There’s so many different designs of native bee boxes out there?
When starting out you might notice a lot of different boxes, even natural logs with bees available for sale. People get excited and want the fancy box first but I always recommend starting with a standard style box, like the standard yellow box with three layers called an “OATH” 280mm x 200mm. It might be a boring starting point but if you start with a fancy box you can paint yourself in to a corner.
A standard box is much more versatile, you can split/bud/duplicate and create a few extra colonies easily so you have some back up colonies. During this early process you’ll be naturally learning more about stingless bees. Once you have a few colonies you can then bud/educt in to your fancy odd box.
When you have bees in your fancy box then you can leave it alone, for ever to be admired in your garden or on the patio. At the same time you have your other colonies in standard boxes that you’ve split/bud from and collecting honey or passing on to family.
If you start with a fancy or odd box you have to get bees in to it somehow, unless it comes with bees already. Natural logs will usually come with bees. If this is your first and only colony if you ever intend to have that’s ok.
I honestly think you should have more than one colony. If the one you have doesn’t re-queen, gets attacked by pests and dies out you may be devastated.
If you only have that one fancy box or natural log it can be more difficult to create new colonies. You can attach a new empty box and create a new colony but it does take a long time and takes away the awesome look of your fancy box or log.
