Cassowary Coast has had a great winter floral start. It rained heavy at the end of May and early June but when the melaleuca started flowering the waterworks stopped and the nights are mild and days really warm and some humid by our standards.
You can go downwind from the hockingsi and get a real whiff of maturing paperback honey, one can wait all year for this time and the nectar harvesting is now tailing off but there will be another lesser melaleuca nectar flow in a couple of weeks. I cannot re-member a better start to a winter. Peter Roberts has gotten a few hockingsi eductions budding presently. I have taken some clypearis from Richard Piper’s orchard near the river mouth and they have a bit more weight to them. Some White tail rats had a feast for their senses on a few of my hives as shown in the photo.
From Neil Fraser