Beekeeping Practices – Varroa – 20th versus 21st Century

21st Century Beekeeping In our view, it is now time to review OLD beekeeping practices. Mostly in terms of how things have changed due to the appearance of the Varroa Destructor [...]

Wintering Down Beehives

How do we winter down ?  We run our Beehive colonies with two full-depth boxes on the first and second levels.  We consider the second hive box to be a [...]

10 Mistakes New Beekeepers Make

The art of beekeeping can be very exciting, but if you are a beginning beekeeper, you are most likely going to make some mistakes. Of course, no beekeeper will intentionally want [...]

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8 Spring Flowers That Attract Australian Native Bees

Bees are wonderful and hardworking creatures. But due to climate change and landscapes which are being cleared off, the bees’ population is in danger. Before it comes to extinction, let’s all [...]

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How to Kill Bees

Here are some handy tips for the new beekeeper to help you kill your Bees and Beehive Honey Bee colony [...]

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How do you tell the difference between Manuka and Kanuka?

In this post we answer the question how do you tell the difference between Manuka and Kanuka? Here are four ways to get you started. [...]

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Sick Bees Varroa problem – Remedial action for Deformed Wing Virus using OAV

Have your bees got Deformed Wing Virus, Margaret discusses what she has done to reduce this in your hives using OAV. [...]

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American Foulbrood Elimination – a Video Series by the AFB Management Agency

A great video series by Plant and Food in New Zealand about the history and Elimination of American Foulbrood. American Foulbrood is the most widespread and destructive of the bee [...]

7 Plants That Repel Unwanted Insects, But not Bees

If you want to grow an organic garden and keep the process as natural as possible, you should turn to nature. Here are some bee friendly plants that deter pests [...]

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12 Must See Ted Talks for Beekeepers

Do you love learning about Bees? Here is our top twelve favorite Ted Talks about bees. Grab a coffee, Sit down and watch these quick talks. [...]

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How to Prepare Your Bees for Autumn

Yes it's that time to plan for the coming season, and in this article, as the sun sets on Summer we are talking about preparing for Autumn [...]

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The Bees and Your Backyard: What All The Gardening Buzz is About

Many of us have often thought about getting into gardening. The concept of growing our own food is one of the oldest of American traditions—to get your hands dirty in the [...]

6 Best Methods to Create a Bee-Friendly Garden

Looking for ways on how to create a bee-friendly garden? Find out the six most effective ways to attract bees and other beneficial insects in your garden! [...]

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How to Create a Flower Garden with Year-Round Blooms

Were you thinking about creating a beautiful landscape in your yard? Well, for gardening beginners, there are numerous tips and tricks to growing and maintaining a gorgeous garden. Here is our [...]

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How to Become an Insecticide Labelling Ninja

It’s been my experience the consumer buying public don’t realise that Insecticides bought at the supermarket or hardware store could be harming Honey Bees and other Pollinators in their gardens. Here [...]

Top 10 Plants For Bees During The Winter Months

Winters are the months that come out to be a little hard to survive for anybody. Here are some ideas for plants that will help bees during the coldest season. [...]

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How to Create a Relaxing Outdoor Space in Your Small Yard

Trust us when we say this, a small yard is a blessing in disguise. There’s a lot that you can experiment with in case of small yards rather than the big [...]

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What are the 3 basics to start beekeeping? Part 3 – 6 Essential Pieces of Info About Beekeeping

What are the basics to start Beekeeping. Margaret talks about the 6 Essential Pieces of Information About Beekeeping that will help you be successful. [...]

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End of Season 2016!!!!

It’s the end of the Bee Season for us now in New Zealand, so you won’t hear from us for the next little while, See you in the Bee Season 2017. [...]

Exotic Visitor – Beehive and Bees Checks

Alastair, who is a designated inspector for Ministry for Primary Industries attended the site with Margaret to check our bees for Exotic diseases. What did you find? [...]

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What are the 3 basics to start Beekeeping? Part 2 – 5 Essential Beehive Components

What are the essential pieces of hive ware that make up a modern Langstroth beehive? Read Margaret’s great article on the five Essential Beehive Components you need to get started. [...]

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How to do a Sugar Shake Mite Count – Video

In this video we show you How to do a Sugar Shake Mite Count, using a sugar shake jar and icing or powdered sugar. Monitoring your Varroa mites levels is [...]

10 Delicious, Cheap Recipes That Use Up Your Herb Garden

If you have a lovely garden filled with fresh herbs, why not take this as an opportunity to create some of the best yet simple meals for you and your family? [...]

What are the 3 basics to start beekeeping? Part 1 – Essential Beekeeping Equipment

Have you ever wondered what you need to start Beekeeping? Here is the Essential Beekeeping Equipment to get started in Beekeeping. [...]

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How To Make Money with Treatment Free Beekeeping

Can you make a living and still be a Treatment Free Beekeeper, we are honored to welcome Aaron Jennings from Jennings Apiaries on his first guest article. Here are five [...]

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Do You Know How Bees Make Honey?

All you need to know about how bees make honey. The entire process has a lot of steps and bees working together to produce a small amount. [...]

Getting your Bees Ready for Winter – Spring-Inspection

Getting your Bees Ready for Winter - How one of our Beginners got they bees through the wet winter [...]

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Buzzy Bee – Lets go for a Ride

Here is a UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY to own one of these Kiwi Icons and earn some additional money for your business. Wow your very own Buzzy Bee Ride on. [...]

Beginner Beekeeper – Greece Spring and Summer 2016

An update from Lorin and John in Greece about their Beginner Beekeeping adventures. We compare what has been happening during Spring and Summer in Greece. [...]

Moving Bees to a Long Bench Hive – Video

In this video Margaret Shows your how to move an existing colony into a Long Bench Hive. She also offers some tips on how to manage bees. [...]

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Beginner Beekeeper…Water Bees

Beginner Beekeeper shares first season experiences, and challenges faced with the local High Tides. [...]

The Story Behind the Last Beginners Kit of 2016

Urban Beekeeping is alive and well in Auckland City, New Zealand! The Story Behind the Last Beginners Kit of 2016 [...]

Robbing Screen – How to and Why – Wasp and Robbing Honey Bees – AFB?

A robbing-screen is a screen which can be placed in the front of the honey beehive entrance - Its purpose is to help save your colonies from Robbing Bees and Wasps [...]

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Beekeeping in Greece

News from the Bee World in Greece from our listeners Lorin & John. [...]

Beekeepers Q&A – End of Jan

The Beekeepers Q&A, the weekly live show on blab where we attempt to answer your burning beekeeping questions. [...]

The Beekeepers Q&A – The Fat Bee Man “Don” joined us.

The Beekeepers Q&A, the show on blab we attempt to answer your burning beekeeping questions. We are joined this week by Don "The Fat Bee Man". [...]

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Commercial Beekeeping – How do you get started?

Commercial Beekeeping - How do you get started? We answer a readers question with ideas on how to get started in Commercial Beekeeper in New Zealand. [...]

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Beekeepers Q&A – Happy New Year

The hosts of the kiwimana beekeeping podcast attempt to answer your burning beekeeping questions. Join us with your question on Blab. [...]

Honey extraction Idea for Manuka – a great tip from Aussie

We hope this will help those having difficulty extracting Manuka/Kanuka honey frames, a great tip from Clive. [...]

How Long Should I Wait To See Eggs

How Long Should I Wait To See Eggs, when you collect a swarm how long does it take to see eggs? [...]

Assessment Results – Beginner Beekeepers Splits

Margarets second part of her Spring assessment article [...]

Spring Assessment – Beginner Beekeeper and Bees

This is an email I have sent out to our Beeginuzz. Which you may find useful in doing your Spring Assessment. [...]

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Whats happening in Aussie? honey beekeeping Spring

This week we bring you some photos from Thomas in Queensland of honey extraction. Great to see the Ozzie bees doing so well. [...]

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The Man Who Discovered Manuka Honey – Dr Peter Molan

The Man Who Discovered Manuka Honey - Dr Peter Molan. The Discoverer of the Healing Factor in Active Manuka Honey, this talk discusses his part of the story of this [...]

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TreeHive Beehive …part two…swarming

Part two of what we now affectionately call the 'Treehive Beehive' [...]

What types of Beehives can you get in New Zealand?

What types of Beehives are available in New Zealand, Margaret investigates the differences in the different hive types. [...]

Tree Hive…branching out…Swarming…Part One

Margaret's account of how she removed a swarm of bees that had taken up residence up a tree, with the help of the great guys at Treescape. [...]

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Auckland Council Proposed Unitary Plan *Update*

I traveled in to the big city again to make my presentation regarding the 'Bee Poo' submission wanting to add beekeeping to the Resource Management Act. [...]

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Bee Season 2014 – Review – part 1 …beekeeping preparations

The Beekeeping Season of 2014 Part one of what we were doing during the break in New Zealand [...]

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Getting Rid of Wasps in Your Garden: The Natural Way

Wasps are your garden’s helpful pollinators. But if they become too many or attacked your Honey bees, they can pose a problem. Get rid of them naturally with these easy [...]

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How to Prepare a Beehive for Winter In New Zealand

How to Prepare a Beehive for Winter, our guide to what we do at kiwimana to get our Beehives ready for the cold wet New Zealand Winter. [...]

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Whats Blooming at kiwimana HQ….beekeeping, apiary, gardens, flowers

Its now well into Autumn here in New Zealand - April 2015. This beekeeping season we have really enjoyed a long Summer even though the honey flow was late, our [...]

How To Extract Honey Without An Honey Extractor

In this article we explain how to use two buckets to extract a small amount of frames. A quick and easy method for when you only have a few frames to [...]

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What is Patreon – and why we are using it?

We want to introduce you to Patreon. It is something that you can be a part of without having to do any work as we will do the work for you. [...]

Manuka the biography of an extraordinary honey – KM067

Here is a talk given by Cliff Van Eaton about his new book "Manuka the biography of an extraordinary honey" [...]

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Auckland Council proposed Beekeeping Bylaw

Auckland Council are reviewing their bylaws and Margaret makes submission which appeared to bee well-received. [...]

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How to Get Rid of Laying Workers in Your Beehive

In this article we discuss How to Get Rid of Laying Workers in Your Beehive. If you catch this early you can still save the hive. [...]

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The Year in Review at kiwimana

The year in review at kiwimana has the top five blog posts and podcasts that your may have missed. It was interesting to us to see what was popular Last [...]

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Moving Beehives a Short Distance

Moving Beehives A Short Distance, here is a method and some tips you can use to move a Beehives around your garden or backyard. [...]

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Meeting the Barefoot Beekeeper in Wareham forest in Dorset

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Beekeeping Course – Introduction to the World of Beekeeping

A Weekend of Beekeeping Clubs In Auckland

A Weekend of Beekeeping Clubs In Auckland, the team at kiwimana head out to two Beekeeping clubs meetings. [...]

Auckland Council Bees Bylaw

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New Zealand Podcasts – you might also like…

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Love is a goat called Louise

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Urban Beekeeping Threatened in Auckland

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What’s Blooming at kiwimana HQ? – Apiary Bee friendly Plants

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Moving Beehives

Moving Beehives is an essential skill for any beekeeper to master. Here is how we move Beehives. [...]

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Interview with Two Beekeepers – Gary and Margaret

How to Clean Beeswax

How To Clean Beeswax - Here is the steps we use to Clean beeswax. The beeswax can then be used in candles or cosmetic products. [...]

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How To Make Seed Bombs

Seed bombs can simplify the task of filling any empty space with flowers. This post tells you how to make seed bombs and more. [...]

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How to Build Beehive Frames

Beehive Frames - How to build Beehive Frames, here is how we manually build Beehive frames at kiwimana. [...]

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Guerilla Gardening … in High-Tech Form?

Extreme Gardening: Flower Shell – Shotgun Shell Filled with Seeds

Wasps in your beehive – A Robbing Screen may help

Wasps in your beehive - A Robbing Screen may help, we discuss using our Robbing Screen to deter Wasps and Honey Bees robbing your Bees. [...]

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infested ! … with Varroa !!

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How to use the Kiwi Oxalic Acid Vaporizer with Video

We have had great success with using the vaporizer to control varroa mites in our bee colonies, in this article we discuss the method involved in treating your bee hives successfully. [...]

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Has it all just become too much?

A tale of woe and despair, an update on what is happening at kiwimana and what we are doing to fix this [...]

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….bzzz….what to do when you have grumpy bees….

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Beekeeping Supplies Now IN – don’t miss out and here’s why!

One thing we have learnt over-time is that its best to bee preparing for the coming season in this season. [...]

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Powdered Sugar Shake – Counting Varroa Mites using icing sugar

Powdered sugar shake - How to do a Powdered sugar shake to check the count of varroa mites living in your bee colony. A Step by step guide with thresholds. [...]

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Time to Reflect on kiwimana

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What’s Happening in Karen’s Garden?

Different Types Of Beehives in Britain

In this article we discuss the different types of beehives available to beekeepers these days in Britain and the pros and cons of each type. [...]

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How to make a Beehive Box – A Step by Step Guide

How to make a Beehive Box - An article about how we make Macrocarpa hive boxes at kiwimana. With tips on how to assemble your Beehive boxes. [...]

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Paraffin Wax and It’s uses in Beekeeping

Paraffin Wax and its uses for the beekeeper, it's used by commercial beekeepers to disinfect hive parts that are infected by the American Foul Brood (AFB) virus. [...]

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Tips on Public Relations for Backyard Beekeepers

Kiwi Oxalic Acid Vaporizer – Used to combat Varroa Destructor Mites

What is a Queen Castle?

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How Handy? …and Backyard Beekeeping.

Craft Out West Annual Event 2013

Very exciting news that we will bee attending the annual "Craft Out West" event of 2013. We hope you can come along [...]

Frame Building Jig – Using One to Build Frames For Your Bees

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What do you use for Bee Smoker Fuel?

We were asked the other day, What do you use for Bee Smoker Fuel? We answer that and also discuss coffee sacks. [...]

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Bee Hive Stand – Introducing the kiwimana Hive Stand

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Borage – Why Is It So Good For Bees?

Borage - The history of this great plant that bees all around the world love. If you want to help the bees plant some borage for them. Read this [...]

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Bee swarms – How to deal with them

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Dangerous Extractors – KM031

In this weeks beekeeping podcast we are talking about Fake Honey, Extractors and trickery at the Supermarket. [...]

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6 easy ways to add some much needed shade to your garden

2013 Spring is here – Part 4