Thread: Native bee hive budding

Will be watching this to see how you fair Pete. I have a friend who has a plan for some native hive designs that we are going to build soon. When she gets her act together.

Good luck!

You will probably get honey and wax in there but it could take a couple of years before you get any eggs.

Originally Posted by Claw Hama

Will be watching this to see how you fair Pete. I have a friend who has a plan for some native hive designs that we are going to build soon. When she gets her act together.

I have Australian Stingless Bees, a guide to sugarbag beekeeping by John Klumpp in this book he shows a few hive designs, one bloke builds insulated round hives from pvc pipe (for the non woodies)

Pete

Originally Posted by Avery

Good luck!

You will probably get honey and wax in there but it could take a couple of years before you get any eggs.

Yep, in the above mentioned book they say it can take a while for a new queen to move into the new abode and then u need to keep a careful watch for the right time to separate cos at some time a war will break out between what becomes two separate hives, the tee inbetween the two hives is supposed to help ease the pressure as the old hive can then have its own entrance back and the new has its own front entrance, then when new hive is fully established u can move it to a new location.


Pete

I have been keeping an eye on the budding process, look to be going well
these are just a few observations....
it took a couple of days for the bees to work out that the front door is now somewhere else
then it was a steady stream of coming and going
first thing they did was go around any of the joins, holes,gaps and fill them with resin/cerumin/batumen and covering the observation panel
they extended to the black hose in the front and rear doors
which they altered to make a spikey sort of structure
and now there are pollen/honey pots in amongst it all
also it takes more than Blu Tac to block up the old entrance, they keep chewing thru it
heres a few pics....

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Pete

Great stuff!

I love the way they construct the honeypots etc.

Pete

Don't block them from the original hive they will not survive wnter with the small amount of wax, pollen and honey that is in the new hive. You will need to wait for spring and warm weather and, then make sure you have a queen in the box or they will die.

Australian native bees do not produce a lot of honey you may be able to harvest about a cup a season. The are good for the garden, they don't sting and they are great to watch as they go about their business.

The observation panel should be facing south and kept covered when not in use.

Ross

Originally Posted by Ross

Pete

Don't block them from the original hive they will not survive wnter with the small amount of wax, pollen and honey that is in the new hive. The new hive has front and rear access, the rear being the access to the old hive which will not be blocked off until the new hive can support itself with a queen in residence, the trick at this point is to do the separation when the new hive is mature enough and before the old hive decides the new hive is too close and decides to go to war on the new hive, I have read that the new hive will seal off the rear access when it no longer needs the old hive to survive, also the inline tee with the piece of plastic hose will be openend up which then allows both hives their own front entrances, however, the old hive bees keep chewing thru the Blu-Tac and reclaiming the old hive front access so I have left it be for now, construction still continues in the new hive so I just keep an eye on it and see what happens. You will need to wait for spring and warm weather and, then make sure you have a queen in the box or they will die.

Australian native bees do not produce a lot of honey you may be able to harvest about a cup a season. The are good for the garden, they don't sting and they are great to watch as they go about their business.

The observation panel should be facing south Not sure what u mean here(south) the obs panel sits on the top of the two halves so faces the sky and does have a lid as u can see in the final pic above and kept covered when not in use.

Ross

Pete

What are the bees up to? Any more action coming from the hive?
Ben

Hi Ben, not a lot of activity, they don't like the cold at all so they have all retreated to the old hive and staying indoors, the new hive was nowhere near established enough to support a colony of bees, if I had of set it up in spring/early summer might have been better but it's all ready for when things warm up so will be interesting to see what happens then.
I don't like the cold either

Pete

Hi Pete,
It is starting to warm up again, any action from the hive?
Thanks Ben

Originally Posted by Bupton

Hi Pete,
It is starting to warm up again, any action from the hive?
Thanks Ben

Hi Ben, yep they have been well on the go for a while now, the bees were bringing back white pollen then red and now a lot of cadaghi pollen (lots of seeds at the entrance).
Over the winter they abandoned work on the new hive and had sealed up the entrance between the new hive and old, I was watching at the beginning of this spring and didn't see any movement from the new hive but plenty from the old so I had a look and found they had sealed up the entrance between each hive, I cleaned out the resin and cleaned up (washed and dried) the old abandoned construction from the new hive, I set it all up again and sealed up the entrance to the old hive with a heap of blutac as before, I had to seal up a few times, they take a couple of days to fully learn that the new entrance is now at the front of the new hive.
They started working on sealing any cracks and new hive construction straight away, it also didn't take them long to completely cover the remaining clear perspex so now I can't see any of the new work, I am in two minds as to wether to clean some off or replace it with a another piece or just leave it, I would like to see progress, I think I'll replace with a new piece


Pete

Arh that's so good to hear Pete, thanks for making my day Shamed to say I've done nothing to set things up for bees of any kind since observing the buzzing tree but your goings on have reminded me I've got a list of roundtuits somewhere around here The buzzing tree hardly buzzed at all this season a huge comparison flowers to last year but I have noticed it's been a good yer for the Ficafolia's Onya Pete

I decided to remove the completely covered perspex cover off and put a new clean one so I could see progress and take a few pics, they have been very busy over the spring and summer making hive structure, honey and pollen pots and brood cells, the hive looks good and very busy, hopefully established enough to go through winter, I think I can see queen bees or more like princess bees (queen bees in waiting) there is only one fertile queen bee in a hive, she mates once with the strongest male in a mating flight outside of the hive, returns and never leaves the hive again. They only live for 50 days not sure if that applies to the queen tho In the first pic I have circled what might be either queen or princess bees and the last pic I have circled some brood cells with a larger cell that will be a new princess bee
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Pete