Powell Hive Box When I first started stingless bee keeping I wanted to stick to one box and or hive design that I liked. Over time I learned that lots of different designs had come about by people’s own preference to what they thought was important. The Powell hive has been born from what…
Interview with Bob the Bee man Bob the bee man or Robert Luttrel is one of Australia’s more involved stingless bee keepers. Bob is always looking for new ideas and innovations to help people have a good idea how things can be done. I decided to make the trip out to his house and talk…
How to tell if you have a Queen Bee Advanced One of the things that people often ask is “How do I tell if I have a queen in my hive?” Take a look at this brief video below before I go into more detail on how I check my hives. Clues on…
Conservation of Stingless bees When you think about conservation in our society it is almost absent. This is something that when you think about is very concerning to me. No native culture threw away the idea of conservation, in fact each culture used to have a way to preserve what they had. When I thought…
Reviving pest infested hive Having a native bee hive come under attack by pests can be a very disheartening thing. Prevention is better than a cure but sometimes things do not go to plan. The following video will explain what you can do to help your pest infested hive. How does this fix an infested…
Exchange worker bees between colonies Advanced Exchanging workers between colonies is a great thing to learn how to do! You can boost weak colonies, help create new colonies and provide more help to colonies that need it. This method requires knowledge and understanding of bees and for this reason its placed under the advanced…
CARBONARIA IN SUN AND SHADE When people buy bees from me they usually ask ‘What can hurt them? Should I be worried about flies or ants?’. My answer is always The Sun. The Sun is one of the biggest killers of native bees in the boxes we choose to house them in. The following article…
Powell Split Frames – Hive split Powell split frames are a little invention I have put together to make the propagation of Austroplebeia australis easier. I believe they will also work for other species of stingless bee also. Watch this video to see what they are all about. About Powell split frames. I took my…
Swarm capture 2 Mark is a Friend of mine who asked about capturing a swarm of native bees. I talked him through Dean Haleys method of capturing a swarm. Since then Mark has caught a few swarms and keeps me updated on his progress. I asked Mark if he would write a short article…