Yandina Community Gardens

41 Farrell street, Yandina

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Saturday, 17 October 2020, 9-11.30am Splitting your Australian Stingless Beehive with Mel Marx

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Yandina Community Gardens is blessed with a lot of plant resources that assist the Australian Stingless bees to thrive in the gardens. Spend a morning with Mel Marx exploring and understanding Australian Stingless bees, knowing when they are ready to split and caring for them after the split. On the day we will be splitting one of the Australian Stingless beehives on the YCG site.
Tickets are limited and sell out fast, please book here
About the presenter:
Mel Marx is an avid Australian Stingless beekeeper and works with Bob Luttrell to rescue and rehome bee colonies from water meter boxes. She lives on a 100-acre property North of Yandina and is currently creating habitat for the bees by planting native plant and tree species on her property. She hopes to get a Native Stingless bee honey industry up and running working with other beekeepers to make this exceptional honey with its incredible medicinal properties available to more people.

Saturday, 20 February 2021, 9-11.30am Splitting your Australian Stingless Beehive with Mel Marx

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Yandina Community Gardens is blessed with a lot of plant resources that assist the Australian Stingless bees to thrive in the gardens. Spend a morning with Mel Marx exploring and understanding Australian Stingless bees, knowing when they are ready to split and caring for them after the split. On the day we will be splitting one of the Australian Stingless beehives on the YCG site.
About the presenter:
Mel Marx is an avid Australian Stingless beekeeper and works with Bob Luttrell to rescue and rehome bee colonies from water meter boxes. She lives on a 100-acre property North of Yandina and is currently creating habitat for the bees by planting native plant and tree species on her property. She hopes to get a Native Stingless bee honey industry up and running working with other beekeepers to make this exceptional honey with its incredible medicinal properties available to more people.

Saturday, 24 August 2019, 12 – 4 pm – native stingless bees including splitting a hive with Tim Heard

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Are you interested in keeping native stingless bees for fun, honey production, conservation or pollination? In this workshop, entomologists and professional educator, Dr Tim Heard will teach you the basics on how to become a stingless beekeeper. He will entertain and educate you at the same time. This workshop alternates between slide presentations and a practical session to build a strong foundation of knowledge and experience. The stunning slide presentation will cover the topics of bee nesting biology, bee foraging biology, diversity of wild bees, importance of bees in natural systems, traditional stingless beekeeping around the world, modern stingless beekeeping in Australia, using stingless bees for pollination of gardens and farms, Stingless bee honey and its properties, rescuing bees threatened in the wild, and more. In the practical sessions, we will open hives and observe the amazing structures within. We will learn how to move a colony from a log into a hive. We will divide the hive into two halves showing the process of colony propagation. We may even extract honey from a hive.

The hives are wonderful garden companions. Many crops benefit from bee visitation to their flowers. Honey bees are the most common insect utilised for this purpose. But there is a native alternative, at least for warmer parts of Australia. Stingless bees are Australia’s indigenous social bee. They are harmless and well suited to school gardens, effective pollinators of many garden plants, yield small amounts of delectable honey.

Stingless bees store honey (and pollen) in their nests as food sources when times are tough. Stingless bee honey was a highly prized food of Aborigines who robbed it from wild nests.  Only tiny amounts of stingless bee honey is produced – less than 1kg per hive per year, so it’s a special product, to be savoured and relished. Tim’s workshop is suitable for older children with a keen interest in nature.

Bookings are essential as numbers are limited. To book click here

PLEASE NOTE the time for this workshop, which has been arranged to suit the bees, at this colder time of year.

About The Presenter

Dr Tim Heard is an entomologist, ex-CSIRO research scientist, and also a long term stingless beekeeper and promoter of native bees. Tim completed his university doctoral studies on using these bees for crop pollination. He has since published 60 research papers and popular articles on bees and pollination. He transferred his first hive from a cut down tree into a wooden box in 1985 and now manages hundreds of hives of three species around south east Queensland, obtained by rescuing threatened wild hives and dividing existing hives. He has presented workshops and seminars for more than 20 years on bees in general and keeping stingless bees in particular. He is the author of The Australian Native Bee Book (best seller and multi award winner).

A Passion For Native Stingless Beekeeping

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Beekeeping is so much more than a hobby – it is a deep fascination and passion that grabs you, never to let go. My fascination with bees started at a very young age running around after them in my Nan’s garden as they flitted from blossom to blossom. Mom cautioning in the background “Mind, they will sting you”.Fascination with bees at a young age

The fascination only grew as I started understanding the wonders of these beautiful insects. They are hard-working, organized and focused, all traits that I admire not only in the animal kingdom but in people as well. They are the ultimate team players with each bee fulfilling its role perfectly, no egos, simply working hard at what they do best to secure the next generation.

It is only in the latter part of my life that I became a real beekeeper with my own hives. And then I discovered native stingless bees. My first impression when I saw one was that they were ants with wings. So small, so diligent and masters at the craft of pollination.

Beekeeping has become very popular in the last few years, particularly the keeping of native stingless bees in urban environments where they thrive. I have been around beekeepers that have inspired me to be a better beekeeper. They treat their bees with a huge amount of respect and lovingly take all precautions to disrupt their hives as little as possible. I think we owe it to these hardworking insects to be the best and kindest beekeepers we can be.

So how do you get started?

Well firstly decide why you want to keep bees and what type of beekeeper you want to be. Some of the reasons for keeping bees might be to improve the pollination of your vegetables and fruit crop or contribute to their preservation. Native stingless bees are particularly suited to teaching children how to care for the environment as they don’t sting and are easy to maintain. You might enjoy their honey, which is unique and has excellent medicinal properties as well. Others simply keep them for relaxation, sitting and watching them after a long day as they rhythmically come in and out of the hive.

Having a hive is like having pets, it is a long-term commitment so be sure that you are up for it. The way to be sure would be to attend courses and do as much reading as you can before getting a hive. Native stingless bees do not cope well with cold climates so be sure that your climate is suited for them to thrive.

Now find yourself a reputable beekeeper that will provide you with all you need and guide you where needed.

Tetragonula Hockingsi

What is some of the basic information you need to know when keeping native stingless bees? Firstly Australia has 11 species of native stingless bees. The most popular being Tetragonula Hockingsi and Tetragonula Carbonaria. You are most likely to get one of these species from your chosen beekeeper.

Tetragonula Carbonaria

Native stingless bees have a foraging range of 500 metres so they require a plant-rich environment that has pollen, nectar and resin. They are particularly fond of native plants for which they are well adapted. So get to know your native plants and start planting or potting up if you have a small space. Locate your bees where they get morning sun, are protected from the wind and afternoon sun. You can place them on balconies, in buildings, under gazebos or trees. Native stingless bees are pest and disease resistant and only have a few pests that could invade the hive. But they have excellent defences that stave off most attacks. You can support them by ensuring the hive is off the ground so that pests like the small hive beetle find it more difficult to invade the hive.

What do you need to start?

Bob Luttrell’s well constructed hive

In the beginning, all you need is a hive and bees placed in a good location. There are no standard hives such as in the honeybee world although there has been an attempt at standardising using what is termed the OATH (Original Australian Trigona Hive) hive. Important to note is that not all hives are equal. Good construction is key and although a lot of different materials are currently being used, a natural hardwood, in my opinion, is preferable because of its ability to absorb moisture and regulate temperature.

Native Stingless bees, unlike honeybees, do not have an ability to dehumidify their hives and excess water can invite all sorts of unwanted bacteria etc. The hive sides should at least be 45-47 mm thick.  This mimics the wall thickness of the logs that are used in their natural environment. There are currently a lot of different hive designs and materials being used.  Given that the keeping of native stingless bees is a very young science, there are many questions still unanswered. But I think that keeping things as natural and close to what is used in nature is probably a safe bet. Also to enable observation of your hive, put in an observation window, although the bees eventually cover this window up with resin it allows you, in the beginning, to observe how your bees are doing.

If you are interested in harvesting honey, get a hive that has a honey super where excess honey can be stored by the bees and harvested by you. You might also want to split your hive in the future. If so, consideration of a hive that has a good splitting system that does not disrupt the hive too much is also important.

For the next 12 months observe the bees. If the bees are carrying out debris from the hive then you know that bees are hatching and there is a cycle of life happening. Bees coming and going with full pollen sacs tells you there is enough food in their immediate environment. If it is a very dry season, give your bees supplementary feeding with a good, sugar-based syrup (recipes can be found online). Also, use your sense of smell. When there is a good run of pollen and nectar you will be able to smell the beautiful honey when standing close to your hive. All of this is an indication that your hive is growing and thriving. After 12 months you might want to split the hive or harvest honey, but that is a topic for another post.

Most importantly never stop learning. Read as much as you can and do as many courses as you can. Also, document things happening in and around your hive. That way you can contribute to the building of the science around Australian native stingless bees.

Honey BeesNative Stingless Bees
Hexagonal comb to rear young & store foodRear young in special brood cells & store food in large pots
StingStingless
One queenOne queen & princesses in waiting
Build nest from waxBuild nest from mixture of wax & plant resin
Tight control of the temperature in the hiveLimited ability to control the temperature in the hive
Honey bees feed their young regularlyMass provision of the brood cell
Establish a new colony through swarmingFirst build a new nest & gradually move in with a new queen
Foraging range 5 KmForaging range 500 m
More adaptable to different environmentsMainly in the tropics & sub-tropics
Need a permitNo permit needed
Make about 50-100kg of honey/yearMake 1kg of honey/year

 

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Acknowledgement of country

Yandina Community Gardens acknowledges and pays respect to the Traditional Owners of the land, the Gubbi Gubbi (Kabi Kabi) people, past and present and emerging. We recognise and wish to learn from their spiritual and cultural connection to the land.