Tetragonula Carbonaria Tetragonula Carbonaria are a small hardworking bee that is found along the east coast of Australia predominantly between Sydney and Rockhamton. Some colonies are reported as far south as Bega and as far north of Cooktown. They are slightly smaller than that of Tetragonula hockingsi and are a little more docile.…
Austroplebeia Symei I would like to introduce you to a special bee called Austroplebia Symei. These are an interesting bee and not too much is written about them so I thought I would make a post about them and maybe even do the odd update. Austroplebia Symei are a clever bee and are survivalists.…
Solar Wax Melter Recently I had a talk to John Klumpp and asked him his thoughts on cleaning native bee wax. He told me that he uses a solar wax melter to do the job. I had a look online and found a few different types, in fact I did not see two the same.…
Natural hive duplication Natural hive duplication is a nice way of slowly getting native bees to move into a box. While this method has been around for a long time (probably originating in brazil), it is not commonly used. I thought I would give this a go and share how I did it. I have…
Native bee hive design I thought I would do a little post on native bee hive design. There are so many designs of boxes out there and new ones being created all the time. I myself have made at least 4 different native bee hive designs. I wanted to make a design I was happy…
The other day I recorded a queen bee mating flight.. Well not the flight but her leaving the box and returning. This is pretty exciting because this is the only time when the queen leaves the hive in a 3-5 year period. Not much footage exists on this topic and its good to have something…
Today I visited my friend Deans house to watch him transfer some bees from a log. I thought this may interest some people as there is a method. Prep work First thing he did was to lay out an area to work on. This log had come from a tree that was leaning up against…
When I first put some queen brood in a native bee hive I wanted to watch their progress. I used a router to fit a sheet of perspex to the top so I could see what was going on. I was amazed to see how busy these little girls are. It did not seem to…
A while back I had the chance to rescue a hive of bees from a meter box. This particular bee was Tetragonula Hockingsi. One of the main ways that people differentiate between native bee species is their brood structure. I wanted to write about an interesting comparison I had between two Hockingsi bee hives. The…
Make a native bee feeder Make your own Bee feeder! Feeding bees isn’t something I recommend all the time. Bees should do their thing and collect their own nectar of their choice. However when humans decide to take responsibility for the care of a wild animal or insect they should see to it…