Growing local

Bees - native and honey

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Until I sold my home and garden recently, I owned two native bee hives of Tetragonula carbonaria and a top bar honey bee hive.

While I'm am so far from expert at bee keeping it's not funny I do love to learn more about bees and the benefits they provide us.

When I was a child at primary school we had our own honey-bee hive and the local bee keeper would come by regularly and we would all gather around while he showed us how to look after them and gather the honey.

We have members on BLF who are very into bees, both native and honey and I hope they will share their knowledge here. I got a little frustrated trying to find past postings so thought one spot for it all would be better.

I find a lot of articles about bees and will post them here, nice and tidy in one spot, making them easier to find.

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Comment by Sid Saghe on Wednesday: What a coincidence, I also just picked up a hive for the yard, my first one! I have Hockingsi and hopefully in twelve months or so I'll be all ready to go to split.

Comment by Christa on September 11, 2019 at 9:10: Hi Lissa, great to hear from you. Hope all is well. We are happy with our little bees and have put them closer to the house so we can supervise them.

The Austroplebeia australis name covers a few existing types now under the same heading. They have different types in N.T and Q'ld and Nth Qld, and Nth W.A. and then some from New Guinea. Some scientist has decided that through DNA they are very similar. This means they have different markings in different locations, and some of the workers have bright yellow abdomens. I haven't seen those abdomens yet. They are amazing, each night they weave a delicate net over their entrance hole to protect their hive from intruders.

Thanks for that info, most of what I learnt so far is from Tim Heards Bee Book.

Comment by Lissa on September 11, 2019 at 7:55: Wonderful Christa :)

Here's a little article I found about your new bees: https://www.aussiebee.com.au/aussiebeeonline025.pdf

Do they have the glowing orange abdomen talked about in the article?

Comment by Andrew Cumberland on September 10, 2019 at 18:20: That's very exciting. I'll have to come and have a look.

Comment by Christa on September 10, 2019 at 17:24: We are very happy to announce the arrival of new bees to our backyard. We have a new stump out the back, with a brood of Austroplebeia australis. They came from inland Queensland around Quilpie area. The little stingless bee that is a touch smaller in length than Tetragonula carbonaria but it is heavier and each bee can live up to 240 days which is the longest of stingless bees. Apparently the honey is sweeter and less acidic. We don't worry about honey harvest, and leave the bees to their own supply. They are a slower to move out of the nest and wait till the temp reaches about 20 degrees celcius. They manage their brood well and keep control of population numbers to food supply. So that makes our lot - 3 full hives of T. carbonaria and one natural log of A. australis.

Now we just have to have plenty of nectar plants all year round.

Comment by Dianne Caswell on March 11, 2019 at 18:40: Sounds Great Christa, so pleased you enjoyed this Event. What a nice way to finish off with Honey and Ice Cream. I still have some of the Honey left from my Native Bee Split and every few days I dip my Finger in and think how lucky are to have these wonderful little workers. Thanks for sharing your day with us.

Comment by Andrew Cumberland on March 10, 2019 at 21:10: Thanks Christa. I noticed you've done a wonderful job of sharing some very helpful links here in the group.

Comment by Christa on March 10, 2019 at 9:07: We attended the talk on Native bees by Tobias Smith at Mitchelton Library. It was a very informative event. He talked on all of the Native bees that are in our area and then proceded to split a Tetragonula carbonaria hive and also a T. hockingsii colony. He gave details of the hives when they were open and the dos ánd dont's and why. There were so many informative slides of information and research on the stingless bees and other forms of bees.

The hives belonged to Tim Heard who also attended the meet. The day started at 9am and finished just after 3pm with a tasting of honey and icecream.

The library premises are surrounded by an organic garden which is maintained by MOGI (Mitchelton Organic group) who were in attendance in the morning, doing maintenance.

It was a worthwhile event and I am happy we attended the day.

Comment by Christa on February 13, 2019 at 12:53: There are quite a few plants that we can grow to help our stingless bees, both social and solitary, on this LINK

Comment by Christa on January 21, 2019 at 8:59: For those who are unaware and are using these chemicals on or around their garden plants etc. it can have an effect on our bees wax protection. We rarely use these products and I have added this LINK