The Beginning - 1923
When looking around our new home, Dad was delighted to find a swarm of bees in a hollow in the outside of the kitchen chimney. When spring came, he removed them into a bee box (super) and this was his first hive of bees. It was 1923.
Later, he bought twelve hives from another beekeeper, Mr. Foster. They were brought home by horse and dray with each hive wrapped in a sack. No one was stung.
Growth of the Business
At first, Dad worked at the freezing works, but he left about 1935 to enlarge his apiary. He worked all year with the bees as well as doing the odd job of wallpapering and building garages and sheds.
The honey business grew a little larger each year and became a big business. Dad had several different sites for apiaries at different farms around the area, some more than twenty miles away.
Working with the Bees
Harry and I helped with making and putting the wax into the frames. We went with Dad whenever he went to put out the empty supers (the boxes) on the top of the hives for the bees to fill with honey or when Dad was collecting the combs which were full of honey.
We worked in the honey house helping with the extracting and packing of the honey. First a hand extractor which held two frames was used. Later he got a larger one which held four frames. This was also turned by hand, and one could turn the handle pretty fast. Later, we had power, and an electric motor was used on the extractor.
I did not enjoy working with the bees. It was a messy and sticky job and the khaki overalls we wore were not very attractive, especially for a teenage girl.
Processing and Packaging
There were no modern inventions for packing honey, and it was all hard work. Dad invented an apparatus for cutting the solid honey into 1lb blocks. The honey was put into a wooden box specially made to the required size and when the honey was set hard in a cool room, the sides were knocked off and the block of honey was set on a board and pushed through wires of the correct size with another wire pulled down through from the top of the block of honey.
This cut the honey into 1lb blocks. They were then wrapped like butter into specially printed paper with the Cloake brand "Cloake's Pure Clover Honey 1 lb nett."
The Italian Bees
Dad started hatching queen bees. He had imported a special breed from America (Italian). This bee had a lot of yellow on its tail and was a stronger bee and much quieter.
Eventually, by killing off the black queen and replacing it with the Italian queen, all the hives became nice yellow tail bees. It was this breed that Dad exported to Canada, and some went to Roul Island as an experiment to see if bees could live there and help with the pollination of the native bush.
Infrastructure
As the honey business grew, Dad built a top story on the honey house he had first built. The extractor was put on the top floor and the honey drained down into the tanks below. When the extractor was extracting the honey, the top story would rock and shake. A few years later when it was pulled down, it fell to the ground in one piece. It must have been well-built.
Awards and Recognition
Dad entered the shows with his honey and wax, winning the cup several times. Over the years he won a lot of prizes with honey and wax. Mum won prizes with her dressed poultry and Myra with her scones.
A Swarm Adventure
Once when Mother and I were home on our own, we saw a swarm of bees hanging in an apple tree, so we collected the mat, bee box and hearth brush. I crawled under the tree to place the mat and bee box so the bees would fall on the mat and I could place the box over them for them to crawl into.
While I was under the swarm, Mum accidentally knocked the branch, and the swarm came down on my back. I knew that bees do not sting when they are swarming unless they are squeezed. I crawled out and Mum used the hearth brush to sweep the bees off. I placed the box over the bees on the mat and they all climbed into the box. I had a few stings on the back of my neck and one or two on my head. We went inside and Mother combed the odd bee out of my hair, no damage done.