Marking stingless bees Advanced Marking stingless bees is a way that we can gather information for future stingless bee keepers. What we know today about how long a queen lives for in Australia is because of this method. Here is a video showing how I mark my bees. Why mark bees? Marking bees has…
Interview Tye and Neal From The little black bee Tye and Neal from Little Black Bee are stingless bee keepers who are uniquely first nations peoples to Australia. I sat down with them and asked first up what Little Black Bee is about? Here is their answer… Tye happily met me at the…
Removing bees from a water meter Bee Basics Water meters, walls , pipes and even compost heaps are places native bees love to live. Re-homing them is quite simple if you know what you’re doing. If you have done it before and it has failed do not feel bad as there is a…
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…
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…
Keeping Hives Close Together Intermediate Keeping hives close together is something most Native bee keepers will face once they get a few hives together. Small urban blocks don’t allow to much space for city bee keepers and this is a good way to accommodate housing more then 1 hive in a small place. Have…
Stingless Bee Intermediate Natural hive duplication 2 Hive duplication is something I have always been interested in. The ability to make a new hive from an existing one means you can use any hive box to start your new colony in. The support offered by the mother colony means your new hive will…