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This is Murray Ballantyne, a beekeeper apiarist with over
35 years experience in beekeeping. Murray was also Chairman of the Topoclimate
South Trust that ran the Topoclimate Project in Southland because he
appreciated the value of microclimate information to farming.
Murray provided a very good example of the economic value
of microclimate information in relation to his bee keeping business involving
several thousand hives.
Murray gave the details of his example as follows:
"I currently run two sites of hives in the Winton
area at the points marked A & B on this map. I have noticed for a number of
years that the bees at site A have always produced about 20% less honey that
the same hives at site B. Looking at the landscape at each site, I could not
really see why this occurred as both sites were at similar altitude and had
similar local sources of nectar so I was at a loss to understand why this
difference was happening."
Murray Ballantyne continued, "When I looked at the
Growing Degree Day (GDD) maps for the two sites, I could start to understand
why - Site A received significantly less annual heat than site B. Because Site
A was in a cooler gully that cold air drained into, my bees were expending much
more energy in keeping warm and less in producing honey. Also, they would be
slower to leave the hive to collect nectar and pollen for honey
production"
"Suddenly, with good microclimate information, the
answers become blindly obvious. My bees know where the good microclimates are
but I had to use the Topoclimate maps to find these optimal spots."
Murray Ballantyne commented further "Just by
moving my hives two paddocks up the hill, I believe I can earn enough extra in
honey production to pay for my Varroa Mite control costs in the event that the
disease eventually gets down here. I believe that Southland farmers will be
able to use the Topoclimate information in ways just like this to improve their
farm production, to diversify into new things and to do things more
sustainably."
I’M CONVINCED- I WANT TO BUY FARMING SMARTER
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