Urban Hum

Urban Hum Honey is produced in the heart of Newcastle, harvested by hand and packaged raw and unprocessed, just as the bee made it.
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Urban Hum wants you to become part of the change that is bringing bees back to cities around the world. Urban beekeeping brings sustainability to your community providing access to produce that is truly local. Watch the flowers, fruits and vegetables in your neighbourhood become unique urban honey. By joining in the beekeeping journey you will reduce food miles and give back to the world by ensuring the honeybees survival.

18/04/2024

Would you like to come and check out the Tiny Forest? This Sunday we have a weeding morning tea session. 👇 book below so I know how many brownies to bake😉

Can't see the tiny forest for the trees! 🌳🌳🌳

This is Kelly from Urban Hum in the tiny forest on her property that's now 6 months old.

We're getting together for a Monitoring and Maintenance Session this Sunday and we'd love some more volunteers.

There'll be weeding, mulching and some fun citizen science stuff to measure the impact the tiny forest is having.

Here's the link to find out more and book your spot for Sunday:
https://events.humanitix.com/urban-hum-monitoring-and-maintenance-session

01/04/2024

This Saturday Morning you can come this the Tiny Forest and see the amazing growth. We would love get a hand to measure the growth, mulch some pathways and eat some yummy honey cake! Bookings in the original post.

Please join us for a monitoring and maintenance session at Urban Hum Tiny Forest

15/12/2023

We caught up with the lovely ladies Practical Permaculture to chat about our property design and plans for connecting with our community. Thank you for the yarn Alysse and Jo we are loving your podcast series.

19/11/2023

What a wonderful morning.

06/11/2023

Thank you again to the community that joined us for our planting day or supported us in other ways. We added a little top up of mulch today and the forest is settling in well after a good soak with rain on the weekend.

29/10/2023

What a wonderful morning. Thank you to everyone that made this planting day possible.

20/10/2023

Only one week till our Community Planting Day: A Tiny Forest for Pollinators soil preparation is almost complete.

16/10/2023

Have a listen to lovely Anna Noon as she talks about the Tiny Forests that she is bringing to the Urban Hum block.

16/10/2023

Your help in planting the forest means the world to us! ❤️ 🌱🐝 https://tinyurl.com/3dfv4t94

16/10/2023

🌱🌿 Community Power at its Best🌿🌱

We are overflowing with gratitude for the incredible support we've received from our local community. Thanks to your unwavering commitment, our crowdfunding project has successfully taken root, and the early release tickets have been sent out to our eco champions! 🎉

Now, we're thrilled to announce that the tickets are available for everyone to book and be a part of something truly wonderful. 🎟️

🌳 Please book your ticket and join us in planting the seeds (or trees in this case) of change together! 🌱 Join us to feel the joy of making a difference by nurturing our habitat and strengthening our community bonds. Your help in planting the forest means the world to us! ❤️ https://tinyurl.com/3dfv4t94

We'd like to express our heartfelt appreciation to all our supporters, including Agility Professional Tree Service, Jemina, Carmen's Trees for Bees, Remondis, Cardiff Area Sustainable Neighbourhood Group, and Earthwatch Australia. Your collective effort has been instrumental in making this dream a reality.

Special shoutout to Anna Noon and Mark Colquhoun from The Groundswell Collective for their unwavering energy and determination, making everything come together seamlessly. 🙌

Now, it's time to get our hands dirty and start planting the roots of a brighter, greener future. Thank you 🌏🌿

22/09/2023

By now I am sure most of you know we are now in a transition to management phase with Varroa. For everyone that lost bees in the mammoth effort to eradicate this destructive pest, the news is bittersweet. We lost our bees and now we can bee-keep again, but we will have to manage Varroa. No one knows what this will look like in Australia yet.

If you are in the Varroa Mite Management Zones around Kempsey and the Newcastle/Central Coast firmer red zones, you can keep bees again but there are some rules.

Bees can come into the VMZ but without strict conditions cannot go out. If you want to move bees or someone wants to send them to you from outside you or they must:

1. Do the online Varroa course through Tocal College

2. Submit a recent alcohol wash result

3. Apply for a movement permit through the DPI website

In the Varroa Mite Suppression Zone you also have to do all these things if you are moving bees.

Everyone keeping bees regardless of zone must do the 16 weekly surveillance on their hives and record and report their results.

There is a lot of misinformation out there the source of truth for what you can and can’t do is the DPI. This is not America.

Above all we need to work together to do the right thing so we can work out how to manage our bees in this new unknown landscape.

If you are struggling there is help out there, you do t have to go through this alone.

#

19/09/2023

As Nancy our daughter likes to say “We love nature” so with that in mind we have joined forces with .au to pledge to plant more than 500 trees in a Tiny Forest, a beautiful fast growing dense community of plants endemic to right where we live.

That means habitat for birds, bees, beetles and more. Help us realise this dream follow the link https://crowdfunding.startsomegood.com/tinyforest

Image by the amazing

19/09/2023

We often get asked what can we do in the red zone to help native pollinators? We have teamed up with The Groundswell Collective to try to do our bit to help. You can support native pollinators and climate action in Lake Macquarie by contributing to the The Urban Hum Tiny Forest - a dense pocket of native plants aimed to provide habitat for wildlife and an educational and inviting place for locals to enjoy. Find out more and share the word: crowdfunding.startsomegood.com/tinyforest

18/09/2023

It’s been a hard 12 months since Varroa struck Australia and a lot has changed in that time.

Lots of people lost their beloved honey bees and have struggled to fathom the loss.

We like to find solace in nature and have always loved bees of all stripes .

Check out this beautiful Green and Gold Nomia a native ground nesting bee going crazy on our Dianella.

Dianella has crunchy purple berries that taste a bit like Lilly Pillies but without the mouth sucking astringency! Thanks to these nomias and other pollinators we are looking forward to a bumper crop.

21/09/2022

Kelly will be giving a talk at the Grow Zone tent at 12:30pm about how we can support our Native Bees and encourage them to pollinate our gardens. That's this Saturday 24 September at the Living Smart Festival, there is an incredible lineup of talks, workshops, and activities.
Check out the full program so you can plan your day. https://www.lakemac.com.au/Events-directory/Council-events/Living-Smart-Festival/Program

22/08/2022

Biopesticide might become safer alternative to existing treatments

05/08/2022

Hello fellow beekeepers in the red zone. Here is the updated information about how we can manage swarming in hives that are waiting to be destroyed. We also can destroy swarms that are we collect or if you don’t feel comfortable doing so temporarily rehome them in a hive and contact the hotline to log them on your property. It is tough but we would hate to add to this issue with swarms leaving our managed hives.

Are you a Beekeeper in an emergency zone and concerned about swarming?

the NSW DPI has put together a Factsheet to help you manage swarming.

Swarming Fact Sheet
www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/varroa
Australian Honey Bee Industry Council Local Land Services NSW NSW Apiarists' Association Inc. Amateur Beekeepers Australia

03/08/2022

NSW Agriculture Minister Dugald Saunders says as many queens as possible will be examined and evacuated from the site following the expansion of an eradication zone.

01/08/2022

This Saturday come along for a panel discussion called the Trees and the Bees. We will be there to discuss the current situation facing our bee industry and also what we can do to support our native bee populations. The event is to support a wonderful exhibit of artists inspired by the environment and the challenges it faces so make sure you leave time to enjoy the exhibition space The Lock-Up. After the panel discussion stay for a hands on bee hotel workshop. 🌸🐝
Make sure you book your place. Link in comments below.

16/07/2022

Thank you Newcastle. Our honey is all Sold out but we have wonderful pollinator friendly seeds and native tube stock next door. Come visit us till 2pm

15/07/2022

Come visit The Olive Tree Market

From an environmental point of view, taking in the whole of the ecosystem, pollination is more important than honey production.

Bees and insects, butterflies and birds, carry pollen between plants of opposite sexes to fertilise them, or even between different parts of the same plant, which help plants reproduce and prevents inbreeding.

With the news of the varroa mite being found in our local European bee hives and the strong eradication measures being taken to combat the spread, we can take some heart in the fact that our own native bees are not affected by the mite.

We now have a few years ahead of us where we can focus more on native pollinators, increasing our gardens and the proportion of native plants within them, as well as planting attracting trees and shrubs that will draw more of these little friends to us.

𝙇𝙚𝙩’𝙨 𝙪𝙨𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙨 𝙖𝙣 𝙤𝙥𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙮 𝙩𝙤 𝙬𝙚𝙡𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙥𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙣𝙖𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙨 𝙗𝙖𝙘𝙠 𝙞𝙣.

You may know that bees in general have a better survival rate in the city compared to the agricultural countryside due to the relative lack of pesticide in our gardens and parks. And European bees do tend to steal resources from the native bees.

𝗢𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀 𝗮𝘁 Urban Hum 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗶𝗻𝘃𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘂𝘀 𝘁𝗼 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘀𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗶𝗿 𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗹𝗹 𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗢𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗧𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗠𝗮𝗿𝗸𝗲𝘁 𝗶𝗻 𝗖𝗶𝘃𝗶𝗰 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝗸.

Please come and have a chat, look at the range of native tubestock we recommend, and get ready for a productive springtime!

𝘗𝘩𝘰𝘵𝘰: 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘭𝘶𝘦-𝘣𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘦𝘦 𝘴𝘱𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘪𝘯 𝘚𝘺𝘥𝘯𝘦𝘺, 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘰𝘯 𝘶𝘳𝘣𝘢𝘯 𝘨𝘢𝘳𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘷𝘪𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘰𝘳. (𝘈𝘉𝘊 𝘖𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘶𝘵𝘰𝘳 𝘨𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘻𝘱𝘶𝘯𝘬𝘵)

12/07/2022

What a bee journey we have had. So many amazing people and so many amazing bees! The Olive Tree Market is this Saturday 9am to 2pm we are lucky to have Trees In Newcastle are joining us at the stall with native pollinator friendly plants to fill your garden with colour and support our native pollinators.

08/07/2022

Here is a chat about the current Verroa situation on the radio we had a few days ago. Kelly and I will also be The Olive Tree Market on Saturday the 16th if you want to come and chat about bees and get our last jars of honey. We will also have Trees In Newcastle with us so you can start planning your pollinator friendly native garden.

Hunter Beekeeper Anna Scobie chats with Brent Bultitude about the devastation caused by the Veroa Mite outbreak. Click Below to …

06/07/2022

So many amazing volunteers from around the state, and locals are helping the dpi and beekeeping community. Such legends!

03/07/2022

Thanks for visiting and listening it seems strange to be in these photos on my own as Kelly is out helping with the emergency response teams. Thank to everyone that is working hard to contain this threat. It is important to remember we still have a chance to eradicate verroa in Australia. People have been sending heaps of wonderful information on how to manage Verroa from around the world. But right now the mission is eradicate. Thank you so much for all the supportive comments.

Anna Scobie’s beehives will be destroyed as part of the desperate attempt to contain the spread of a mite called the Varroa destructor.

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Newcastle, NSW
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http://www.urbanhum.com/

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Videos

Urban Hum Tiny Forest

It’s been a hard 12 months since Varroa struck Australia and a lot has changed in that time. Lots of people lost their beloved honey bees and have struggled to fathom the loss. We like to find solace in nature and have always loved bees of all stripes . Check out this beautiful Green and Gold Nomia a native ground nesting bee going crazy on our Dianella. Dianella has crunchy purple berries that taste a bit like Lilly Pillies but without the mouth sucking astringency! Thanks to these nomias and other pollinators we are looking forward to a bumper crop. #bees #nativebees #australiannativebees #pollinators #nomias

Welcome to the world little virgin queen! I could see from the transparency at the end of her cell that this queen was going to hatch today. So I gave her a little helping hand so we could see her emerge. As a queen nears her emergence the wax around the top of her cell starts to become see through as she works away at it from the inside. Sometimes the workers do what I did and give her a little help from the outside opening the lid like a can. Sometime in the next week she will mate and then begin to lay after that. . . #queen #virginqueenbee #bees #urbanhum #spring

You may have noticed we have been a bit quiet on social media this year. We have been making some changes. We have made the decision to scale back our production hives and have been moving these beautiful colonies into new timber boxes ready for new homes and families to care for them. You can buy an 8 frame or 10 frame beehive ready for a super to start producing honey in your backyard right now. These bees are the most lovely gentle colonies and fantastic for beginners.We love teaching about bees and this will give us more time to focus on our new online course (dropping real soon) and our face-to-face workshops. Don't worry we are keeping enough hive to keep our amazing stockists and restraints in beautiful raw urban honey. You can buy a hive or find a stockist on our website P.S We also have our Nuc (stater packs of 5 frames with brood and queen) ready to order for the end of the year open too.

Traffic jam on the camellias this morning. Bees go absolutely crazy for the pollen. . . #pollen #bees #camellia

Guess who visited Anna and the Bees at our Newcastle Teaching Hives this week? Thanks Studio 10 for stoping by to see why people are keen to get bees for there backyard. NEXT hive tour: 20th March NEXT beekeeping workshop: 27th March Booking: https://www.urbanhum.com/what-s-happening

Full Beekeeping workshop today at #mayfieldnsw ☀️ Such a lovely group of students. The bees are pretty lovely too🐝

Hello little drone. Drones are male bees they are most commonly present in the hives in spring and summer. This one is taking his time emerging from his cell. They take 24 days from laying to hatching and he forms from an unfertilised egg laid by his mother the queen via a reproductive process known as parthenogenesis. Drones have a grandfather but no father! More drone stories to come soon #drone #bees #queenbee #urbanhum #parthenogenesis

This beautiful queen bee is looking for an empty cell to lay her egg in. You can see it protruding from the end of her abdomen. She can lay 1500 eggs per day if she has space to do so. When she finds the right spot she will insert her abdomen into the cell reaching right to the bottom to deposit the egg upright in the very bottom. The egg will eventually fall over so the tiny larvae can hatch out. #queenbee #egg #bees

This scout is very excited about the possible nest site she has found for this swarm to move in to. Bees do the waggle dance to indicate the location of nest sites just like for food and water. It is a complex dance that communicates the relationship between the bees current location, the location of the nest site and the sun. Scout bees dance and other bees learn the dance. Several hundred scouts look for places to go and each communicates about her site. Gradually over a few hours or days the bees tend toward a preference for one site over the others. The swarm makes a democratic decision on which site to choose. The knowledge about this behaviour was discovered by Martin Lindauer a student of Karl von Frisch who deciphered the waggle dance in regards to food. Martin built on this work, watching bee swarms, recording the dances, deciphering where they were going and then chasing them through the bombed out streets of Munich post World War II to confirm what the scouts indicated. Bees are incredible and the people who love them are just a little crazy! #bees #swarm #waggledance #ilovebees #wheenbeefoundation

So spring is here. First swarm of the season, a football sized mass plucked off a mandarin tree late last night. Silly bees they were soaking wet but boy were they happy when I hived them this morning. Spotted a nice fat queen and they fanned vigorously to guide everyone home. Because I had nudged the queen with my finger the girls thought that was a great place to scent fan from! You can very clearly se the Nasanov gland in this little ones abdomen. #swarm1 #bees #springishere

We are ready at Maitland Aroma Festival to serve you , it’s a beautiful day come and soak up the sunshine, drink chai and taste the beautiful honey that out bees work Si hard to make. #mymaitland #maitlandaromafestival #urbanhum #honey #chai #bees

Spring prep in progress. Putting together hundreds of frames 10 at a time in a framing jig, beats 1 at a time that’s for sure. #springiscoming #bees #frames #ilovemyaircompressor

I have recently moved my #stinglessbees down the wall a bit to capture the winter sun. With days of recent rain they have been cooped up. But the sunshine today has them cleaning house. If you watch closely you will see them leaving with waste pellets and a dead bee, which I think might be a drone due to its large size? #tetragonulacarbonaria #wintersun #ilovebees #urbanhum

Bees are the ultimate recyclers, wasting nothing. This beautiful girl is harvesting propolis from stacked used equipment. Propolis is an amazing mix of beeswax and tree sap with anti bacterial, anti fungal and anti microbial properties. Bees us it to fill in holes, glue hive components together, imprison intruders and generally coat interior surfaces. Hives that collect lots of propolis tend to be healthier. It’s a trait that’s been discouraged in bee breeding commercially because it makes it harder for the keeper. I say bring it on healthier bees equals greater productivity and disease resistance. #bees #propolis #recycling #urbanhum #urbanbeekeeping

This was the entrance to my stingless beehive a little while ago. They fell prey to a fighting swarm which is one of the ways these bees create new colonies. It’s not the same as a honey bee swarm. A stingless bee swarm often looks for another colony nearby to invade. They mob the hive in large numbers fighting to the death many of the existing hives bees. They then kill the laying queen and install their own princess in her place to mate and begin laying. They usually subjugate the remaining bees who carry on caring for the old and new queens offspring. In this case the fight lasted two weeks with a lot of dead bees resulting. However now the hive is very strong and flourishing. #bees #stinglessbees #tetragonulacarbonaria #fightingswarm

New worker bee hatching. This is the last minute of 9 minutes and 10 seconds that I filmed her. That's how long it took for her to chew her way out. She pops right up to say hi. If you look closely you can see one of her sisters begin the journey in the background. #urbanbees #urbanbeekeeper #urbanbeekeeping #urbanhum #bees #beebirth #ilovebees

I believe this is a newly mated queen. This was a small swarm with a virgin queen. When I checked them today I noticed a white extrusion at the tip of the queens abdomen. When bees mate the drones endophallus detaches from his body and is left behind in the queen. The next drone to mate with her removes it before coupling. This is what we are seeing I think, the last endophallus of the last drone to successfully mate with the queen. I can only assume given the interest the workers are showing in her that perhaps they remove it. Every time I look in a hive I see something new. It's an awesome way to live life, always learning. Thanks bees. #bees #queenbee #honeybees #urbanhum #urbanbees #urbanbeekeeper #urbanbeekeeping #alwayslearning #thanksbees