Stingless Bee Workshop 09/03/2018

Another enjoyable and always educational workshop run by Toby and Sugarbag Bees at the CREEC Environmental Centre Qld. These workshops are run on a regular basis, if you’re a newbie or experienced i’d recommend going as there’s always something new to learn.

 

Toby had everyone trudging through the snake infested swamps to access this hive. (only joking, we didn’t actually see any snakes)

During the day a number of hives are opened and assessed for health and potential for splitting. Some hives can be split and some hives you might choose to extract honey from.

 

Below: Plenty of very clean Honey Pots were in this Honey Super. Everyone was able to taste this honey at the end of the day…

Below: In the box to the right, you can see the Involucrum, the raised Propolis that envelopes the Brood Cone….

 

Below: Small slice of brood. You can see the two Queen cells top right of photo. The Queen cells are larger the other cells. This slice of Brood was placed back in to the hive and will be fine…

 

Toby found a hive that was thought to be lost, so this one was a bonus…

 

Below: This shows the top section up-side-down. When the box was pulled apart the whole insides stayed together and separated from the bottom box. This is because it had not been split for a long time and the Propolis was very hard which held it all together. This “outer shell” is called the Involucrum. It surrounds the Brood.

 

Below: Pointing to the Queen, as she tries to sneak away under the brood layers. Just below – right – center of photo

 

Toby: “Hey Tim, see I’m not wearing a head net!!”

 

 

Hivecraft - Australian Native Bee Supplies

Native bee boxes available at www.hivecraft.com.au

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