Click on the button to go to the SendOwl website where you can pay and download the booklet instantly
You have an Australian native bee hive and you're keen to add another one to your backyard but don't like the splitting method because of all the bees that get hurt or killed?
Then this is the hive duplication method for you!
Our 30 page instant downloadable booklet gives you step by step instructions and photos of how to set up and create a new hive - fatality free! It has lots of great images, lots of information including when to remove your eduction, what to do to prevent predators and other trouble shooting hints and tips.Written by Brisbane based backyard native bee keepers, this booklet is like having a friend alongside helping you make decisions every step of the way.
It makes a great gift for the native bee keeper in your life or those "impossible to buy for" gardening relatives who love their birds and bugs!
The link will send you to SendOwl where you can purchase an instant downloadable PDF version of the booklet to read on your device or print out and bind like a book for your library.
Buy the Bee Booklet Bundle for $7 and get both the Eduction and the splitting guide!
From inside the booklet-
Contents
Step
1 Plan
your eduction.
Step
2 Prepare
for your eduction
Step
3 Connect
the hives
Step
4 After
the eduction
Step
5 When
and how do I disconnect the eduction.
What's next?
Trouble
Shooting
Frequently
Asked
Questions
Educting
from a
log or wild hive.
From the introduction:
Understand
the eduction process.
The
purpose of a hive eduction is to turn one hive into two hives!
Eduction is a type of hive propagation designed to “artificially”
increase the number of hives you have.
In
the wild, Australian native bees don’t swarm and go off and make
new nests like honey bees do. They sometime make “daughter hives”
nearby but the both hives act as a whole rather than two separate
hives.
When
Dr Tim Heard started studying native bees, he needed a way to
domesticate the bees or at least keep them in a hive that was
possible for him to do his research on. He also needed a lot of hives
filled with bees and this is what lead to the creation of the OATH
(Original Australian Tetragonula Hive) – a standardised box with
all the things Tim thought the bees needed to thrive and also a way
for him to create more hives for his research.
The
OATH hive is designed to be split in half horizontally and each full
half is added to an empty half that the bees eventually grow into.
There are variations on this theme across many hive designs so that
keepers can grow the bee populations in their care.
The
problem with splitting for many people is that it does kill some
bees, and depending on circumstances, it can kill a lot of bees. Some
people find this distressing and choose not to split their hives.
There
is another way to propagate or increase your hive numbers. The other
alternative is eduction – also known as grafting or budding. This
is primarily what this guide is about. The fatality free way of
growing another hive of happy healthy bees!
Eduction
will require another hive. Its not so important that this hive is the
same as your original hive as you aren't joining hive halves
together. It does need to be well made, well insulated and have all
the other ads, mods and cons that the bees need in a home.
You
can do an eduction pretty much from any type of hive to any other
type of hive. Its best to use hives best suited to the type of bee
you are educting such as Oath Hives for Carbonaria and Felhaber or
Froth Hives for Hockingsii. Each native bee type has its own hive
size and shape preference and its best to go with what the bees
prefer to increase your chances of success.
Its
possible to educt a wild natural hive into a box too – just make
sure the hive is right for the type of bees.
Step
one is about making sure that you have two hives to do this eduction
with. A full hive and an empty hive– its handy if you know the
weight of your bees (Full weight minus empty hive weight equals bee
weight!) Its best to start the eduction when the hive is thriving and
full and for a standard OATH hive, that's around a couple of kilos of
bee weight in most cases.
The
basic concept of eduction is that the full and happy hive suddenly
finds extra space right at the front door when they go to fly out to
forage. The hope is that the bees will see expansion into all this
available space in the new hive as an attractive proposition.