Loading full honey boxes. Field's Apiaries 1967-68

Russell Field  removing honey from  hive. 

Honey removal using the brushing method 1967 - 68 season. 

Field 's  Apiaries, Foxton

1967 - 68 season at Field 's Apiaries. Bee boxes repaired then soaked in used car engine oil. Then left outside for 6 months to weather. Unacceptable practice today using old car engine oil

Honey removal using the bee brushing method. 

Infuriated the bees and this is when we got most stings! 

The 1967 - 68 season. These bee hives were harvesting Manuka honey in the Wanganui Valley. At that time it was regarded as poor quality honey and only used to supplement feed bee hives in winter, sold to bakers or used to blend with clover honey

Using a steam heated honey uncapping knife in the extracting shed at Field's Apiaries 1967-68 season. Foxton

Honey extracting shed on  the left and packing shed on the right. This was the new shed completed in time for the 1967-68 season. 

Two eight frame honey extractors in the foreground and hand held uncapping unit at rear. 

Note: there are no safety cages on the extractor fly wheels but we never had an accident. 1967-68 season at Field's Apiaries,  Foxton

(boxes) loaded onto rear of the truck by hand. Each weighs about 25kg. We had no mechanical lifters, all manual lifting.

1967-68 season, Foxton area.

(boxes) loaded onto rear of the truck by hand. Each weighs about 25kg. We had no mechanical lifters, all manual lifting. (boxes) loaded onto rear of the truck by hand. Each weighs about 25kg. We had no mechanical lifters, all manual lifting.

Rear storage sheds at Field's Apiaries, Foxton 1967-68 season.

Field's Apiaries wax shed, 1967-68 season using a wood burning steam boiler.

Field's Apiaries honey shed completed in 1967, Norbiton Road, Foxton.

Two 8 frame honey extractors and the honey then drained to a lower storage tank first passing through a mesh filter. Honey storage tins on right foreground.

Beeswax storage area at Field's Apiaries, Norbiton Road, Foxton

View from the rear of the beeswax shed in foreground and the new honey extracting and packing shed at rear. This was completed in 1967. The roof of the Field's family home seen at the rear on the left side. At this time they had about 1300 hives.

Russel Field (foreground) of Field's Apiaries and employee "Brownie" 1967-68 season.

When working bees in the Wanganui Valley for Manuka Honey we sometimes stayed overnight in a caravan.

Field's Apiaries 1967-68 Honey Crop stored in kerosene tins as was the usual practice then. About 32 tons here whatever that is in Kilos?

We had no truck mounted mechanical lifter and had to manually lift the full honey supers (boxes) onto the back of the Ford truck, Each box weighed about 25kg

"Brownie" showing a frame containing bee larvae (brood) and some honey.  Brownie took over as head beekeeper from Norman Keane who had left to work as his own beekeeper business.

Most of Field's apiaries were scattered through the Manawatu area and were usually around 20 hives in each apiary. When I worked there in the 1967-68 season they had about 1300 hives in total. They were all standard 10 frame Langstroth hives. We didn't use queen exluders in any of them and neither did we have a mechanical loader. All hives and full honey boxes were manually lifted onto the flat tray Ford truck seen here.

Employee "Brownie" using a steam heated honey uncapping knife in the new honey shed of Field's Apiaries, Norbiton Road, Foxton.

This was very hard work on the wrist. We didn't have an automatic uncapping machine.