nativebeehives.com

nativebeehives.com is a project website with a focus on individual design and construction of Native Bee Hives and Hotels. Through the site I show some different designs and general construction ideas. I make hive boxes for myself and like to create different designs as a bit of research and development.

I have an online shop that shows some of the boxes available: http://nativebeehives.com/product-category/hives/

*Happy to give this forum members cheaper prices, send me a message if you're after something.

*I don't have any live bees for sale at the moment, just boxes for splitting, transfers or rescues.

I'm also trying to fill the site out with general info so if you're in to native bees then hopefully you will find something useful.

Here's a sample of the kind of boxes I make


This can be an open thread so feel free to comment/give advice/throw ideas around etc.

 

Great work Steve. Love the hives, something different than the stand hives we see. A real feature piece that would look great in anyone's garden.

Website looks great. I've been there before, lots of great info. I'll have another look around

 

cheers Letsgo. I think it combines a few hobbies actually, bees, woodwork, photography and websites!

I have added The Australian Native Bee Book by Tim Heard to the shop.
http://nativebeehives.com/product/native-bee-book-tim-heard/

 

Have that book it's a great book. Amazing photos.

 

letsgo, those photos make me wish I took them.

Mark, cheers, I spend a bit of time working on the site. I'm not sure about the whole discount thing really. I jumble numbers around in my head wondering if it makes sense, reasons for and against etc. I'll probably just change it every now and then. It's a bit of trial and error kind of thing.

 

Hey Stevo,
Based on your (very patient) advice, I had a look at quite a few sites you suggested. I'm guessing it's a little too early for splitting, so there's generally a bit of a wait, which is no problem.
In poking around I noticed "Dean" at australiannativebee.com has a hive with a clear viewing panel as part of the hive design. I thought this was quite cool, as I assume you can watch them working without technically removing the lid (it has a timber top that goes over this clear panel too, as I presume the hive wouldn't do so well with bright daylight into it all day!)
I wondered whether you guys (or anyone who knows anything about native bees!) thought this was a good or a bad idea? I've sent an enquiry about buying a hive, but haven't heard back from him as yet.

 

I haven't seen those boxes up close so it's hard to say. It might depend how they're made.

There's a couple of points for and against the viewing window. It's a nice idea, It's interesting when looking at a new hive that hasn't been filled out.

The down sides might be that once the hive fills out you wont see anything as the window will be blocked by a wall of stuff as the bees attached their structures to it. Once it gets covered up you wont bother looking any more. It may create more opportunities for pests with more points of entry if there's gaps? so maybe it's just better not to have one in the first place.

But in saying all those negative points, from what I've seen of Deans posts in various places he seems quite knowledgable and normal, so I'd have confidence that he knows what he's doing.

 

Hah, yep hadn't thought about that! Guess the bees don't care about blocking the view too much!

Hadn't thought about that either!!

And it's always good to know he's not going to follow me home and break into the house!!!
I might try contacting him again in case the link on his website doesn't work properly...I don't think the ones with the viewing window were much more expensive but it would worry me to lose a hive to pests because of it (would hate to think I was responsible for the death of all those little bees)

 

I meant, I'm sure he's constructed it in a way to keep out pests

His website says he's out of stock for live hives, so it may be a wait I guess.

 

Hehe, yeah I kinda knew what you meant! I don't mind the wait...I noticed a heap of little native bees out on some broccoli flowers I've let go, so there's definitely quite a few around where I live. Hopefully a hive will do ok.

 

I've added a article about isolating Honey Supers, and it has an Oskar viewing window

http://nativebeehives.com/isolating-the-honey-super/

 

actually makes it all look very simple...maybe (when I eventually get the hive) I will get more involved with them than I thought! (Having seen what my F-in-L had to go through with honey bees, I didn't want to do that much work!)

 

I have just come to the conclusion that i havr austalian native stingless bees in my garden. Ive been wondering what those tiny things were, knowing it was some kind of bee as it was collecting pollen but had never seen one before.

Cannot believe that I get so many of them here.. and we are coming into our second spring at this house, this is their first appearance which i am very happy. I guess all the gardening we have done is paying off

Do you have any tips for what flowers they like? Would love to see more of them

 

I let my broccoli go to seed...they seemed to love them. Always saw them on the broccoli flowers in preference to the edible flowers (violas, alyssum etc) - perhaps they prefer yellow? Stevo will probably have a better idea about it...

 

Here's a small list of the popular ones...

• Abelia

• Butterfly Bush

• Bottlebrush

• Gum Blossom

• Spider Flower

• Lavender

• Tea Tree

• Honey Myrtle

• Rosemary

• Daisies

• Grevilleas

• Salvias

• Roses

• Duranti

Shallot Flower....


Daisy...

 

Off to the nursery i go

 

Was gardening down in the riverbank yesterday and noticed hundreds of some sort of flying insects coming and going by a hole next to a metal stake...my first thought was migrating termites (eek) but they were more like a native bee in appearance. I had been gardening around the stake, so I presume I disturbed an underground nest...I'll try to get pics today...but would (for arguments sake) native bees nest in a piece of wood buried underground? (Sorry, probably a dumb question!)