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The Australasian Beekeeper Magazine

#127.1 July 2025

The Australasian Beekeeper Magazine

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21 Aug 2024

By The ABK Team

The Australasian Beekeeper Magazine

Flora in Focus - Eucalyptus sideroxylon – Mugga Ironbark

The Australasian Beekeeper Magazine

Mugga Ironbark may occur in monocultural stands, or as scattered trees growing with other species of eucalypts, native cypress pines, acacias, melaleucas and banksias. Somerville (2019) describes inland and coastal vegetation communities and...

09 Nov 2024

By The ABK Team

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The Australasian Beekeeper Magazine

Self-Pollinating Almonds?

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The Australasian Beekeeper Magazine

To bee, or not to bee, a question for almond growers. Pollination by bees is vital even when crops are assumed to be pollinator independent. That’s according to a study co-authored by Ethel Villalobos, a researcher in the University of Hawaii at...

04 Nov 2024

By The ABK Team

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When to Extract Honey

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The time to harvest and extract your honey is when there is a honey flow. The reason for this is that if there is a plentiful supply of nectar available, and it is being collected, then the bees are less likely to start robbing other hives. Once the...

23 Oct 2024

By The ABK Team

Articles

My Black-Belt In Beekeeping: Beware of the Beekeepers’ Bad Back!

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Since arriving in South Australia some years ago, and obtaining beekeeping reserve licences for both Nixon Skinner Reserve and Milbrook Reservoir, I have ardently pursued my love of beekeeping. This interest has included working with commercial...

16 Oct 2024

By The ABK Team

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Bees, Mites and Viruses: Assessing the risk to South African crop pollinators

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The world’s bees face a major threat from deformed wing virus (de Mirandaa & Generschb, 2010), a pathogen transmitted by the parasitic Varroa mite. It is responsible for causing the death of millions of colonies (van Engelsdorp et al., 2008)...

08 Oct 2024

By The ABK Team

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Beekeeping Adventures in Nigeria

Articles

In this series of articles, Kris shares greater detail about his beekeeping adventures in individual countries, with lots of photos and insights into the connections made from a shared love of bees and beekeeping! In 2012, after about a decade as...

27 Sep 2024

By The ABK Team

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A Case for Sherlock Holmes?

Articles

When the great detective retired, he took up beekeeping and wrote a book titled Practical Handbook Of Bee Culture with Some Observations upon the Segregation of the Queen. I wonder whether even his deductive genius could solve the riddle of Colony...

24 Sep 2024

By The ABK Team

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Honey Bees & Flood Clean-Up

Articles

Flooding affects all livestock, including honey bees. Where floodwaters have passed through bee hives, once the beekeeper can access the apiary, there are immediate tasks to undertake. Any hives that went under water are potentially damaged and...

18 Sep 2024

By The ABK Team

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Be Safe In the Apiary

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The day was hot and very humid, and the bee site was sheltered by windbreaks which prevented any breeze. My new worker is Stephanie, an 18-year-old girl, who is very enthusiastic to become a beekeeper. She shows great aptitude to be a queen breeder...

17 Sep 2024

By The ABK Team

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A Closer Look - Taste Perception

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Honey Bee Chemosensory Organs “Taste is crucial for honey bees for choosing profitable food sources, resins, water sources, and for nestmate recognition. Peripheral taste detection occurs within cuticular hairs, the chaotic and basi-conic sensill...

11 Sep 2024

By The ABK Team

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Stress Factors and Bee Decline

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“It has lately become clear that stressors do not act in isolation and that their interactions may be difficult to predict; for example, some pesticides act synergistically rather than additively. Both pesticide exposure and food stress can impair...

07 Sep 2024

By The ABK Team

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Bees Join an Elite Group of Species that Understand the Concept of Zero as a Number

Articles

When it comes to bees, it seems that nothing really does matter. As shown in a paper published today, our research demonstrates that the honey bee can understand the quantitative value of nothing, and place zero in the correct position along a line...

31 Aug 2024

By The ABK Team

Articles

NASA Soil Moisture Data Advances Global Crop Forecasts, and Can Help Beekeepers Predict Honey Crops, Or No Honey Crop.

Articles

Data from the first NASA satellite mission dedicated to measuring the water content of soils is now being used operationally by the U.S. Department of Agriculture to monitor global croplands and make commodity forecasts. The Soil Moisture Active...

29 Aug 2024

By The ABK Team