Alex – Little Bees at Tullamore Farm

Alex of Little Bees Secret Garden teamed up with Bill at Tullamore Farm for a day of Native Bee education.

Tullamore Farm is just past Beaudesert Qld. Since purchasing the property in 2014 Bill has done a lot of work building structures and gardens with the intent to be fully self sufficient. Bill now gives tours of the farm and runs workshops that cover many different aspects of the farm, from Waterscaping & Hugelkulter to how to grow Bananas.

Alex did a fantastic job educating the attendees about our Native Bees, covering Social and Solitary Bee species. The morning session focused on Stingless Bees, the roles of different bees within colonies, the Queens dramatic and dangerous life and the quest of the male bees to mate and create a new Queen. Alex also talked about how to duplicate colonies with the splitting and budding processes. Some people have had a hive for a few years and some just starting out and I think they all couldn’t wait their turn to throw a question at Alex along the way so there was a fair bit of interest and involvement.

There’s two Stingless Bee boxes on the farm and another colony in a large log located in natural bushland.

Bill thinks this colony may have moved in to the log originally coming from the boxes that he placed on the property. There’s plans to work with Alex in future to increase the colonies throughout the property.

Alex focused on Solitary Bees in the afternoon session, talking about a few species including Blue Banded Bees, their life and pollination benefits and also Resin Bees, handing around one of the Solitary Bee Observation Blocks that had Resin Bees inside in larval form so everyone could see the internal structures of the Resin Bee nest.

This was the first Native Bee Workshop held at the farm and there are plans to run more in future.

It’s a great day out if you’re interested in Native Bees, or even just generally interested in how to attract more Native Bees to your property through creating better habitat and how to improve your fruit and vege with pollinators.

Alex also talked about the Bee Garden Competition, which she is donating one of her awesome Bee Hotels to. Find out more about the competition here

Bill is passionate about his farm and the wildlife that is attracted to it and gave a tour around the many various fruit trees and the extensive vegetable garden where we got to sample some of the produce. Bill runs regular farm tours and workshops where you can find out more about how to improve your property and gardens for food production and wild life.