Australian Native Bees

[Avery]

Following on from some talk in another thread, I decide to start this one.

Australian native bees come in many shapes and sizes.

There are the solitary bees. They live in tunnels in the earth, reeds, or holes in your brickwork or woodwork. There are Carpenter bees, Teddy Bear bees, Blue Banded bees and others . There is over 1000 species of solitary bees.

Solitary bees probably all have a sting. If they produce honey, it is in very small quantities.

Some of them are quite spectacular and I would love to see some photos .

We also have 10 species of social bees in Australia. These are bees that live in large groups in hives. All of these bees are STINGLESS, although they do have little pincers of the front end and do bite if provoked.

Perhaps the most common of these is Trigona Carbonaria. These guys are about 3 - 5 mm long and basically black. They build hives in holes in trees, holes in rocks or anywhere they can find a suitable cavity. They prefer warm to cold and so are not generally found south of the Victorian border. They are not very good at maintaining hive temperature, so artificial hives have to be insulated against heat and cold.

It is quite easy to build a suitable box and transplant an existing hive or split one into two (or more).

They do produce honey, but most of this is needed to sustain the hive. A really strong hive might produce 500gms of harvest honey in a year. Mind you, it is well worthwhile waiting for because it is absolutely delicious. There are keepers in Qld. that produce enough to sell. It is expensive, but worth every cent. I am just about to split my two hives and will probably be able to get maybe 200gm of honey, but next year I will have four hives and maybe more honey.

There are some native flowers that can only be pollinated by native bees.

If you want to know more about these delightful little creatures, go ahead and ask.

There is also a goodly amount of information via a Google search



European honey bees

These are the ones we all know. The yellow and black ones that we see every day.

These guys are absolutely essential for the pollination of food crops all over this country, Our farmers cannot survive without them.

However, they escape their man made hives , become feral and find homes in tree hollows, rock hollows etc, that should be available to birds,possums, reptiles and native bees. Your local council should have a an eradication plan for feral bees. If you find a feral bee infestation you should call your local council and ask for it to be removed.

[cava]

I have toyed with the idea of getting a native hive, but alas I live in Melbourne.

I assume that you don't put frames with foundation in the hive, so the question is how do you extract the honey?

[Avery]

The box for the hive is nowhere near as complex as a honey bee hive. It does not have the frames inside, it is just an open space.

Trigona Carbonaria build a spiral shaped structure from the floor of the hive . In the structure they store pollen , honey, and of course eggs and larvae.

To extract the honey from here the hive has to be destroyed. Fortunately they have a habit of storing honey in spare rooms around the hive. In a natural log this would be in spaces off the main chamber, cracks etc. In a constructed hive it is easy to add an extra box to the top if the hive separated from the main box by a sheet of 3mm plywood with holes drilled at the corners. The bees come up through the holes and store honey in the top box.

To harvest it you simply remove the top box and replace it with an empty one. The wax structure that holds the honey can be pierced and the honey drained off and filtered.

You don't get much, perhaps 1Kg/year from a strong hive, half that seems more likely, but is well worth the effort.

I have attached a photo of a box that I built a few days ago. You will see that it is built in four pieces. The base is a little experiment to help in splitting of hives. The main box is in two parts, once again to help in splitting. The top half of the box is split off and a new base put on to form the bottom half of the new hive. On top there is a half height "super" where the honey will be stored, and the lid. This box is built in 40 mm thick pine. Many a built from 13mm plywood. We are experimenting with the thick timber to assist in insulation

[cava]

Thanks for that. I would love to try it down here, but fear that the success rate of survival over winter would be low.

Are you a beek? I have a few hives that I will be robbing and extracting from (hopefully) this week.

[Avery]

I don't know of anyone keeping natives down your way. All the research seems to say anywhere south of Bega is unknown territory. The bees just don't come out of the hive in temperatures below 18. Maybe if you could find a sheltered, north facing spot you could be lucky. You can also provide artificial food for them over winter. You would have to be very careful to insulate the hive well.

I live on the edge of a large patch of urban bushland. Together with a mate from down the road we took an interest in the bees nesting in this bush. We monitor fairly closely a number of hives in this bush. As a result of this we also started rescuing hives from fallen timber. The bees have a habit of choosing dead trees and many of these get lopped for safety. The local tree loppers call if they find a hive.

Between the two of us, we probably have about 20 manufactured hives , all of them trogona carbonaria and 1 Austroplebia.

[artme]

When I was about 12 or 13 dad and I were cutting logs into firewood sized blocka on this fellows farm.

We were half way down the last log when the saw went through a native bee hive.The little blighters were very friendly and crawled into our noses ears and eyes! We took the hive and stood it in a borrowd bowl.When finished with the firewood cutting the hive pieces were plced in piece of hollow log and we took the honey home with us.

I remember the honey as dark with a strong but delicious flavour. It was also very viscose and even when put in the freezer section of the fridge for a couple of days it remained that way.

[Avery]

You're dead right about the honey Artme, it has much more flavour than commercial honey - even the "exotic" ones.

Sometimes when I have split a hive the bees just seem to buzz around with no intent. Other times they seem to zero in and attach themselves to any exposed skin. They cannot sting , but they do bite and sometimes they just seem to go for the ears, eyes, nose etc. They get into your underwear and can make things quite uncomfortable.

It seems to vary from hive to hive. Some seem more agresive than others.

[cava]

they get into your underwear and can make things quite uncomfortable.

lol

[AlexS]

They get into your underwear and can make things quite uncomfortable.

I know women like that.