The Beekeepers Club Inc.

23/24-Aug-2008 - Field Trip to Robinvale (by Dietmar Klimkeit)

We all know that bees cluster together when it gets cold or when they swarm - and so do The Beekeepers.
Saturday morning, 23rd August, has been a very chilly morning (about 4 Celsius) and twenty beekeepers clustered together at the Manningham council depot to form a swarm and take off in a bus to Robinvale to see bees performing Almond pollination.

The first stop on the way was Kilmore, for morning tea. Just outside of Kilmore, at the intersection of the Northern Highway and the old Hume Highway, we stopped at the Frederick Beuhne memorial.

(From an article by Mike Love, VAA) Frederick Richard Beuhne (1859-1933) is known as the father of Victorian beekeeping.
Frederick migrated from Germany to Australia in 1880, became involved in beekeeping and established himself at Tooboorac. He was responsible for the establishment of the Victorian Beekeepers Association in 1892. This association was the fore runner of the VAA Inc. Frederick held a number of different positions in this association over many years, including editor for a beekeeping journal which gave rise to the ABJ. In 1909 he was appointed by the government as the first Apiary Inspector, a position he held till 1926 when he retired. During this time he wrote "Honey Flora of Victoria" which formed the basis of subsequent republications by the department and is still used by many Victorian beekeepers today. - The original plaque is kept in the beekeeping museum at Huntly.

After this brief historical flash back the swarm of beekeepers continued the journey via Heathcote, ready for a lunch break with fresh local bread at the fringe of Bendigo - with cold winds blowing.

The landscape north of Bendigo became flatter and dryer. Less than 1% of the trees were in blossom. Although there were a large number of lakes along both sides of the road, the land was generally dry; apparently the lakes were salt lakes, a few salt producing yards along the way were a good indication.

Welcome to Swan Hill - a rural town that welcomes visitors. Swann Hill offers visitors access to a "public" kitchen, showers, nappy change room and other conveniences - this is really something I haven't seen anywhere else and it deserves 5 stars! We did not need these facilities when we were there, but think about all the country travellers.

The swarm arrived at Swann Hill around 5 pm to check into the motel.

Dinner at the RSL club around the corner.

After a good night's rest and breakfast at the motel the swarm continued its bus journey next morning.

We arrived at Robinvale where Trevor Monson was waiting for us alongside the road; we sure would have missed the place otherwise. Trevor is the Pollination Coordinator for the Robinvale area and he sure is very busy at this time, with the pollination in full swing. Trevor is a beekeeper himself and owns 5,500 hives in partnership with someone else.

I'm asking for forgiveness if the data I'm quoting is not 100% correct, it has been a lot of information in a short time. However, it should be close enough to give you some idea of what goes on in Robinvale.
There are 35 farms in the Robinvale area, managed independently by farm managers. The farms are not owned by farmers but investment companies and shareholders. The beekeepers swarm from Melbourne visited the "Wandown" farm.

About 304,000 Almond trees grow in this area spreading over 38,000 acres, separated in fields of 3,000 - 7,000 acres each. A total of 60,000 beehives currently performing pollination in these fields. On average there are three beehives per acre. The growth of Almond fields in this area require 90,000 beehives for pollination next year which is going to be a problem, not only from the resourcing side but also the logistics of it as the pollination period is only 4 weeks and all hives have to be in place from the start of the blossom, i.e. from 1st August.

Almond trees are productive for up to 30 years and during that time the yield is between 9,000 and 20,000 nuts per tree, resulting in 600 kg almonds per acre. More than 70% is produced for export to India and Asia, exports from here make out about 7% of the world market. We were told that a year's production from the Wandown farm is consumed in a day in India.

Growth of the almond industry in the Robinvale area is challenged and restricted by the availability of water, which is drawn from the Murray river. "Carry-over" water is stored in large dams during the time when not much water is used by the trees. However, these dams can only hold a week's supply of water. Bore water is too salty and would withdraw water from the Murray river as well, it is therefore not an alternative.

When beehives arrive for pollination Trevor is inspecting 10% of them and monitors hive entrance traffic for the first week after their arrival, driving about 700 km across the fields every day just doing that. If some hives are not performing the owner is notified to rectify the problem.

Swarming is not an issue during the pollination period as there are too many bees in the area, all competing for resources, not providing abundant nectar and pollen for one hive to consider swarming. Besides almond trees there are land strips and patches with native bushland where bees can find Mallys, namely White, Yellow, Christmas, Little Red, Acorn, etc. - however, we could witness that bees do prefer the almonds.

After a very interesting and enjoyable day between hundreds of thousands of almond trees and millions of bees we had to head back to Melbourne. On the way back, just a few kilometres south of Echuca we stopped by at the "Hunidue" and were welcomed by Elwyne Papworth who showed us around on her honey farm and invited us in for tea. A very nice surprise.

At 9pm sharp on Sunday night we arrived back at the depot, tired and fulfilled with the experience and memories of two exciting days in the field.

You can watch a 4-minute flashback of this event following this link