Here’s our pick of articles about all things to do with working with Animals to enhance your permaculture system in all kinds of ways.
From nutrient cycling to pollination and companionship, as well as tasty yields from eggs and honey through to home-raised protein.
Though we may not realise it, common ground is still to be found in our towns. It’s just not called that anymore. And utilizing common land as the community resource it is makes good sense. Especially when you can turn brambles into cheese. Down the side and out the back – the gully behind the hill,…
Wondering what Milkwood’s all about, and why we do what we do? Here’s the 60 second version… Although, of course, if you read this blog, you’re probably fairly familiar with what we do. But please do watch the video anyway – it’s been quite a few years coming. It’s got natural building, chickens, bees, Joel Salatin,…
This place, Melliodora. A world renowned permaculture homestead, full of nut, fruit and forage trees, geese, goats, berries, vegetables, mudbrick homes and lives worth living. If you have studied, read or participated in any Permaculture-type doings and learnings in Australia, then you’ll be aware of the stellar home-scale permaculture demonstration site that is Melliodora, in…
Harvesting a box of warré honeycomb is an exciting event in any beekeeping year – its a sign that your bees have so much honey stored that taking a full box of honeycomb off the top of the hive won’t even be missed. It’s been about 4 years since we’ve harvested – firstly due to two poor summers…
We’re loving having a stingless beehive homed within the 107 Rooftop garden – aside from the pollination support for our garden’s veggies, its a bit special just to sit and watch these ladies going about their business, as they have for millions of years. Recently we held our first Stingless beekeeping workshop up on the rooftop…
You can milk them, they’re known for their excellent weed control and they make great educational pets. We’re talking goats and how you might go about convincing your school to get one (or two). Waiting at the bus stop, the noise of the busy day traffic streams past, a car honks it’s horn, a cyclist…
Starter strips are a great way to encourage your bees to build their natural comb straight off your top bars. Because straight comb means easier harvest and inspection, which means less disturbance to your bees. Preparing starter strips for your Warré beehive top bars is a yearly task. It needs to be done before the bees…
Next week there’s a nation-wide Wild Pollinator Count – do you have 10 minutes to watch a flower and report what you see? Sure you do. The Wild Pollinator Count can be done without any fancy gear, and you don’t need to be an insect expert. You just need to dedicate 10 minutes to helping…
Our bees are back! We’ve set up a small Warré apiary at Buena Vista Farm on the coast at Gerringong. This will be a little different from beekeeping in the dry inland hills of Mudgee… 18 months ago we said goodbye to our Milkwood Farm bees, which, after we left the farm, went to live at Rahamim Ecolearning…
It was hot, and humid, and threatening to storm. Perfect weather for catching our first honeybee swarm. We got the alert via our friends Adam + Fiona of Buenavista Farm – the usual bush telegraph story – someone called them about a swarm on a driveway, but Fi + Adam were packing for market day…
Have you seen the latest edition of Organic Gardener Magazine? It contains an article we wrote, about the principles of natural beekeeping. We really wanted to write this article from a principles based approach for a couple of reasons – primarily because there’s an awful lot of mis-information out there about what constitutes natural beekeeping. We’ve learned…
Selecting a good site for your apiary can make a huge difference to honeybee health, and your hive’s honey harvest too. Here’s some important things to consider when choosing a site. Natural Beekeeping is about stewarding honeybee colonies in place, in a bee-centric way. Therefore, the idea is that you place your hive well, and…
Here’s a few photos from our Autumn Natural Beekeeping course in Sydney, and some resources for you to be reading over Winter. These shots are from opening a hive that Adam Kennedy, who hosts our Natural Beekeeping courses, caught as a swarm and housed in a Warré hive box – go Adam! The bees are…