Bee Happy Hives

26/12/2021

Wow!

20/01/2021

Hive 10 has stumped the ants... elevated and with bespoke ant proof feet filled with vegetable oil to prevent invasion. Happy bees 🐝

09/01/2021

This nucleus is ready to go...Burr comb filled with honey showing they are ready to transfer into their full size box and forever home!

Orientation flights at their new owners house underway today.

23/11/2020

How to stop Ants... one of the challenges the bee hive faces. Placing the feet of the hives in a cap of oil is effective until the rain washes it away. Now we have developed this concept further... purpose built cap at the base is filled with a natural vegetable oil and an inverted funnel placed over the caps.

05/11/2020

The red gum hive at its new location.

12/04/2020

Happy Easter honeycomb

07/04/2020

Bee happy with these bespoke love heart frames that you can pop out and enjoy or give as gifts. Each heart is made from radiata pine. The love heart frame/ love heart holder is 18ml quality marine ply that has been carbon copy routed.
Frames can be reused with your next heartfelt honey with the adding of new inserts.
Great results with our own Valentines Day run.
We’re now happy to let your bees produce them in your own home hive and supply you directly.
NB Australia only during the current restrictions on international freight.
$134.99 & postage and handling for set up includes frame and 14 half heart inserts.
We’re making this offer to our followers before posting on the regular online sales channels.
Bee happy 🐝

15/09/2019

Springtime in the orchard

13/01/2019

27/08/2018

17/07/2018

07/09/2016

Plum tree spring blossoms - a feast for the bees 🐝

15/08/2015

Blooms for the bees - winter at French Island

07/06/2015

Here's another Queen arrival. This time she's just been marked and then released back to her hive. As its winter here in Australia and our girls are nestled in the warmth of the hive, its nice to share Bee Adventures from around the world. This one from the UK
https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=10152999336453087

26/04/2015

Why is this pink marked bee so important? She's a queen and mother of the whole hive. The queen's body shape is clearly different to the nurses and workers around her. She is torpedo shaped with no obvious stripes (dotted with pink for her birth year).

28/03/2015

28/03/2015

Can you spot the Queen Bee?
Sometimes you just need to be patient and search the whole hive frame by frame . If your lucky you have a marked queen ( like Wally in Where's Wally?). Queens marked in the colour of their birth year are a little easier to spot but just as hard to photograph!

22/03/2015

Why is this Bee so important?
He is a Drone. Drones are the large males of the colony who enjoy all the luxuries of the hive until there is a Virgin Queen to mate with. The queen flies to the congregation area where the fastest Drones mate with her.
The successful drones die but the resulting colony has an egg laying queen with the progeny of their endeavours

15/02/2015

Why is this Bee so important?
She is a forager from the hive that arrived yesterday.
She is performing a Waggle dance for her fellow foragers on their first morning...see how they are gathered in a circle around her?

[A forager bee finds a source of pollen or nectar, returns to the hive to tell others. First, she waggles her body in a straight line; then she loops back in a semicircle to waggle again. The waggle dance is accurate at giving her fellow bees the direction & distance to the food source. It also describes the quality & type of food].

14/02/2015

Dear W's your girls and queen have arrived safely and are settling in... Housekeeping have cleaned out the debris and the foragers are scouting the area. The hive has been placed on a leveled paver and oil caps placed on the feet of the base to prevent ant intrusion. The lovely queen has come along way since the swarm we rescued. Long may she reign.

14/02/2015

Valentine's Day in the apiary of Bee Happy Hives and all the queen bees are happy after some cool rain

17/01/2015

Mmm First of the Season - cold pressed natural honey on tap!
From one of the happy hives.
The beautiful hand crafted hive is currently 5 boxes high.

16/12/2014

Bee Happy Hives colourful nucleus find a new home at French Island

06/12/2014

Sometimes you know the people who ask you to collect swarms, have the bee's welfare in mind. This email came with the attached photo -"I’m in Highett and yesterday a visit by a swarm of bees that now seem to be building a hive in a steel packaging crate at the rear of my factory. Just wondering if you can help inter removal. Cheers"
These lucky bees have been removed, rehoused and now sit in a flower filled back yard.

23/10/2014

Had a call to collect a swarm from around the corner this week. A tree branch was cut and the football sized warm dropped into a swarm box. A day later the girls were settled into their hive home of 4-frames and moved to a new location in a friends backyard.
(That is the third swarm call out for October)

05/07/2014

The rescued hive - in situ in Bentleigh with the best ever carers....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8exVeK4I73k&feature=autoshare

Week 2 for Queen Beyonce was a trial with strong winds, rain and very cold.

01/07/2014

A peek inside the hive from the viewing window, shows winter bees being busy

15/06/2014

reading the huffington post...http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/15/supermarket-without-bees_n_3442938.html?utm_hp_ref=bees

25/05/2014

We received this lovely email from one of our mentors Bill. Bill is in his 90's, with a memory as clear as a bell.
"...Amazing, a swarm this time of the year! Perhaps that short burst of sunny days encouraged them.
I am reminded of that Olde English apiarists saying ..

A swarm in May is worth a load of hay,
A swarm in June is worth a silver spoon,
And a swarm. In July is not worth a fly.

Obviously that doesn't' apply here but you are going to be very busy in the Spring.
Thanks for letting me know how you are getting on with your bees".

17/05/2014

Hive and bee colony rescue this week! Usually a rescue is about collecting a swarm which has left the hive. This rescue involved a beautiful burmese teak hive that had been damaged on two occasions. The first event may have been an error in judgement. The second event was an escalation and threat to the placid honey bees so we rescued and will repair, re-home & relocate.

16/05/2014

Insects pollinate about 76 % of the world's main crops.
Without bees the food bowl would shrink to ''some grains, fish and grapes, that's about it''.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/sweet-deal-with-nature-could-turn-sour-20140516-38feh.html

Australia's honey bee industry is in the midst of a crisis, write Jared Lynch and Mark Hawthorne.

13/05/2014

Swarm rescue today! We had a callout and rescued a swarm from a front garden, placing them in a small nuc box. We will watch them carefully over these cold weeks and hope they settle in and become a happy hive. Unusual for a swarm so late in the season...

11/05/2014

Watching the bee's on this sunny autumn afternoon. Here is a short snippet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VvcIBxALKY&feature=youtu.be

This garden hive has a direct N/S flight path, gaining altitude before heading to their food source.

16/04/2014

planting ideas... lovely illustration by hannah rosengren