First
up, congratulations for being the sort of person who needs native
bees in your life. This automatically makes you an intelligent and
good looking person with a great set of values. But you knew that
already didn't you! :)
All
joking aside, buying native bees is an exciting thing to do, but is
also a bit daunting as they aren't the cheapest “pet” you can
buy; although we'd say they are one of the easiest to manage once you
have them home. So you don’t want to waste your time and money and
not get what you wanted.
First
things first – why do you want the bees? This will influence,
slightly, what bees/hive you need to be looking for.
- Pollination in your veggie garden?
- Cause you’ve heard its a good thing to do!
- You’re thinking native bee honey :)
- Someone is giving you a hive – Incredible friend. Hang on to them.
- You've heard that native bees are are great to have in the garden.
- You want the kids to interact with nature and these bees don’t sting.
- You want to get more macadamia nuts on your tree next year.
- You’re thinking of getting into native bees as a hobby or even a small business.
So,
starting with the basics. There are over 1,500 species of native bees
in Australia. Only a handful of them are social bees, ie they live in
groups in hives and an even smaller number of them have been
domesticated, and then, really, only a few are available
commercially. The ones you are able to purchase are most likely to be
Tetragonula Carbonaria or Tetragonula Hockingsii.
They
are both black and tiny and for what you will be doing with them at
this entry level they are more or less, interchangeable. They are
most often referred to as TC or TH or simply as Carbs and Hocks. You
might be able to buy some Australis hives, but for the most part,
stick with the basics because there is a lot of information out there
on these two bees, and get either the Hocks or the Carbs.
The
Carbonaria bees were the first to be “domesticated”. They were
used by Dr Tim Heard to complete his Doctorate Degree in entomology
(insect-y type beasty research) and he was the one who invented the
OATH hive - Original Australian Tetragonula Hive, and a great play on
the Aussie swearing slang word.
He
designed these full hives to be “split” in half and joined to an
empty half so he could propagate his hives in his backyard and use
them to prove or disprove his theories. This lead to him having
excess hives and being able to sell them to the public 20 or so years
ago. There are as many types of hives as there are beekeepers in the
native bee world but the Carbonaria bee in the OATH hive is the
industry standard.
We
would highly recommend that you start with one of those hives.
Get the rest of the eight pages of info buy clicking on the link below. The link will ask you to put in your email address and then a link will be generated for you to download your FREE guide to buying a standard OATH hive.
(I know it says Buy Now - We're into bees not technology and We haven't figured out how to make it say "Get FREE guide here" yet... Sorry)