Native Bees & Splitting Native Bee Hives

[OskarDoLittle]

Ahhhh, so it's quite difficult to get just an empty hive and then populate it? I seem to recall with my father-in-law's honey bees we had to buy all the hives, and then buy a swarm to settle into it from someone who was splitting or had raised a queen (or some story like that...it was a long time ago) so I had assumed I'd do the same with natives.
I'll have a look at the site you've suggested and see what's around. Thanks heaps for the info!

 

[Mark]

Here's a short video of some bee action....

Nice video Stevo, good clear close footage of activity at the native beehive entry point.

 

[stevo]

I just used the phone for the video, it hunted for focus but was passable.

Splitting season is coming!

PS> Mark, how's your hives going? I assume Kevin will be around in a couple months to do some work.

 

[Mark]

@stevo yeah Kevin inspected them all about 6 weeks ago and to be honest he wasn't happy with the hive growth in most of the 10 boxes.

The broods are all going fine but they aren't growing as much as expected which is kind of a mystery since there's plenty of wild forest, scrub, and flowers from our own property to harvest.

He might only split a few hives this time if any...

 

[stevo]

ahh ok yeah.... He might have to move a few somewhere else? I guess he has only a limited amount of places he can put them at. I saw an advert from him asking if people wanted to volunteer their property, close to his area.

 

[stevo]

Yesterday I bought a hive from Kevin. I already have Tetragonula Carbonaria and I wanted to get a different species so I got some Australis. I'll try do some updates.

and wow hey.. have you seen his lounge room Mark?
It's like a "antique - second hand - museum " kind of set up, very interesting

 

[stevo]

Here's a pic of the Australis hive I got from Kevin...

 

[Mark]

have you seen his lounge room Mark?
It's like a "antique - second hand - museum " kind of set up, very interesting

"Interesting" is the word Stevo

Yep, that's his hives alright! I assume your hive didn't have the tin lid? He just removed all of the lids on the 18 hives at our place due to the geckos... see the video

 

[stevo]

yeap, no tin lid here. I don't know if the Geckos are that much of a problem, they'd have to eat a lot of bees? In saying that I do remove them where I ever I see them because they're a pest.

 

[Mark]

them where I ever I see them because they're a pest.

They shorted out my electric gates... little buggers got into the circuit board and layed eggs

 

[Rob]

Hi Mark.
Any Chance of the Dimension of the vertical split hive, very interested in building a few, has I already have a few horizontal hives.
Also, what is the thickness of the stainless steel wire?
Cheers
Rob

 

[Mark]

Any Chance of the Dimension of the vertical split hive

Hi Rob, check this out. But I don't know the exact wire width.
https://www.selfsufficientculture.c...litting-native-bee-hives.391/page-2#post-4255

 

[Raymondo]

Just found your posts re native bees and would like to know of anyone who may like to sell one for our garden , I just love the little critters they are certainly having a ball at the moment just not sure how far they are traveling to get here so would like to have a hive nearby , not interested in robbing the honey I reckon any insect who works that hard deserves to keep whatever they store cheers Ray