PERMACULTURE DAY

• STINGLESS BEE HONEY TASTING & INSIDE THE HIVES • 

One of the many events on International Permaculture Day at Moss House

SUNDAY May 7 • 14 Burmah Rd, Denistone SYDNEY NSW 2114, Australia

Join in & Celebrate International Permaculture Day this year at the almighty permaculture home, gardens & education hub of Margaret Mossakowska's Moss House

Sydney Native Bees will be there in the middle of the day with a couple of native stingless bee hives, set up with viewing panels, to give you the opportunity to

                                         • Look Inside the Hives • Spot the Queen • 

& we will also be offering a rare opportunityfor you to taste honey from 5 unique colonies, of 2 species of stingless bees, endemic to the east coast of Australia.

                           • sugarbag tasting • N G A R R U U • stingless bee honey •

Margaret is also a Meliponist (Stingless beekeeper) and currently has two hives on her property for you to 'observe & interact' with.

There is going to be heaps of happenings on the day for you to also indulge in.Come for an opportunity to visit Moss House, an award-winning food garden which featured in ABC Gardening Australia show http://www.abc.net.au/gardening/stories/s4466290.htm

The garden belongs to the Living Skills Co-ordinator of Permaculture Sydney North and was designed with the primary goal to provide the owners with food and medicinal plants. Visitors will get to see a large suburban food garden with features such as eleven raised vegetable beds (seven of which are self-watering), food forest, large composting bays and worm farms, a chicken forest, native stingless bees beehives, insectary gardens, a habitat pond and more.

PROGRAM of talks and garden tours:
• 10:00 am – GARDEN OPENS
• 10:00-11:00 –Crop Swap Sydney
• 10:40 – guided garden tour
• 11:00-12:30 – wild food foraging walk with Diego Bonetto
• 11:30 – wild fermenting talk
• 12:00 - 2:00pm Sydney Native Bees - Honey Tasting & Inside the Hives
• 12:30 – guided garden tour
• 1:00-2:30 – wild food foraging walk with Diego Bonetto
• 2:30 – guided garden tour
• 3:30 – guided garden tour
• 4:00 pm – GARDEN CLOSES

PERMACULTURE DAY

INSIDE 2 HIVES

NATIVE STINGLESS BEEKEEPING

pocket city farms & sydney native bees 

• Saturday, December 10, 2016

• 9:00am  12:00pm

• Camperdown Commons - 31A Mallett StreetCamperdown, NSW, 2050Australia

Albert Einstein said; 'If bees were to disappear from the globe, humankind would only have four years left to live'. Needless to say, they're important little guys. Australia's 1500 native bee species are a vital part of our ecosystem, pollinating and assisting our native biodiversity. 200 of those species are endemic to Sydney, and only one of those species is a social bee - as in, they live in a colony and produce honey.

This workshop gives you the unique opportunity to see inside two companion hives! We'll teach you all you need to know about keeping native stingless bees. Learn about the structure and construction of a nest and the different roles bees play throughout their lifespan and within a colony. View an interactive demonstration and discussion of a 'split/propagation' and  'honey harvest'. Discover how to split/propagate a hive using a 'search for the void' technique, how to find the advancing front, retreating edge and queen cells. Find out how and when to harvest honey through a Sydney technique, soft on the colony's extra stores and population to encourage a healthy hive. And last but not least, take the opportunity to taste honey and take some home.

Suitable for: All ages. 

Cost: $75

Provided: Tea, coffee, detailed notes, honey tasting and a little to take home.

Bring: Paper, pen, water, hat + sunscreen. 

Our teacher: Dan Smailes runs Sydney Native Bees. He is a permaculturalist and a true indigenous biodiversity advocate. Since discovering the essential link between native plant and endemic pollinator, Dan has solely focused his study on the essential role and adaption native bees resonate on Sydney's suburban & industrialised environment. Through his recent contribution at Permaculture Northern Beaches and collaboration with Wildthings NSW he has developed a unique understanding of 'our' Tetragonula Carbonaria colony behaviour, seasonal instinct and social patterns endemic to this region.

wiLD poLLINAtor cOUnt

Wild Pollinator Count 2016

The new count is in spring and will run from 13-20 November 2016.

Australia has lots of wild pollinator insects that are often overlooked. European honey bees get a lot of attention because they are an adaptable, generalist forager, which means they are happy to visit almost any flower, in most climate zones. They are also a social species, so their hives are easy to domesticate and manage.

However, many native insects also contribute to pollination in crops and gardens all around the country. We still need to do a lot of research to identify all our pollinator insect species, understand their ecology and how they are affected by human activities. So far, we know thatAustralia has around 2,000 native bee species, all of which are important pollinators. We also know there are a couple of thousand butterfly, wasp, fly, moth, beetle, thrips and ant species, some of which are documented pollinators. Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of information on the ecology of many of these insects, what flowers they pollinate, or where they are found.

The Wild Pollinator Count gives you an opportunity to contribute to wild pollinator insect conservation in Australia. We invite you to count wild pollinators in your local environment and help us build a database on wild pollinator activity.

You can join in by watching any flowering plant for just ten minutes sometime in our count week.

• You don’t need to be an insect expert.
• You don’t need fancy gear.
• You may be surprised by what you see!

Find out how to count pollinators, identify the insects you see and submit your observations through the links at the top of the page. You can also download our Run Your Own Count kit and organise to count with a group.

Click to print-friendly PDF  (6 pages, A4, 1.7MB)

If you have any questions or comments about the count, please email WPC at wildpollinatorcount@gmail.com.