Nashua Native Bees in Nashua, New South Wales, Australia | Local business

Nashua Native Bees

Locality: Nashua, New South Wales, Australia

Phone: +61 412 174 391

Address: N/A 2479 Nashua, NSW, Australia

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25.01.2022 It’s been a season like no other. In the years I’ve been presenting the course Benefits of Keeping Native Bees’, commencing back on Saturday, 10 March 2012, I can’t remember having to cancel. This season there have been three cancellations first because of bush-fires, second because of floods, and third because of pandemic (COVID-19). I know some of you have been disappointed because of the cancellations (some of you twice). I can only say that I am grateful to ACE for ...putting the welfare of their clients and contractors before other considerations. Let’s hope we can get back to normal next season and let’s support ACE when things return to normal. In the mean time I am self-isolating as much as possible staying home unless it is absolutely necessary to leave the farm; if I go out trying not to touch anything (disposable gloves seem like a good idea); not touching anyone (stay at least a metre apart would be nice if others queuing behind me did the same); washing my hands as often as possible, and especially first thing when I return home (would be nice if I could buy some hand sanitizer to carry with me); and remembering not to touch my face. Plenty to do on the farm which is just as well since I can’t play a musical instrument could probably dance but you wouldn’t want to see that. We’re all in this together but apart. Let’s not spread this any further. See more

23.01.2022 ACE Lismore workshop Benefits of Keeping Native Bees & Field Trip finally happened after cancellations due to bush fires and then floods. It occurred on the 2...9th February, 2020 which is a date which only happens every four years; also, it was the first time a native bee course was held in the ACE computer room due to renovations. The course has been evolving since the first workshop on Saturday, 10 March 2012. It was a great workshop with significant involvement by the class. This made my job much easier. We discussed bee morphology, nesting biology, foraging behaviour, and the benefits and pitfalls of stingless bees for pollination on farms and home gardens. Development of our Next Generation (NG) hives and their Stainless Steel (SS) brood tube is a major improvement in hive design and management. We are planning to produce over 90% of our splitable hives without splitting in the spring of 2020. This gives our customers the ability to propagate their hive using the splitting method if they so wish. Our non- splitable hives manage the heat extremely well and are proving to be excellent honey producers. Through eduction one donor hive can produce up to three hives a year. Far less resources are required using the SS brood tube with the brood using the inverted cone brood technique as you can see in the photo. Our aim is to develop ours hive broods to their full potential in about three months. After which the honey super is added for the storage of honey. I have attached a photo of inverted cone showing a young queen; also, the brood tube reaching the stage of maturity before introducing the honey super. Also, a photo of one of our NG-3 non-splitable hives (with the raincoat) using eduction to create a host hive in the base of our NG-4 hive. See more

23.01.2022 The research by Dr Fletcher and her collaborator Dr Norhasnida Zawawi from the Universiti Putra Malaysia, and colleagues from UQ is published in Scientific Reports and is freely available online at www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-68940-0 At Nashua our native bee honey (pot-honey) is not available at this time due to the severe drought we had in 2019. Pot honey has unique characteristics of being "citricy", "sharp" and tangyto the taste and can be used to flavour a numbe...r of foods. When available I supply restaurants in Melbourne and Adelaide as our bees collect the nectar from our pesticide free macadamias and associated rainforest. Quality pollen free honey. At $200 per kilogram, based on the returns from a honey hive is unlikely to be its true value. We view and receive $150.00 per kilogram for our honey and consider it a fair price. Very little information is available on the use of pot-honey. It should be noted that it takes about 75 native bee honey hives to produce the same amount of honey as one honeybee hive. To become a reality there needs to be a significant increase in honey production from the hive and the number of hives. No one has addressed the cost to the environment by introducing all these hives and the loss of other beneficials. Extract University of Queensland organic chemist Associate Professor Mary Fletcher said Indigenous peoples had long known that native stingless bee honey had special health properties. We tested honey from two Australian native stingless bee species, two in Malaysia and one in Brazil and found that up to 85 per cent of their sugar is trehalulose, not maltose as previously thought, she said. Dr Fletcher said trehalulose was a rare sugar with a low glycaemic index (GI), and not found as a major component in any other foods. Traditionally it has been thought that stingless bee honey was good for diabetes and now we know why having a lower GI means it takes longer for the sugar to be absorbed into the blood stream, so there is not a spike in glucose that you get from other sugars, Dr Fletcher said. Interestingly trehalulose is also acariogenic, which means it doesn’t cause tooth decay. Dr Fletcher said the findings would strengthen the stingless bee honey market and create new opportunities. Stingless bee honey sells now for around $200 per kilogram, she said. The high commercial value also makes it a risk for substitution, where people could sell other honey as stingless bee honey, or dilute the product. But due to this research, we can test for this novel sugar, which will help industry to set a food standard for stingless bee honey. Dr Fletcher said the findings would strengthen the stingless bee honey market and create new opportunities. Stingless bee honey sells now for around $200 per kilogram, she said.

18.01.2022 COVID-19 is keeping us isolated on our farm. We are continuing to raise our stingless bees; also, a few beautiful wal-a-bees. Photo taken 7th April, 2020.

17.01.2022 I have put together "NNBees Hive Collection" which we have developed over many years. Orders are closed for the spring of 2020; however, we have a wait list. Maybe some of these people people will get a hive in 2020 but are certain in 2021.

14.01.2022 ACE Community Colleges (ACE email 14th January, 2020.) Keeping Native Bees. Best of both worlds. Some time in class to learn the basics and then a visit to Nashua Native Bees where you view the bees working on a macadamia farm, see methods of hive propagation and honey extraction. The session ...concludes with tasting of freshly harvested pot-honey. Bring your lunch and enjoy this afternoon in the field. Saturday 15 February 1 session 9:30AM - 3:30PM / $80 Learn from ACE's most popular trainer Frank Adcock.

09.01.2022 Beautiful morning today at Nashua. And two hot air balloons - this is definitely gods country.

07.01.2022 Due to COVID-19 seating arrangements have changed from 22 to 9 in ACE classrooms. The introduction of new training technologies would have been a bonus to the class members. Unfortunately due to the Victorian outbreak and the closing of borders we are back to square one. At NNBees we are investigating the use of Microsoft Teams as a tool to support our customers.

07.01.2022 We are now well into spring with the warmer nights freeing up the broods to begin significant development. With many of our eductions marking time over winter the increase in temperature sees a big jump in activity. I have attached a photo of the conclusion of the eduction process prior to adding the top box and honey super - the outcome a NNBees NG-4 honey hive. Lots of bees with little bee loss when compared to propagation using the splitting method.

05.01.2022 Project MC16008 (April, 2020) - Flies as pollinators. The macadamia flowering system has evolved to attract nectivores. Potential nectivore fly pollinators are Bibionidae, Anthomyiidae, Ephydridae, Drosophilidae, Ceratopogonidae and Syrphidae. Parastoids Cryptochetidae and Tachinidae also contribute to nectivore pollination. The honeybee Apis mellifera is the only suitable managed nectivore pollinator for this crop; but... being olfactory causes a number of problems (e.g., move through single rows of tree cultivars; Brittain et al., 2013). This limits the amount of pollen transported between varieties and hence outcrossing rates of cultivars. Outcrossing is likely to occur through the hive. Stingless bee Tetragonula carbonaria is an olfactory forager, however, as a nectivore is too small to pollinate and the pollen collecting bee is a functional parasite removing viable pollen from the flowers to the hive which is then no longer available for pollination. Growers changing their farming practices to regenerative farming can expect benefits including improved pollination, increased soil carbon with a benefit of increased soil moisture holding capacity a significant benefit in dry years. Also, a cleaner environment due to a significant reduction in farm chemicals. SCU is now offering a degree in regenerative farming. I ceased selling Tetragonula carbonaria hives to macadamia growers for pollination 18 months ago after significant research. I have had 20 years’ experience with them in macadamia orchards. I have never seen any data supporting productivity gain; although, pollination perception by the grower is common. See more

01.01.2022 Very busy 2020 with demand being high for our NNBees suite of hives. The "Luttrell Frames" pot honey super also fit on our existing NG-3 non-splitable and NG-4 splitable honey hives. As Peter Davenport from the Gold Coast, who has many more years of experience with stingless bees, says in a recent video "These frames really work".