto a roof&#8221; and &#8220;beer\u00a0fueled\u00a0escapade(s)&#8221; . But when it came time to try harvesting our honey, finding ourselves short of a suit, smoker and experience, we thought who better to call than our Irish neighbour of &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=kMzFp7PC7v8\">bee bungle<\/a>&#8221; fame, we bee keepers have to stick together and afterall 60 stings later he would surely be a lot wiser for his experience.<\/p>\n<p>Quick to laugh and enjoy the challenges of the bee keeping experience, Andrew was a delightful addition to our little honey gang. And challenges are never shy around us, culminating in our bees having been very busy over spring fusing the bars diagonally to each other rather than in neat little lines. So the removal experience wasn&#8217;t quite as easy as we had hoped, a call to the bee man, Martin, informed us we would probably have to remove the offending combs in winter and start afresh! There weren&#8217;t many stings, although one did involve an unfortunate incident of a bee flying up someone&#8217;s pants which elicited gales of laughter from the flats above.<\/p>\n<p>The gorgeous, golden Flemington honey was worth our misadventures and hopefully with a little bit of experience we will be running our bee operation in a less chaotic fashion next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp; The warm, sweet smell of honey was so strong it had begun to sway towards the sickly side of delicious. We thought it might be time to harvest a few bars. Last year when bee mania hit our sharehouse the newspaper arrived on our doorstep with a front page cautionary tale of beekeeping gone [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2053,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,55],"tags":[218,221,220,216,348],"class_list":["post-2003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-garden","category-recipes","tag-bee-keeping","tag-flemington","tag-flemington-earthbag-garden","tag-top-bar-hives","tag-urban-farming"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee-honey-collection-removing-bar.jpg?fit=660%2C495&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4l1F7-wj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2003"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5401,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2003\/revisions\/5401"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2053"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thedesertecho.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}