MARY & SUSAN - SISTER RIVERS OF THE FRASER COAST

LINDSAY TITMARSH

AS A primary producer, I am familiar with the problems of making a living from the land.

Quite often the best of plans, as well as good management, is not enough to guarantee a successful harvest; Mother the hives are placed on

Nature is sometimes very unco-operative.

One of the most volatile primary production occupations is that of being an apiarist [beekeeper].

In Australia, imported Italian honeybees collect pollen [bee food] and nectar [future honey] from plants and trees. The weather plays a major part in whether a certain plant or tree actually produces these commodities.

Flowers can be there, but the weather can be too dry or too wet or other problems can arise.

Quite often seasonal conditions prevent flowering at all.

One of the most productive honey flows on the Fraser Coast comes from the river mangrove Aegiceras corniculatum.

The Mary-Susan Estuary is the home to many hundreds of hectares of these trees, so if all goes to plan, in excess of 80 tonnes of honey could be produced from this area in a season.

This is one such season.

To take advantage of the excellent conditions, local beekeepers have moved almost 2 000 hives on to my family property Tandora.

For the river mangrove to produce massive amounts of nectar, the trees are dependent on abundant rainfall during the earlier months of the year. They start to bud up in June and by the second week to blossom. Lasting 6-8 weeks, the flow is followed by fruiting early the next year.

Following a heavy blossoming, the next year is usually very lean, with subsequent years again dependant on summerautumn rainfall.

Bees are transported in wooden boxes which, if moved in hot weather, have the entrance left open to prevent overheating.

On arrival at a new site, in October are starting

above ground stands to prevent predation by imported cane toads.

Inside the box are vertical rectangular frames, which have had a wax foundation fixed on wires.

This wax film is embedded with six-sided cell imprints to ensure the bees extend and fill them in an orderly manner.

Some cells are for rearing replacement bees, while others are for storing pollen [bee bread], and others are for honey.

When hives arrive at a new site, the worker bees have no idea in which direction blossoms may be. As they can forage anywhere in a four to five-kilometre radius, the target area is vast.

To prevent unnecessary searching by the workforce, scout bees head out early to see what the new area has to offer.

On return, the scout settles on the vertical honeycomb of a frame and then proceeds with a little dance for the benefit of the watching sterile female workers.

The bee runs around in a pattern shaped like a butterfly with its wings outstretched. This translates to a straight section in the centre, with a semicircle attached on either side, about 40 mm wide in total.

The scout, who is always female, proceeds to run up the central bar of the pattern, then around one semicircle and back to the bottom again, repeating on the other side and continuing with alternate sides.

As she runs up the centre straight, she wags her back end, slowly if the honey source is at the far

A honeybee gathers nectar from the flowers of a river mangrove. Photo Lindsay Titmarsh limit of her flying range or fast if it is close, with variables between.

As they follow the procedure, the spectators watch the movement and listen to the buzz of her wings with the tips of their antennae.

The clues tell them the quantity of the nectar and the flying distance.

The scout continues to dance until she hears a beep from her audience signalling they have understood, and only then does she stop to give them a scent of the bounty she has found.

To give the workers a clue as to the direction of the nectar, the scout rotates the axis of her pattern to an angle from the vertical position.

This angle coincides with the position of the nectar in relation to a line from the entrance of the box to the sun.

Up until the spring of this year, local beekeepers experienced one of the worst production periods for many years, with large numbers of hives dying of starvation.

Let us hope a bountiful harvest from this year’s mangrove flow in the combined estuary of the Mary and Susan Rivers awaits them.