Download Free Keeping Australian Stingless Bees In A Log Or Box Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online Keeping Australian Stingless Bees In A Log Or Box and write the review.

This book describes native bees generally and provides a complete guide to keeping Australian native stingless bees. It is richly illustrated with over 500 photos, drawings and charts to increase accessibility and aid learning. It is written by an expert who has spent his lifetime intimately engaged with these unique creatures. Keeping native stingless bees is a hot topic in Australia for commercial, environmental and recreational reasons. You can do something about the decline of pollinators by conserving native bees. Whether you keep a hive or two in your suburban garden, or want to use multiple hives on a commercial farm, this friendly guide has you covered. Bee biology, behaviour, nesting, social life and foraging; How to build your own native bee hive; How to transfer a bee colony to a hive box and propagate hives; All about sugarbag honey, including how to extract it from hives; Managing your hive; Identifying and dealing with pests; Using stingless bees for pollination - from small gardens to commercial crops; A complete list of Australia's stingless bee species, how to identify them, their characteristics, where they occur, and recommended hives; A readable summary of the latest research on native bees.
Native stingless bees are one of nature's most wonderful gifts. Our passion is native beekeeping, and we enjoy making it easy for others to gain the knowledge and confidence to look after and be enriched by these fabulous little creatures. This is the sole purpose for preparing this guide. Based on my own years of experience and those of my friends I have prepared this simple guide for first time hive owners, and for those who want to progress into native beekeeping. Our methods are based around those so rigorously researched, tested and wonderfully presented by Tim Heard in his book 'The Australian Native Bee Book'. This easy to read book contains a wealth of knowledge, and should be studied by anyone wishing to progress from owning a hive to native beekeeping, undertaking such practices as honey harvesting and hive propagation. The more you read and understand about the biology of native bees and in particular native stingless bees, the better prepared you will be to become a native beekeeper. As with any profession or trade, once you become proficient, you make small adjustments to the practices and procedures to what works consistently well for you, while maintaining the core principles - it can be the same for native beekeeping. This guide sets out what works consistently well for us, and for which advice is constantly given to hundreds of now successful hive owners. It is divided into two parts. The first part sets out what you need to know to become a hive owner of Tetragonula carbonaria, Tetragonula hockingsi and Austroplebeia australis. The second part deals with more advanced native beekeeping practices for Tetragonula carbonaria and Tetragonula hockingsi.
The Australian Beekeeping Manual is the most comprehensive reference for both novice and experienced beekeepers in Australia. The accessible yet detailed text, supported by over 350 full-colour photographs and illustrations, covers all the key areas, including the beekeeping equipment needed, how to obtain bees, where to locate them in the garden, and the basics of colony management. There are also in-depth chapters on the lifecycle of the honey bee, extracting honey, creating a bee-friendly garden, entering honey in competitions, pests and diseases, native bees, and rearing queens. A feature of this 2nd edition is the addition of a new chapter on the Flow Hive. The result is an invaluable beekeeping resource that will be referred to time and again, and which can be taken out to the hive for use as an immediate step-by-step guide or read at leisure.
The book is aimed at both the novice and experienced beekeeper in Australia and explains in detail the steps required to manage colonies of bees. Supported by over 350 photographs and drawings, each action to be performed is explained in detail with photographs showing the steps as well as the final result. Many potential beekeepers are unclear about the equipment they need to buy and how to obtain their first colony of bees. The first chapters in the book explain in detail the equipment needed as well as equipment that may be useful later on as their confidence and experience grows. The chapter ‘Your First Bees’ explains how to obtain bees, where to locate them in the garden, and the basics of colony management. In addition to chapters on keeping bees, there are detailed chapters on the life cycle of the honey bee, extracting honey, the bee-friendly garden, entering honey in competitions, native bees and rearing queens. The result is a comprehensive manual that includes material not available in other Australian, North American or European books and is the ultimate Australian reference source.
Keeping native Australian stingless social bees.
According to Egyptian mythology, when the ancient Egyptian sun god Re cried, his tears turned into honey bees upon touching the ground. For this reason, the honey bee was sacrosanct in ancient Egyptian culture. From the art depicting bees on temple walls to the usage of beeswax as a healing ointment, the honey bee was a pervasive cultural motif in ancient Egypt because of its connection to the sun god Re. Gene Kritsky delivers a concise introduction of the relationship between the honey bee and ancient Egyptian culture, through the lenses of linguistics, archeology, religion, health, and economics. Kritsky delves into ancient Egypt's multifaceted society, and traces the importance of the honey bee in everything from death rituals to trade. In doing so, Kritsky brings new evidence to light of how advanced and fascinating the ancient Egyptians were. This richly illustrated work appeals to a broad range of interests. For archeology lovers, Kritsky delves into the archeological evidence of Egyptian beekeeping and discusses newly discovered tombs, as well as evidence of manmade hives. Linguists will be fascinated by Kritsky's discussion of the first documented written evidence of the honeybee hieroglyph. And anyone interested in ancient Egypt or ancient cultures in general will be intrigued by Kritsky's treatment of the first documented beekeepers. This book provides a unique social commentary of a community so far removed from modern humans chronologically speaking, and yet so fascinating because of the stunning advances their society made. Beekeeping is the latest evidence of how ahead of their times the Egyptians were, and the ensuing narrative is as captivating as every other aspect of ancient Egyptian culture.
The stingless bees are one of the most diverse, attractive, fascinating, conspicuous and useful of all the insect groups of the tropical world. This is a formidable and contentious claim but I believe it can be backed up. They are fifty times more species rich than the honey bees, the other tribe of highly eusocial bees. They are ubiquitous in the tropics and thrive in tropical cities. In rural areas, they nest in a diversity of sites and are found on the flowers of a broad diversity of crop plants. Their role in natural systems is barely studied but they almost certainly deserve that hallowed title of keystone species. They are popular with the general public and are greatly appreciated in zoos and gardens. The chapters of this book provide abundant further evidence of the ecological and economic importance of stingless bees.
Stingless bees (Meliponini) are the largest and most diverse group of social bees, yet their largely tropical distribution means that they are less studied than their relatives, the bumble bees and honey bees. Stingless bees produce honey and collect pollen from tens of thousands of tropical plant species and, in the process, provide critical pollination services in the tropics. Like many other insects, they are struggling with new human-made challenges like habitat destruction, climate change and new diseases. This book provides an overview of stingless bee biology, with chapters on the evolutionary history, nesting biology, colony organisation and division of labour of stingless bees. In addition, it explores their defence strategies, foraging ecology, and varied communication methods. Accordingly, the book offers an accessible introduction and reference guide for students, researchers and laypeople interested in the biology of bees.