On the the BICWA cert III course we was shown how to build a drone frame using part cut out plastic foundation. In the cut out the workers build drone comb (no plastic foundation to support the comb). This is a excellent place to look for mites under the sealed drone comb. The varroa prefer to lay eggs in drone brood because they can raise more mites per cell than they can in worker brood. Your notice the drone comb is larger than the worker comb. While we are free of varroa in Western Australia, I like to raise a few more drones to improve my chances of good fertility in future queens.

A drone is a male honey bee. Unlike the female worker bee, drones do not have a sing. They are unable to feed without help from the female worker bees. A drone's only role is to mate with an unfertilised queen. This one decided even flying was too hard! 🤔😬

It’s that time of year when split hives work well and new queens (and hives) are created. This young lady is laying.

A couple of virgin queens will make their maiden flight in these two recent splits. The nucleus hives are happy amongst the spring flowers. If you keen to establish a hive or need a nucleus, reach out via our socials or contact through my bio.

Bees, honey, wax and lots of fun with the cubs at Mount Helena Scout Hall. And it was Becky’s birthday 🎂🐝👍

GR1 giving TJ1 a drone frame after a crash course in spotting varroa (with a huge hope the mite doesn’t take hold in Australia). At @nannupflowerandgardenfest. Check out @bicwa_ for the latest information and news on beekeeping.

It has been great fun introducing the bees to everyone visiting the @nannupflowerandgardenfest. From bee adventures in the marquee to a introduction to back yard honey beekeeping at the bowling club. We are back at the @down2earthlife stall tomorrow, where you can pick up plants and seeds from the @seedfreaks range. Thanks to @bicwa_ for lots of informative pamphlets about all things bees🐝. Thanks to the organisers and volunteers plus a fabulous town for organising the event.

Now it’s spring it is the time for your hive checks. Things like swarm prevention, colony health and biosecurity checks. I am available from mid September to inspect your hives and provide you with comprehensive report on the colony. From $150 - please contact me to arrange a visit.

Off to Nannup again for the fabulous Garden and Flower Show. Looking forward to the bee adventure on Saturday and the intro to backyard beekeeping on Sunday. 🐝🌞

Some winter sun and the hives wake. With flowering natives in the @down2earthlife garden. The bees and bird some have some food. I think Australian native flora is amazing, do you?

“In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan Earth stood hard as iron Water like a stone” Poet - Christina Rossetti We’ve just had midwinter in Byford Western Australia and it’s not quite the same as the famous poem and song! It’s 17C, the sunflower 🌻 is in bloom and the bees are working hard to collect pollen and nectar. Perth and surrounds are a bee heaven. 🐝

https://www.sciencealert.com/bumblebees-struggle-to-keep-warm-when-they-are-exposed-to-the-world-s-favorite-herbicide/amp

It maybe close to mid winter here. But the bees still forage. At the community garden we like to leave some things go to flower. Radish is a favourite for both native and European insects 🐝

Can you spot her majesty? I did a very late season walk away split on Good Friday. She has been out and visited the Drone Congregation Area and just started laying, just in time for @world_bee_day_australia. There is a few eggs and larvae. She lives in a insulated hive and although it never gets really cold here just outside Perth Western Australia, things have slowed as we approach midwinter. I’m going keep a eye on the nucleus and see how she does. Come see me at @down2earthlife stall on Sunday @kalamundagardenfestival and tell us a interesting fact about bees. Reply with a 🐝if you spotted the young queen!

The Big List Challenge. I’m going bee at the @kalamundagardenfestival on Sunday. Perched on the edge of @down2earthlife stall. Now here the big list shout out. I’m challenging you all to write down the plants in your happy space that help the pollinators. It could be at work, the local park, community space or wherever. The only rule is you actually see the plant in that space (not a list pinched off the www). What we can do is build a HUGE list to help gardeners or anyone who wants the help the pollinators (and of course us), to be successful. So add a tab, say where your from could be Peru or France and add to the plant list. Let’s see if we can get more people planting.

To celebrate World Bee Day on 20th May 2022, I’ve been working on my pollinator plant list. It names the plant, it’s family and the times of year to plant and when it flowers. I’m going be giving away a comprehensive list of all the flowering plants we grow in the @down2earthlife garden, that supports our veggie and fruit growing. Being spray free we integrate beneficial plants to control the bad bugs. We know all pollinators are so important and with declining forage it’ll be nice if we could all plant something to help. So come and get the list. You find me on the end of a table on the Down2Earth stall @kalamundagardenfestival on Sunday😁🐝.

Sometimes a community really do the business. Byford Community Garden, just down the road from Perth Western Australia - have a glorious organic space. Many of the members use no dig principals, progression planting and no sprays. To the complete joy of the gardens bugs, bees and me. Some of the members deliberately lets some veggies go to flower (I automatically call it going to seed). After four or five years of following these wonderful gardening principles, the place has become a haven for all living things.

Sometimes i just have to push the boundaries. To see if I can get a late autumn split (when you make a new colony). I had a queen emerge on the 26th of April, hoping there would be enough drones around for her to mate. Well she’s still in the nuc hive, there’s plenty of bees and honey to help the young colony. But no sign of eggs yet. I’m going try a few tricks and then see if she starts to lay. We probably got another 10 days at most, to see if she finally produces eggs. Sometimes beekeeping is like that things don’t go well. I am pushing my luck, doing a split late in the season. If your a beekeeper and will be visiting the @kalamundagardenfestival on the 22nd May. Come and see me on the @down2earthlife stall and tell me what the earliest or latest you’ve been successful with a split? I’m intrigued to hear how this European bee behaves in WA winters.

My observation hive will perched on the end of a table on @down2earthlife stall. Amongst Julie’s herbs, insect attracting plants and @seedfreaks pollinator attracting seeds. Close the bees, you will find a free list of all the pollinator plants we have grown in our organic garden. (BTW the garden is nearly regenerative - but ain’t quite got there yet). On the list you find a long list a bee attracting plants and trees, with the planting season and the flowering times. We always try to keep both native and European bees going throughout the year. If you can’t make it on the day, send me a message and I’ll reply with the list. But honestly you be missing a awesome day.

In the Elizabethan era, Seas Holly was considered a aphrodisiac! Shakespeare’s Falstaff speaks of eringoes (sea holly). BTW he’s wearing a stags head at the time. You have to read it to get the gist! Check out the Bards, Merry Wife’s of Windsor. In some parts of Europe the Sea Holly is considered endangered. So to all in northern hemisphere- maybe plant some? My local bees are really enjoying the pollen.

I am so looking forward to catching up with the big fella at the festival on 22nd May. At the heart of the festival there’s Andrew, Mandy and the mob running the @kalamundagardenfestival. As a thank you to all involved in making this awesome festival happen every calendar quarter. I’m going pinch one of Andrew’s fav sayings. I’m throwing it back, “You guys rock too”!

I love popping into the Byford Community Garden to help manage their hive. In this organic garden there are lots of plants to attract pollinators. It’s wonderful that some people leave Pak Choy and Raddish to flower. Plus they leave zucchini and other summer veg, like basil till the cold really kicks in. I also see winter melon and comfrey too. I love volunteering at this garden.

So excited to be pinching a small part of Down2Earth’s stall @kalamundagardenfestival. My observation hive will be sitting next to the pollinator plants on @down2earthlife table. Come and have a chat about bees and pollinator plants. 🐝 and 🌸 rule!!

I’ve been doing late season splits (there is still some drones about and the queens are still laying well). In these insulated hives, it’s going well, we had a virgin queen hatch Tuesday. She might of got out today and mated. It was a balmy 24C (75F) in a Perth and surrounds autumn. Living in this part of Western Australian it never gets really cold and we have such a huge diversity of flora. All the bees European and Native alike love it. I do too I get to see bees work all year round. Collecting nectar and pollen even in the depths of winter. Always the sun here, if if you’ve had enough in February and 43C!

A quick video on brood box inspection. The days are shortening and winter is on its way. So I’m having a look into the brood box, just to make sure all is well. I was taught to start on frame one (from either end). This video is only part of a full inspection. It takes a while to cover the whole box. Here a short clip, so you can get an idea how it’s done. I work from one end, go to the middle and work across the box. At the end I gently push the frames across and gently push frame 1 back in. Then close the hive. This colony is a happy and healthy one💪😎🐝 If you want to learn more on keeping happy and healthy bees. Or just for a peek close up of those fabulous bees. Contact me thorough the website on my bio above. Or even come chat and see some bees at @down2earthlife stall at the @kalamundagardenfestival on 22nd May 2022.

Bee Adventure visit🐝👏. We had a great time doing a hive dive, after a quick chat about bees and hives. As well as happy bees we saw lots of honey, nectar, eggs and larvae as well as capped brood. The queen made an appearance too. We stopped for honey cake and drinks. And the visitors took home jars of honey. Great fun😊. Contact me via my bio, if you’d like a bee adventure at my backyard apiary.

As the day’s come shorter, the colony numbers shrink. But it’s still 13C over night and a top of 27C, so the European bees are out foraging. Here, just outside Perth WA, it’s a NW European summers day. Wonderful time of the year some gardening.

The queen lays an unfertilised egg in a slightly larger egg cell. The boys are a little late to the party and emerge at 24 days, three days after their sister workers. They don’t do much other than get fed and pop out to the DCA trying to mate with a virgin queen. As the daylight days shorten and summer becomes autumn less and less emerge. In spring the queen will start to produce more drones. Sorry old fella, they have no use for you in the hive. You’ve been evicted. 🐝🤨

The 12th of March split (from the hive just on the left). Has produced a new queen and she is laying, filling the nucleus box. Today Lisa moved the new colony onto a new brood box. It’s been great fun teaching Lisa in her first year of beekeeping. Awesome client and fabulous bees🐝💪👍. Contact me via the website in my bio if you want to learn how to keep happy bees😁.

Regenerative gardening says it all. The plants, insects and soil loves it. Words are unnecessary.

It’s the Noongar season Djeran. The very hot weather is over and the change in the season is evident in the wind and the dewy mornings. We planting out the winter veggies (most are spring and summer varieties in other climates). Our Melaleuca (Paperbark) has giving us a final flush and the bees gorge for perhaps one final time as winter approaches. My attempt to call in some rain has fallen on deaf ears, but I know something good is going happen. One of our last summer queens and her colony has been installed and the young beekeeper meeting his crew, for the first time! Awesome ain’t it? Joyful hearts!

In between the late summer and the winter bottle brush and banksia flowers. The pollinators get some help from a few foreigners in our garden. Kalamunda Plant Company always comes up trumps with pollinator plants, to fill in the seasonal gaps. Beeblossom (Gaura). Sea-lavender, (statice). Elderflower Pride of Madeira (Echium - borage family). Finger Lime Blue Salvia

Shout out to my old mate Willow and the crew who crossed the Polish Ukrainian boarder to deliver 7 tonnes of aid to Ukrainians. Well done you mob and all the donations to help the mission. On FB search for cherries aid for Ukraine.

It is always a pleasure installing one of our nucleus hives in a new home. I still get excited showing folk what happening inside. Even the queen appeared just at the right time, I managed to point her out to Sarah @dirt.and.daisy When I install a 4 frame nucleus in a @flowhive 8 frame brood box, the colony gets a couple of full frames of food too. Especially as we are heading into winter.

Citrus australasica, the Australian finger lime. White Autumn flowers are followed in Winter and Spring by slow-growing finger-shaped fruit containing glistening ‘citrus pearls’. The bees catch autumn nectar and we look forward to the “citrus pearls” fruit exploding juicy and sweet.

Wonderful hour with the Joeys’. Julie and I had a great time with Croc and the 1st Maida Vale Joey Scout Unit. We watched the bees in the observation hive. Got stuck into a hive, frames and wax. Got seriously messy tasting comb and honey. And the crew managed to identify all the parts of a 🐝😋🐝👍💪👏👏. Awesome fun

Summer is done and the Marri flower has gone. So the bees move on to autumn flowers. We try to make sure there is year round forage. Autumn is here and the colonies will slow. But I ain’t “feeling blue”, there is plenty for them to collect from.

Honestly, it is still a great feeling. 28 days after doing a split (taking eggs/brood/food and some bees). The supersedure queen has emerged, mated and safely returned. This morning I spotted her (she is camera shy) and some larvae. In the cell you can see little milky larva. Well done girl in trying hot conditions 👏🐝

Introduction to backyard beekeeping. If your interested in starting out, just started or how to keep healthy and chilled bees - why not come down and see the backyard apiary at Beespoke Hive. You can find more info in my bio, use the contact form on the website or just message me. $75 per person of 2 hour intro. Go away with an insight and information on how to keep happy and healthy bees 🐝 .

Backyard beekeeping it’s great fun if you look after the gang. It is always good to get some education. Even though I’ve been an apiarist for a while and qualified. Mikey @pembertonhoneyco was kind enough to give an hour of his time helping me understand the Marri flow (amongst other things). Thanks Mikey👍🐝👏 big shout out to the commercial folk, they are so helpful. Here is a quick run around my backyard bees. With a couple of nucleus hives and a peek in a honey super.

We have a lot of pollinator attracting plants in the garden. If you would like a list, send a 👍and I’ll send the file through. (Alternatively send an email via the website). A nice warning, lots of these flowers and trees will grow all over the world!😁 Melaleuca- the Paperbark Tree, (not sure which one, there are 300 versions of this wonderful tea tree). We have a single 25 meter specimen in the garden. This morning it flowered and the scouts went back to the hives and did a waggle dance. The bees are busy collecting the nectar. It should flower for a while. Australian trees give a wonderful and unique flavour to honey. The West Australian Marri and Jarrah trees give us medicinal quality honey too!

Flowers, veggies, bees, pollen and honey might call them yellow. When you watch and wonder at them and taste the honey, it’s “ecstasy of gold”. Shout out to the two beekeepers at the end, Chris and Lisa doing marvellous in our hospitals. Looking after us all 👍😎🤓

“WOW”, was my little grandson reaction, as he pointed to the yellows. Some native and some exotic. Autumn is due and in Perth that means a change in colour and winter veggies. And perhaps some autumn queen rearing! “WOW”! 😁

#growitlocalawards We love setting up a riotous assembly of flowering perennials and annuals both veggies and flowers. The “flower” bed in the front is full of both exotic and Oz natives. The tunnel is interplanted with veg and flowers. Bit untidy yes, productive yes, organic yes, beneficials yes. Shade cloth yes - too bloody hot sometimes! 🐝🐞🪰🐜🐌🪳🦋🤓

Quiz - what do you see in this picture? I’ll pin the best answers at the top.

Noongar Bunuru - the season of adolescence. Can be a tough time for your garden. We have both natives and exotic plants in the garden that support beneficial bugs and pollinators. Sage, Salvia, Hollyhocks, Lantana and daisies are just a few. Catch me at the Kalamunda Garden Festival on Sunday 27th February, on Down2Earth stall. I’ll have some more information on seasonal planting and plants. Come tell us what’s flowering in you garden.

Identify the native bees. Go on have a go🤔.😁First person to visit and give correct answer to Gary at the Down2Earth stall wins a pollinator plant. Tell us what plants/trees are blooming in your yard/community. 9 till 2pm at the Kalamunda Garden Festival on 27th Feb.

Noongar season of Bunuru. The Marri flower the parrots and bees love the nectar.

A hive split involves taking four frames from an existing hive. Two frames including honey and pollen for food. The other two have nurse bees, capped brood and some young larvae. The new nucleus hive thinks they have lost their queen (can’t smell her) and raise emergency queen cells. This recent split is looking ok. I was lucky as I peaked down into the frames, I was able to see emergency queen cells from the top. I will be adding more closed brood frames in the next few weeks to keep the bee numbers up. Until the new virgin queen hatches and makes her mating flight. I’ll keep you posted 😀🐝👍

Parts of a honey bee - symmetrical brilliance - left is same as right.

Bee bearding - You will see this in strong colonies when the population is at its height and as the bees are storing and ripening honey fast.

Making more hives. On the left, there is a small box called a nucleus hive (green lid). Know as a walk away split. You take some brood frames and bees out of an existing hive and force them to make another queen and hive. Altogether it takes around 65 days to create an established hive. If we use a technique called grafting we can create a number of queens and speed the process up. You can see I’m holding a frame with the grafting cups attached. Grafting is the technique of transferring a 1 day old larva from a brood cell into a special plastic cell cup. If the graft is successful and we have made a queen cell. We then add the cell to a split. It saves the nucleus bees in the split from having to make a queen.

The Marri trees are in bloom and we are surrounded. “I can see (them) for miles and miles”. The bees have gone nuts and filling frames fast. It’s time to make splits and new colonies. Awesome

In our dry and hot summers we often get a total fire ban. So traditional smokers cannot be used. Yesterday we put on a clearance board to clear out as many bees as possible. Maybe I left it a little bit to long before removing the top box. The leaf blower does the job and most of the bees, while a bit “wow blimey what’s occurring?” They don’t suffer much from the gale force winds. 💨🐝😬🍯

It’s been a tough six or so weeks for the bees. We’ve had record high temperatures in late December and January. While the hives coped they did dip into their honey stores. I delayed adding honey boxes. Now temperatures have dipped and the Corymbia (Marri / Red Gum) trees are in flower and the bees are collecting nectar. Here is looking forward to cooler temperatures and fabulous 🍯🐝😀

“The best laid plans….” The colony got grumpy and you can see at the end of the video they where bashing me and the camera. In my back yard apiary, I use a clearance board to empty a honey super of bees before removing the honey harvest. It does mean we have to revisit the hive the next day, not a problem in your own back yard. It gets a bit messy at one point and while I managed to stay calm, the bees didn’t! Perhaps the lack of smoke made them 😠.

Queen bees get royal jelly. But worker bees get jelly and pollen during the larva stage. So when we do a hive split (to create another queen and hive) we have to pick frames that have eggs and young larvae. That ensures the team build new queen cells and if all goes well we get a new colony. Tomorrow I’ll do a split and talk you through what’s happening. 😂

If you do it right, you can get up close. Of course a few of the guards will alway say hello, but if you learn how to successfully manage a hive. The colony is usually chilled. Lots going on today - some bearding (making some space in the box and fanning outside). At the same time a few emerging workers. But we are all good, cooler weather and especially cooler beekeeper 😎👍.

Watch the leafcutter bee in action (slowed down video). She uses the cut leaf for nest building in a cavity. So one of those locally made bee hotels from @battsenbyswildlife is a good addition to the garden, they will be at @kalamundagardenfestival in late February. She lays her eggs inside the rolled cut leaf stuffed in the cavity and feeds the young with pollen. Don’t use sprays, this indigenous bee does a great service pollinating fruit and veggies. I really like the neat cut circles they leave. 🐝😁.

Spoiling the honey and pollen crew today. After a hard week I’m spoiling them with some syrup. @dirt.and.daisy has asked for a starter colony (bee people call them nucleus hives), for their FlowHive. So today I’m spending some time close up, to see how the colonies have coped with record breaking temperatures in Perth, in preparation for “splits”. Give us a thumbs up if you’d like to see more videos, showing you how we go about making another hive.

Cucumber family - some Zucchini (courgette) and some funky coloured squash. From the home garden @down2earthlife and the Byford Community garden. All open pollinated by the native insects and the hives I look after. Awesome organic food with little or no dig.

Grevillea “Moonlight”, a favourite of the bees and gardeners. Always a good edition to your place. Pollinator attracting, but the European bee do bash them up. Can be grown in parts of Europe and US too. Frost tender though.

Organic grown, open pollinated, heirloom toms, cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkin and egg plants.

This captured swarm was quarantined and cared for and has grown into a healthy happy colony. It’s been great fun teaching @rosser_lisa how to build a traditional hive and look after the gang. The hive is doing really well. The top box is full of honey and we have added another (under super is the term) and left them to fill the lower box before harvesting from the top. In time Lisa wants the do a split and create a second hive, so we are going have even more fun creating a queen and new colony. You can always message if your interested in learning the fabulous art of beekeeping and we can arrange some Beespoke lessons. I can do one to one mentoring, small groups at my backyard apiary or you place, even Instagram live or Zooms. Just let me know the format you’d like. 😁🐝

The flower from the Marri (Red Gum), Latin - Corymbia. Marri is the Nyoongar word for blood. The resin is coloured red. All the pollinators love the nectar rich flower and with its cousin the Jarrah, produces that famous medicinal honey. It’s also a good time to do hive splits and new make new queens. Cross fingers it’s going be a good mid to late summer honey season. 🐝🍯

Finally! We managed to get a clear shot on camera. The blue banded bee! Indigenous to Oz, they prefer blue and white flowers from the natives and imports like lavender and salvia families. The yellow and white of the edibles (toms, egg plants, cucumbers etc) attract them too, so they do are doing a great job in our organic garden. A solitary bee, the female burrows into sandy soil and the males, at night retire by hanging onto a leaf.

On the green hive you can see a decent beard. Also the workers are fanning and oscillating back and forward. This is a common occurrence in the afternoon/evening in summer. It helps aircon the brood and remove the moisture from the nectar to make the honey. Tomorrow I might just have a quick peak inside the green honey supers (boxes), to see how they are doing. The honey smell wafted across the garden in the late afternoon-🍯. The colony are doing amazing stuff in these +35C (95F) days. Might have to put on some more honey supers.😁😎 PS Get well soon anyone sick with covid.

Next to my home apiary is the organic veggie garden. Julie @down2earthlife goes into more detail on the saving of fennel seeds, without destroying the plant. Pollinators happy, plants happy, people happy (better yield from the organic garden). 😎🐝👏

When it is continuously over 100F or 38C. We do our bit to keep the colony cool and watered. Hives are painted in reflective paint or white. The more tech ones are insulated. There are numerous scientific papers stating that the brood is affected by continuous high temperatures. (As well as freezing temperatures). Thanks Chris for the link - https://www.sbs.com.au/news/chilean-police-officers-stung-hospitalised-after-beekeepers-hold-protest-with-10-000-bees/8f6e15ba-d442-4eba-9bb2-ee1106c1b3ec

Fennel flower offers both nectar and pollen to the pollinators all day long. Lasting most of the summer we always have a few of these beneficial plants in the veggie patches.

A quick inspection and a Christmas present for the girls - a honey super. I chat about outside/inside the hive temperatures and a little bit of bee hive history. 🤓.

Merry Christmas folks. If I sent you this video via Messenger. I apologise, silly me a fat thumb thing. It’s remarkable how the colony maintains that optimal temperature ain’t it?

I do hope you enjoy this video that gives a quick look at the brood box (where the queen lives). The rotated frame will give the queen some more room to lay, expanding the hive. The honey honey super frames are added so the ladies can start making lovely West Australian honey from our eucalyptus trees that are flowering. Also the Marri trees will flower in the New Year. Both of these native trees provide the nectar that produces excellent medicinal quality honey. 😋🐝 🍯

Its time to to do some work in one of the hives. A quick clip showing the horizontal - before a quick brood inspection and hive expansion. Thumbs up if you’d like to see a 10 minute video on expanding the hive? 🧐😀

No excuses for this post. The top row, it’s unlikely they will produce enough pollen to grow healthy bees. Where as the bottom three should. At times when we lack native fodder (it happens), and you wish to plant sunflowers get open pollinated varieties. The F1’s do us a disservice. 😩wow the mess in the flower shop from pollen and as a hay fever sufferer I deal with it. I get so frustrated seeing more and more F1 on shelves, bring back open pollened, save our bees and plants.

The new colony in the horizontal hive is doing well and so is my sciatica🥴😁. Horizontals are awesome at saving your back! But before we can get some honey, the ladies have to collect pollen for protein (you can see one delivery of yellow pollen on her back legs). The nectar collected is the carbohydrate they feed the hive and process into honey.

No need to panic if you see lots of bees flying around and around, that is some of them doing their orientation flights (first trip outside the hive). Also plenty of bees hanging outside, they are helping cool the colony on a bright sunshiny day!

Well done @down2earthlife for winning the edible garden competition in the shire @shireofsj The bees are a enormous help too. Of course it didn’t help @_paul_west_ visited and set a challenge for us to be part of @growitlocal. But the nicest thing is sharing our excess organically grown produce with others😁 .. Thanks all for support and encouragement 👍👏

Did a quick inspection of a 9 week old hive. The queen was created in late September and she hatched around the 10th October. Considering a chilly start and the last 4 days in the mid to late 30’s Celsius. The colony is doing well.

It’s been stinking hot the last three days and it got close to 40 Celsius. But now the temperatures have dropped and I’m planning for queen grafting. I’ll keep you posted with developments. 😁

Terrible at remembering flowers names. The carrot family seems favourite for pollen. Is it Anne or Angelica?

Chris is a natural! We only installed his nucleus hive in his @flowhive brood box last week. Doing his first ever inspection, spotting larva, nectar and pollen. Later he saw the queen. Shouldn’t be long before the flow frames go on. Well done Chris and the camera crew😁.

European honey bee nuts I may be. But the local native beneficial bugs are encouraged too. Thanks to the guys at Battsenby’s Wildlife at their first show, I purchased a insect and bat box a few years ago. I’ll be asking for some bird boxes when I come see you guys at the next @kalamundagardenfestival.👍

Ladies collect 500ml of water a day to help aircon the hive. The brood needs to be kept around the 35 degree C mark. Don’t forget to give them some water, they’re love ya for it.

It’s really nice to help community gardens maintain their hives. I’m gradually getting this colony back to good health. Beez Neez Apiary are really helpful in providing a new queen back in October and she settled in well.

At Lisa Lisa’s on Tuesday after she had done her first brood inspection. We expanded the hive by putting on a honey super. The food - a baggy is sealable bag with water and a patty is a irradiated pollen mixed with brewers yeast. I always recommend helping young colonies as they grow.

Lisa Lisa doing her first hive dive. The brood box is full - happy healthy bees from a swarm caught in early October. The honey super went on today. Message me for one to one coaching.

Amazing eh? 🙌🙌

Down in Wandi (southern suburb of Perth), The Honeywood Primary School Sensory Garden - 🤩 wow! Such a awesome garden! The pollinators were loving it! Behind us there is some fabulous worm farms set up to feed the garden! #honeybees #urbanbees #urbanbeekeeper #beekeepinglife #wagardeners #organicgardening #growyourownfood #sustainablegardening #beekeeping #savethebees

@seedfreaks Blue Beauty Tom grown from seed by @down2earthlife found it’s way to Wandi Farmers market, Perth.

It’s been a little bit too hot and these laughing doves have had enough. Stay cool😎

Chris is a natural (even though his suit and smoker still ain’t arrived). We installed his nuc into his Flow Hive. Awesome 😎

In between our Australian natives flowering in winter/spring and late summer. There is always a gap before our Jarrah and Marri bloom. A couple of blooming bee helpers during the Nyoongar season of Birak. Is the blue salvia and yellow edible chrysanthemum. Let’s see if we can find a few native flowers the ladies can feed on. @down2earthlife @pinch_dash_glug @buzzanddig

She was born in late September, and emerged as a queen around the 10th October. Beside the bad weather she managed to get out of this nucleus (mini) hive and mate. To return and lay well. The colony has grown well (with a little bit of help). She moves to her new home on Thursday to Chris’s house. Bees are amazing? 🐝👍🙌🙌

Thanks to the local ladies from one of the apiaries for pollinating @down2earthlife cucumbers. It is handy if you interplant with pollen producing flowers. 🙌🐝 job done!

After a busy morning with @kalamundagardenfestival, @down2earthlife, @earthwhileaustralia and meeting all those wonderful bee people. The girls are safely home. 😁

Made with loving care by our backyard bees, julie @down2earthlife pinched it so we can show you what can be done with some organic gardening and a few backyard hives. 🤫

Imperial Drone invasion - the purple Jedi guard ain’t having any crap from tech invader. “May the force be with them!”

Finally saw a pollinator on a Flanders poppy. Now it can self seed and we will see them next year! 😁