Splitting logs and stealing honey

About three years ago I got my hands on a log containing a nest of the Australian native stingless bee Austroplebeia australis. A native of the tropical parts of Queensland, this bee is not usually found as far south as here in Sydney. Regardless of this, three years on the colony is still going strong, so I decided it was about time I played around with it a bit....

Dad , me and our trusty log.

I came up with a design for an observation hive with three separate interconnected compartments; one for the brood cluster, and two for the numerous honey and pollen pots created by the bees. With that in mind my dad set to work, the end result being the following....

The box design

Not bad at all! Now for the easy part.... collecting all the bees and their various hive components and placing them into their new home.

Entrance hole

The more astute of you will have noticed that the entrance hole to the colony is rather small. If we want to get to the tasty goodness inside, we are going to have to try a different route.

Batumen layer

The top of my log was originally sealed with a small metal sheet. Upon removal we discovered the bees had erected their own barrier as well. This dark plug is known as a batumen layer. In this species it is constructed using a mixture of cerumen and resin. The plug traps heat, as well as keeping nasty animals such as ourselves out.

Pretty darn thick!

Tough luck little guys, our hive-tool beats your batumen layer hands down.....

Splitting the log

After sailing the giddy high from our victory over the batumen layer, we set to work trying to crack open the log.

Success...... sort of....

They don't call gumtrees hard wood because it sounds cool, this log is one tough mother!

Smashed honey pots.

In our hast to split her in two, we accidentally crush a section of honey pots.

Intact honey pots at the base of the log

This is what they should have looked like..... sorry guys!

Profile of the split log.

After a further 30 minutes or so of backbreaking labour (not depicted) we manage to split right down through the entirety of the log. To our surprise we found it brimming with stores...... we are going to need more containers....

Pooting up bees.

Like rats from a sinking ship, the little black bees start poring out from their ruptured home. Luckily, they are unable to fly in the darkness so I quickly suck them up in my pooter before they can disappear into the night.

Lots of honey!

More honey! The taste is sweeter and more citrousy than regular honey, and has a strong, pleasant lemon-like smell.

Darker honey pots to the left, bright yellow pollen pots to the tight.

Pollen cells are similar in shape, but lighter in colour. Both honey and pollen cells are extremely fragile, the lightest tough makes them fall apart and spill their contents.

Brood cells 

Towards the bottom of the log I find the most important section of the colony, the brood cells. Lurking somewhere amongst them is the queen bee. Her abdomen is so distended with eggs that she is unable to fly, but instead waddles from empty cell to empty cell, laying more and more eggs.

Isolated brood cells

A close-up of some of the brood cells. If you look closely you can see some of the diminutive worker bees. They are jet black in colour and only approx. 2mm in length. The brood cells are surrounded by a sheet of cerumen known as involucrum. This layer is thought to help keep the developing bees warm.

Brood safely in my special brood chamber.

With as much tenderness as is possible with a metal hive tool, I scraped out the brood cells and placed them in my custom-made perspex brood chamber.

The end result

After a few hours of scraping we came away with at least 2 kilos of honey and pollen, as well as 1000s of little worker bees. Like the prison systems of central america, my original three observation hive sections were filled to overflowing. To compensate I made three larger makeshift containers which I connected to my original set-up with plastic tubing. Pictured in all it's glory is the final product. For those who are wondering the observation hive is kept in a permanently dark temperature controlled room.

Azzie looking guilty as usual

The final, and arguably most important job of licking the colony's old log clean was given to my parents dog Azzie. It was a tough job, but he didn't once flinch from his duties.

Next post I will try and get some nice macro shots of the queen and worker bees, so stay tuned folks!......

Rajasthan, Agra, Jaipur, and Bikaner.

In August I took some time off and went for a brief road-trip to the neighbouring states of New Delhi, India. I consider myself pretty well travelled, having seen the best and worst of quite a few countries, but nothing quite prepared me for the experience that is India. The following are a few photos of interesting things I saw along the way!

Something you never see back home; a religious procession makes it's way down a main road in New Delhi.

This photo doesn't really need a description, if you don't know what this building is there is something seriously wrong with you.

The Taj Mahal backs onto the mighty Yamuna river.

The moat around the red fort in Agra.

A mosque in the centre of a Mughal fort somewhere in Rajasthan (comment if you know the name!)

Me and Yulia riding an elephant in the Amber Palace, Jaipur

Overlooking Galwar Bagh (the monkey temple) in the hills behind Jaipur

One of the simian inhabitants of said temple

Some camels and elephants decked out for the festival for Vishnu's birthday.

Painted elephants

Some of the many residents of Karni Mata temple, better known as the Rat temple, at Deshnoke near Bikaner.

I don't quite see the holey aspects of rats but hey, each to their own!

A small hindu temple in New Delhi covered in portraits of famous Nationalist Congress Party (Gandhi's political party) members

The failed Alai Minar tower, part of the Qutb complex in New Delhi. Planned to dwarf the famous Qutb Minar in size, it never got past the first story being constructed. 

You can't go to New Delhi without getting a photo of India Gate, the momument to the 90 000 Indian soldiers who died in WW1 and the 3rd Anglo-Afghan war.

And finally, an obligatory photo of a sacred cow.

That's it for now, if you want to see more photos of India you are welcome to pay for my next flight there!

Temples of the north

As my friends know I am not a very religious person, but I really like religious iconography. With that in mind the following are a bunch of photos of various religious sites and objects I came across on my last trip to Thailand.

A central Thai style temple, this is the typical style seen throughout Thailand.

Two colonies of the giant Asian honeybee (Apis dorsata) nesting at the entrance of the temple. This was one of my main field sites, and in the height of summer there were over 50 bee colonies nesting on the temple's awnings.

A northern style manor house in Rai Mae Fah Luang Art and Cultural Park, Chiang Rai.

Inside the manor house was massive shrine to Buddha surrounded by many ancient relics.

The entrance to a temple within a natural cave on the bank of the Mekong river in Chiang Rai.

Buddha images carved into a nearby cliff face.

A Burmese style temple in a small town on the border in Mae Hong Son province.

Inside the Burmese style temple.

A Shan style buddha image. Each of the ethnic groups in SE Asia tend to have a different style of Buddha.

In contrast this is a Chinese style Buddha.

Inside many of the temples are wooden models used by monks to educate laypeople about life. This one is used when talking about death.

Temples are often built on or near places of natural beauty, this one is perched on top of a small cliff in the middle of flat farmland.

An old lady cuts up coconuts for monkeys on the temple grounds in Lopburi, it if forbidden to harm animals around Buddhist temples.

A temple complex in Lampang.

In the centre of this complex is a Bodhi tree. People place large sticks under the branches of these religiously significant trees to symbolically represent support for friends or loved ones in times of hardship, it is a way of earning merit which they hope will earn them a better reincarnation in the next life.

 A collection of spirit houses placed at a sacred site next to a truck stop in Lampang province, people pay respect to the spirits of their ancestors by making an offering to their spirit house.

Now for some older stuff, a ruined temple in the middle of Lopburi.

More ruins along the train track in Lopburi.

A row of old Buddha statues in Kamphaeng Phet.

One of the amazing works of rock art on a cliff wall at Pratu Pha, Lampang province.

And finally, some of the inhabitants of one of the temples near my town in Chiang Rai.