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Tag Archives: Australian Stingless Bees

Our Bees

08 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by gardensandpolkadots in Gardens, Polka Dots

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Australian Native Bees, Australian Stingless Bees, Bee Hive, Flowering Gum, Serendipity Garden Designs, Splitting the Hive, Sugarbag beekeeping

We have pets, actually we have hundreds, maybe thousands of them.  No I haven’t relocated to my dream country cottage with hobby farm and no I haven’t moved to a zoo. Are we busy? Not really, just the usual, work, play, gardening, yoga. Curious? Well, I’ll tell you. We have a colony of native stingless bees living in a purpose-built hive on our sunroom windowsill.

Native Stingless bee hive

My husband has wanted a stingless bee hive for many years now.  A friend of ours who has had native stingless bees for a number of years offered to split his hive with us.

‘Splitting a hive’ is the most common method used to propagate a hive:

“the splitting method of propagation involves dividing the hive horizontally at its midpoint and equipping the old top part with a new empty bottom and the old bottom half with a new top. The bees are then left to furnish their new basement or attic depending on which side of the split they find themselves”. Taken from p60 of Australian Stingless Bees A Guide to Sugarbag Beekeeping by John Klumpp.

The Queen is left on one side and as long as there is a viable queen in the other side of the split, the new colony will be successful.

So, early one Saturday morning before the day got too hot, Dave went to collect his new hive. Sorry, Dave didn’t take any pictures of the split, I think the upheaval of happy bees and the splitting of the colony was all a little to much to capture.

Fast forward two months and the bees are happy in their new home and position. We have put the hive on our sunroom windowsill (outside of course) with the tiny opening facing east so that it gets the first sun in the morning. What’s not to love about that situation?

Here you can see the opening of the hive. The bees had put resin on the top half of the opening since being here.

You can see the opening of the hive. The bees have put resin on the top half of the opening since being here and the yellow around the opening is pollen.

They are the most delicate little things you can imagine. Ok, I’m sure you can imagine a far more delicate ‘thing’ than an insect but trust me, they are cute and tiny. If they are flying solo you have to look closely to see them.

One day not long after we had them I walked in front of the hive, to be honest I forgot they were there but I could feel these little things touching my arm, like they were flying into me and pinging off me in all directions. Instantly I remembered them and stopped but they just kept pinging. I held out my hand hoping some might land but they weren’t interested in that. So cute! I promise no bees were harmed in the construction of this paragraph.

Here is the openginog the hive, if you look closely you can see a bee underneath the opening and you can see some just inside too. To give you an idea of the size of the bees, the opening is about 1.5cm diameter.

Here is the openging of the hive, if you look closely you can see a bee underneath the opening and you can see some just inside too. To give you an idea of the size of the bees, the opening is about 1.5cm diameter.

It seemed to take the tiny bees a few weeks to settle in. We often saw them swarming at the front of the hive (that is what I walked into). Perhaps they were voting for their new Queen and having a few heated discussions, we aren’t sure why they were swarming. But I think they were settling in and arranging their hierarchy. Thankfully that behaviour has stopped and we just see them coming and going now.

The bees are most active during the morning, but we do see them coming and going throughout the day. This will be their busiest time of year while the weather is warm, because they avoid flying when the temperature drops below 18˚Celcius. Even during December when we had a few cool days (a rainy, cool Christmas day for example) they were nowhere to be seen.

I guess that leads us to your burning question, what about the honey? Well, our tiny bees do produce honey, but no, we do not harvest it. You see, they don’t make a lot of it and what they do make they store and use during winter when they can’t leave the hive.

This prompts another question, what’s the point of having bees if we don’t harvest the honey? We have the bees to help with pollination of our plants, our neighbour’s plants, the street plants and maybe even plants in your garden. The Australian bee population, both native and Australian, is in decline. Without bees there is decreased pollination of our flowering plants which results in less fruit and vegetables.

A pink flowering gum with some visiting Sugarbag bees.

A pink flowering gum with some visiting Sugarbag bees.

So apart from providing us with so much joy and fascination as we watch them leave the hive and return with an array of brightly coloured pollen, we are also helping increase their population and rate of pollination in our neighbourhood.

You can find my previous blog posts about Australian native bees here (Australian Native Bees) and here (Australian Native Stingless Bees). You can also see more wonderful pictures and bee footage here (My Adventures in the Real World).

Until next time

Carmel

p.s. My husband and I got confirmation that we’ll be doing a native bee workshop in a few weeks. We are so looking forward to it and I can’t wait to tell you all about it, stay tuned. C

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Australian Native Stingless Bees

19 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by gardensandpolkadots in Gardens

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Australian Native Bees, Australian Native Flowers, Australian Stingless Bees, Bee Colonies, Blue Banded Bee, Fowering Gum, Gardening, Honey, Serendipity, Serendipity Garden Designs, Sugarbag beekeeping, Teddy Bear Bee, Trigona carbonaria

Following on from last weeks post ‘Australian Native Bees’ I’d like to tell you about another little native bee that visits our garden – the Australian Stingless Bee. We don’t see these little ones quite as often as the Blue Banded Bee or the Teddy Bear Bee but I think it is possibly because they are so, so tiny and silent.

There are about ten species of Australian Stingless Bees in Australia, they are just 3mm to 4mm long, black and produce honey, although it is a small amount compared to the European honeybee. We have mostly seen this little one in our neighbour’s Crepe Myrtle. It is such a beautiful sight. They are so quiet and so very busy. I have also seen them hovering around tree hollows when I have been out bushwalking.

The Stingless Bees live in colonies, which means that they have a queen, drones and worker bees. They live inside tree hollows or purpose built wooden boxes (you can purchase these boxes). Aboriginals have used the honey from the nests for centuries for food and for medicinal purposes and the resins from the nests as glue to make tools and weapons.

The picture below is of an Australian Stingless Bee visiting a gorgeous flowering Eucalyptus. I was lucky to get even this picture, they are very quick as well as being small so a zoom on a smart phone is not an ideal way to capture such an image.

An Australian Native Stingless Bee visiting a gorgeous flowering gum.

You can just see the silent little bee hovering around a flowering gum (in the yellow oval)

At the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney there is a great example of a Trigona carbonaria species nest near the Maiden Theatre, I’m sure if you asked at the information desk they would happily guide you to where it is.

Australian Native Stingless Bee (Trigona carbonaria) hollow in the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney

You can just make out the little Stingless Bees around the hole

A friend of ours has had a Stingless Bee hive (also known as Sugarbag Beekeeping) for many years now and we are excited about receiving half of his hive when it is ready to be split. I am so looking forward to that and will keep you posted on the progress of it, how we do it and where it will live once we have it in our garden.

Are you a Sugarbag Beekeeper? I’d love to hear how it is going.

Click here to read my previous post about Australian Native Bees and for links to further information on Australian Native Bees and Sugarbag Beekeeping. 

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