A poor year for Chiangmai honey

[Chiangmai member]

Heres a cautionary tale for those of you who think that bee keeping in the tropics must be so much easier than in temperate lands. As some of my earlier posts to this forum have explained, some things are easier and some things are not. But nothing had prepared me for this year.....

After an excellent honey flow in 2014, the bee keepers of Chiangmai were hoping for more of the same this year. But no, its been a disaster and the reason all comes down to two rainy days in January.

The main honey flow in Chiangmai is from Longon trees which flower in March/April. This is towards the end of a 5-6 month dry season. Flowering of the trees each year appears to be triggered by these very dry conditions. This year, on two days in mid January, 80mm of rain fell over northern Thailand. This seems to have sent a clear message to the Longon trees, 'grow leaves not flowers', which is what they did. Experienced bee keepers knew what was coming and quickly moved their colonies elsewhere or didn't migrate to the North. We just stayed put with the naive optimism of the inexperienced. After extracting today, its clear that our honey production is down 90% on last year.

But the weather looks great in the UK and I hope you all enjoy a marvellous summer and bumper honey harvests this year. For us, 2015 is now as good as over and we are looking to 2016, but surprise, surprise, my naive optimism still seems to be intact.

 

[B+.]

its been a disaster and the reason all comes down to two rainy days in January.

to hear that. I suppose you never know how lucky you are sometimes. To think that your whole year can be ruined by two days of rain!

 

[sansai]

Sad to hear. which side of CM are you ?
My property is about 25 K North of CM, and while we also experienced the heavy rain in early January, the Longon still had a pretty fair flowering season, with a good fruit set.
Perhaps it also depends on how your local farmers are "feeding" their trees !.

 

[Chiangmai member]

Sad to hear. which side of CM are you ?
My property is about 25 K North of CM, and while we also experienced the heavy rain in early January, the Longon still had a pretty fair flowering season, with a good fruit set.
Perhaps it also depends on how your local farmers are "feeding" their trees !.

We are on the NW side of Chiangmai town, quite close to Doi Suthep. As its a peri-urban area, people tend not to bother 'feeding their trees' with Potassium chlorate to induce flowering. Good to hear that the situation is better around Sansai. Do you keep bees over that way?

 

[Bushtuckaman]

I'm a UK beekeeper currently traveling in Thailand for a few months and was hoping to look at how beekeeping is done in this part of the world! I can see myself settling down here longterm so would be keen to have my own hive here at some point. Can anyone put me in touch with a beekeeper here or suggest website I can look at to contact ex pat beekeepers in Thailand! I'm in Chiang Mai for the next month, so ideally a beek in this region would be good to meet!
Cheers
John

 

[pargyle]

I'm a UK beekeeper currently traveling in Thailand for a few months and was hoping to look at how beekeeping is done in this part of the world! I can see myself settling down here longterm so would be keen to have my own hive here at some point. Can anyone put me in touch with a beekeeper here or suggest website I can look at to contact ex pat beekeepers in Thailand! I'm in Chiang Mai for the next month, so ideally a beek in this region would be good to meet!
Cheers

Well - Chiangmai Member was on the forum this morning at 7.30am so just missed your post - unless he hung about a bit. You need ten posts I think to be able to send and receive PM's so you'd best add a few posts to your score and send him a PM. Good luck ...should be very interesting.
John

 

[Chiangmai member]

Well - Chiangmai Member was on the forum this morning at 7.30am so just missed your post - unless he hung about a bit. You need ten posts I think to be able to send and receive PM's so you'd best add a few posts to your score and send him a PM. Good luck ...should be very interesting.
John

I'm in Chiangmai this week- moving my bees to Longon growing areas and chasing Apis cerana swarms. Lol.

Am away in the South next week and then Myanmar but should be back in Chiangmai around 20th March. Happy to meet up then.

You can call me on 0849503740

Rick

 

[Bushtuckaman]

Pargyle, thanks for the heads up! I though I replied to your post yesterday but I didn't seem to have registered!

Chaingmai Member, sounds interesting stuff! I like a bit of swarm collecting myself! ;-) would be great to meet up when you're back in this area! ! I will give you a ring!
Many thanks
John