Articles

Your summer beekeeping checklist Summer is a busy time for bees. Long, warm days and readily available nectar supplies make for intensive honey production and increased egg-laying. Colony numbers peak and bees spend much of their time building and filling...

A Guide On Beekeeping This Autumn Bees work tirelessly throughout the warmer months to forage for nectar and produce honey. But as the days grow colder, bees are settling down for the winter, and a change in bee activity calls...

How to prevent invasion and treat infestation Bees make so many useful and delicious products – honey, wax, propolis, royal jelly – it makes sense that humans aren’t the only species that want to access them. But unlike humans, who...

The Important Role Of The Queen Bee In A Colony The queen bee is at the heart of the hive. She’s the mother of all the other members and the glue that holds the colony together. Without a queen, the...

Bee Friendly Garden - Tips When we hear about bees most of us think of honeybees (Apis mellifera) but there are many more bees around us. New Zealand has 28 native and 13 introduced species of bee. The bee’s most...

​So, you’re thinking about keeping bees? Whether you want 1 or 1000 hives, beekeeping can be a hugely rewarding hobby. Beehives take time; they need to be managed carefully, so before you get any hives, you should think about what...

Spring of Swarms – How To Safely Capture a Bee Swarm. Bee swarms have an undeserved reputation. They’re seen as dangerous, and non-beekeepers often find them pretty scary. In fact, bees are usually at their least threatening and most docile...

Protect bees, prevent stings – how to keep wasps out of your garden Whether you’re a gardener, a beekeeper, or just love the outdoors, wasps in the garden are less than ideal. Painful stings are the most obvious downside, but...

Preparation, placement, patience – safe beekeeping practices Beekeeping involves working with a large number of unpredictable living things. So of course, there are risks and dangers. But if you follow safe beekeeping guidelines, you should be able to minimise the...

More than just a hobby – making a living from beekeeping With around 7,000 beekeepers and roughly 700,000 registered hives (MPI 2016 Apiculture Monitoring Report), New Zealand produces a lot of honey. Many Kiwi beekeepers start out as hobbyists, with...

How to split hives without harming your colony Whether you’re a commercial beekeeper or a hobbyist, you already know that buying bees to start a new hive can be expensive, which makes splitting hives an attractive option. During the warmer...

Monitor, manage and minimise swarms Keeping your bees happy, healthy and swarm-free. Swarming may be natural bee behaviour, but it’s not popular with most beekeepers. When a colony swarms, roughly half the population, including the queen, leaves the hive in...

Minding your beeswax There’s more to beekeeping than honey Honey is great, but it isn’t the only useful thing you can get from your busy bees. Beeswax, propolis, and royal jelly are just some of the other substances produced by...

How to identify and help native Aussie bees When you think of a bee, you probably picture a classic, yellow-and-black striped honey bee, or its furry cousin the bumblebee. You’re probably not imagining metallic green, shiny red, or blue-polka-dotted insects....

Why beginners should join a beekeeping club 5 reasons to find your local beekeeping buddies Beekeeping isn’t something you get right away. Like any hobby, it takes trial and error to find out what works and what doesn’t. Newbie beekeepers...

​Helping with the hives: children and beekeeping Kids and beekeeping may not seem like natural partners. After all, beekeeping involves being patient, methodical and calm – not quite what small children are known for. But if you’re a beekeeper with...

How To Clean And Process Useful Beeswax After honey, beeswax is probably the best-known product made in the hive. Wax is made by bees to store honey and is extracted when honey is removed from the hive. It’s a natural...

How to Become a Beekeeper in Australia Plenty of people have idle daydreams about becoming beekeepers, but few leap to real-live hives. This blog will help you to understand some of the basics around getting started with beekeeping in Australia....

Inspecting your hives – when, why, and how often? Inspecting your hives is an essential part of beekeeping, helping you keep on top of how your colony is functioning. Do your bees have adequate food supplies and plenty of space...

How Climate Change Is Affecting bees Bees are tough little creatures, able to thrive almost anywhere – the only place in the world without beehives is Antarctica. But as climate change brings on extreme weather patterns, temperature changes and rising...

The fascinating world of honey bees We all know that bees make honey, but how many of us really understand the inner workings of a beehive? Honey bees are fascinating creatures, living in huge colonies with complex social structures. And...

Honey is great, but there’s more! Other wonderful things busy bees do for us You might think of beekeeping as being all about honey, but it’s a whole lot more than that. Bees produce honey, sure, but along the way...

The dos and don’ts of honey harvesting How to take your honey from hive to jar Honey is the whole point of beekeeping, right? If you’re a new beekeeper, your first honey harvest is pretty exciting – but figuring out...

Winter Beekeeping: Taking care of beehives in winter Keeping your bees cosy in cold weather Winter is a natural rest time for bees. After building up their honey stores through spring and summer, they’re ready to hole up in the...

When is the best time to start beekeeping? Starting your first hive. You’ve done the reading, visited experienced beekeepers, joined your local bee club and even bought hive equipment and a bee suit. You’re almost ready to start your first...

How to Breed Queen Bees Your bee hives already have a queen each – so why create more? Well, you might want to start a brand-new hive, re-queen a hive that’s lost its leader or even sell queens to other...

Spring beekeeping checklist Taking care of your bees this spring. Spring is finally here. For most people, that means warmer days, fresh green leaves, and adorable lambs. For beekeepers, it means eggs, larvae and honey production. As the days get...

Preparing your hives for spring Spring is almost here. Here's how to get your bees up to speed. Believe it or not, spring is on its way. It may feel cold and miserable where you are, but before you know...

What new beekeepers get wrong And how to get it right There’s a lot to learn when you’re a brand-new beekeeper. You have to get your head around hive positioning, inspections, feeding and harvesting, not to mention managing pests and...

Beekeeping in a hot climate Taking care of your bees in warmer weather As every Australian knows we live in an intensely hot, dry place – and climate change isn’t helping. Last summer was a record-breaker, with heatwaves and temperatures...

​Rookie beekeeping mistakes – and how to avoid them New beekeepers face a steep learning curve. Beekeeping is part science, part art, and it can take some time to get your head around the process. Most newbies learn through a...

Choosing Bee Hive Frames - Wooden vs Plastic Frames When you’ve been a beekeeper for a while, you have your preferences. You might prefer to feed honey over sugar syrup, or not feed your colony at all, and gumboots fit...

Beginner Beekeeping Basics: Finding the Queen Non-beekeepers imagine that the queen bee is very obvious – not quite wearing a little crown, but definitely different from the other bees. Unfortunately for novice keepers, this isn’t the case. The queen does...

Everything You Need To Know About Beekeeping Safety There’s no way around it – caring for bees involves risk. Aside from the obvious danger of bee stings, there are other health and safety factors to consider. And as a beekeeper,...

Introducing your kids to beekeeping Safe, age-appropriate ways to get children involved Repetitive tasks. Long waits. Not to mention thousands of small, stinging creatures. Beekeeping doesn’t sound very kid-friendly on the surface. But if you’re a hobby beekeeper with children,...

Beekeeping 101: The Ultimate Beginners’ Guide Beekeeping can feel overwhelming for beginners. Not only do you need to get the right beekeeping supplies, find a place for your hive and get your hands on some real live bees, you also...

Beekeeping 101: Super sizes If you have been beekeeping for a while, you’ll have developed your own opinions on common issues – where to place your hives, whether to feed sugar syrup in winter, how to split a hive. But...

Beekeeping 101: How to Stop Hive Robbing Robbing is exactly what it sounds like. During a nectar shortage, bees from outside colonies enter your hives and steal honey. They will fight your bees, tear open honey cells and cause serious...

Beekeeping 101: How to do a hive inspection Bees are secretive creatures. From outside the hive, you can’t tell if they are making honey, the queen is laying eggs, invasive pests are causing havoc or your bees are running out...

Beekeeping 101: Adding Another Super Non-beekeepers might think of a beehive as a static structure with a fixed layout, but it’s actually a complex, miniature building that changes to meet your bees’ needs. Beehives need space for the queen bee...

Bee-friendly blooms The best flowers to attract bees to your garden These days, everyone seems to love a low-maintenance garden full of succulents, cycads, and palm trees. Everyone except bees, that is. Both introduced honey bees and Australian native bees...

How To Feed Bees? Now that you learned why, when and what to feed honey bees, the next question we’re going to answer is “how do you feed honey bees?” There are many options for feeding honey bees. Here are...

​When, Why and What To Feed Bees Are you wondering whether your bees have enough stores or are they getting enough nutrients to make it through the season? In certain situations, bees may need food to help the colony survive....

The benefits of beekeeping associations What’s in it for bees and beekeepers? Promotion, support, connection, education – beekeeping associations do a lot for beekeepers and the industry as a whole. Whether you’re an amateur beekeeper or you’re running a professional...

Why Bees Are Aggressive – And What To Do Honeybees generally have a calm temperament. Usually, they only sting in certain situations – like when they’re stood on, crushed under a hand or they feel trapped or threatened. If you’re...

Honey: Honey is sweet and delicious, and raw honey contains powerful antioxidants, vitamins and enzymes. Pollination: Flowers, fruit trees, and crops in your neighborhood won’t grow without pollination, so help them thrive by providing natural pollinators. Learning Experience: Many things...