Everything in this hive was in great condition with no pests, a good amount of resources and plenty of good looking brood. A strong healthy colony with lots of bees. Moisture levels are normally very high inside a hive, around 70 to 90% humidity. It looked like it just suddenly…
Things don’t always go well with Native Bees or anything with nature. Sometimes we have tragedies and we can learn from them and make changes. I called this box Project Octahive. I built the box in 2015 and put bees in to it around a year later. Here’s the build…
Want to build a bee hotel this weekend and encourage some native solitary bees in to your garden? Bee hotels provide individual artificial tunnels that entice female solitary bees to lay their eggs. About 30% of native bee species will choose to nest in pithy centred canes or branches and…
Hopefully this article will get you started in the right direction. This page lightly touches on everything from Bee species through workshops, publications and clubs. Which bees do you like? There’s over 2000 species of native bees in Australia, most of those are Solitary Bees, with 11 species being Social…
Finally i have one of Tony Goodrichs’ boxes, supplied by Melissa at Sydney Stingless Bees. These boxes are the most sold boxes in Australia and I thought it’d be good to have a look at them and try it out for myself. Update: 20/01/2019 I split a hive box and…
Getting Bees in to a different shaped box I wanted to put Bees in to some of my pillar style boxes. The standard oath box is 280mm x 200mm, while the frames I want to transfer to are 175mm square. I’ve put a clear window on top of the smaller frame…
David at Northside Native Bees is a bit of a wiz with gadgets and has built his own monitoring system. The device measures outside temperature and also Brood temperature. The information is sent via wifi to his computer then updates his website every six minutes. Below: Previously the…
I recently purchased a new Pollination Box sold by Sugarbag Bees because i was interested in the design of the box. This box is designed with the purpose for crop pollination on farms. It’s a PVC construction and has no honey super top frame so isn’t intended for honey extraction. The box is…
These instructions are based on using my Budding Kits but it all still applies if you have a your own box or bought a different type. Box Placement / Position: The bees will use sight to find their hive entrance, looking at structures around it, trees, posts, fences, bricks etc. …
I decided to set up one of my Log Cabins for Budding (Hive Duplication). This process could be done with just about any kind of empty box. I thought it might be better to do it this way than to split a hive because then you will have to split it…
Cottage Roof
OATH Painted – 35mm Cypress
Cedar & Pine Rebated
Rustic Splitting Box – went psychedelic
Layered Australis Box
Outhouse V2 – OATH
The Outhouse
Budding Hive Instructions – How To
Buzz Inn – Create the ultimate luxury accommodation for native bees in your backyard
Budding – Hive Duplication Example
Syrphid Fly – Wasp Mimic
Summer heat and your hive
Solitary Bees
Brood Temperature Monitoring
Native Bee Club – Francisco Garcia
Australian Native Bee Conference 2019
Stingless Bee Workshop – Tim Heard
Native Bee Club – Steve Maginnity
Brisbane Native Beekeepers Club