Whats Blooming at kiwimana HQ….beekeeping, apiary, gardens, flowers

Kiwimana HQ and Apiary
Its now well into Autumn here in New Zealand – April 2015. This beekeeping season we have really enjoyed a long Summer even though the honey flow was late, our Honey Bee splits were late – its been pretty challenging all-round this Bee Season but all-in-all we have now have some strong colonies going in to Winter.

Whats been happening In the Garden ?
last season we planted up some small garden beds which have been through extremes, including drought, excess rainfall and neglect. Our Honey Bees are enjoying these Autumn-flowering plants as they flower – so its all blooming wonderful forage for the girls.

Those plant-survivors have been photographed and shown beelow – these are the plants we’ll look at building from, for flowering over the coming Summer.

So presently we are thinking about our planting plans, and the work we’ll need to do to put everything in place.

Down-Under, here in NZed, the best time to for us to plant-up is around October as this time of year for us, is not too dry and the earth is more diggable (if that’s a word!)

Other things going on in the Apiary at kiwimana HQ?

…well the grass is going crazy! The recent rains have seen the grass grow as you look at it!

The grass needs trimming back around the Beehives and a good overall cut in preparartion for Winter, which is ‘officially’ here on June 1st.

This time of year our local resident Native Wood Pidgeon or Kereru (Maori Name) is feeding off our Kowhai tree which is producing new leaf-shoots, she feeds on these new shoots as part of her regular diet, sometimes the trees look a bit battered but they always recover : )

…here’s a photo of her, can you spot her?

What can you do to help the local Honey Bees and Pollinators?

We currently have some seeds available for you to create your own WILD FLOWER garden bed. We have them available for $5.00 NZD – $4.00 of which goes toward the ‘help NZ Bees’ projects through www.nba.org.nz and www.wildforage.co.nz and $1.00 from these sales go to helping us manage our Apiary and our on-going research and Project works.

Here at kiwimana HQ, we’ll bee looking at adding these seeds to a new garden bed and also put into some large pot plants. We’ll keep you posted on their progress.

Do you want to give your support to this worthy cause?

… you can call us to order your seed packets on (09) 810 9965 or if you are overseas +0064 9 8109965
or
…you can pay on-line to our account : kiwibank A/C # 38-9012-0609666-00

Thanks so much for your support.

Thanks so much for taking time to read this BLOG, we appreciate it, because – without you – what would bee the point?

Margaret and Gary