Bees in the cold part 3 Guest post written by Dean Haley In this blog post I dig deeper into the properties of wooden boxes and foam insulation. We build an insulated cover and I test this with bees in Applethorpe QLD with temperatures as low as -2.4C In bees in the…
Bees in the cold- Part 2 Guest post written by Dean Haley A comparison of two T.carbonaria colonies in a temperate climate. Two colonies of T.carbonaria were taken to Gulgong, a town located in the central tablelands of NSW at Christmas time 2013. This area is characterised by hot summer temperatures sometimes exceeding…
Bees in the cold Guest post written by Dean Haley Stingless bees are widely regarded as being unable to control nest temperature like honey bees do. For the vast majority of stingless bees this is very true. Some species however, such as our T.carbonaria and A.australis extend into temperate areas with colder Winters and frosts.…
Mating behaviour of A.australis Written by Dean Haley Unusual mating behaviour of A.australis has been observed by Allan Beil of QLD Australia. Allan has hundreds of australis colonies in glass topped boxes set up for observation. Unlike other species of stingless bees in Australia, australis queens appear to mate in the box and…
Growing weak colonies Guest post by Dean Haley I’d like to share a range of strategies for growing weak colonies. Some of these I’ve copied from others and some I’ve tried by myself. None of this is rocket science and I think these are all methods tried by a lot of people…
Cross species graft Guest post by Dean Haley I have successfully converted 2 hockingsi hives into carbonaria hives in a process I’m calling a ‘cross species graft’. To the best of my knowledge this is the first time this has been attempted in stingless bees. T.carbonaria and T.hockingsi are closely related species. It is…
Marking bees for experiments Guest post by Dean Haley Marking bees for experiments Nick came up with an ingenious method for watching native bee behaviour. Non toxic pigments are put in a jar, which catches bees leaving a nest. The inspiration for this was the tales of Aboriginals coating bees in flour to track…
Catching Native bee swarms Guest post by Dean Haley With the right bait and a bit of luck it is possible to capture fighting swarms. My first fighting swarm occurred when I had just separated an eduction hive from its mother. At first I did not know if I had some sort of…
Austroplebeia Australis Guest post by Dean Haley I thought I might write a few words about A.australis to complete the introduction to our little bee family. In 2010 Dr Anne Dollin coordinated a stingless beekeepers survey finding that australis were 23% of the stingless bees being kept, and the number of australis…
Tetragonula Hockingsi Guest post by Dean Haley Tetragonula Hockingsi is a tropical to sub tropical bee found in coastal areas of Queensland and also the Nothern Territory. They have a population 20 to 50% larger than typical Tetragonula carbonaria. They are living large in sunny QLD. The major characteristics of hockingsi are the…