Australian Skep Bee Guardianship provides an important nest style for advancing genetic resilience of wild and native honeybees. Many natural beekeepers keep a skep on hand specifically as a lightweight, highly effective tool to capture wild swarms.
Skep Guardianship requires a strong understanding of bee behavior. Observation of external flight patterns, smells, and sounds has for centuries guided good guardianship practice.
Hive Profile:
Country of Origin: Designs date back to the Bronze Age in the Mediterranean, later heavily refined by Celtic, Germanic, and Anglo-Saxon cultures in Northern and Western Europe.
Strengths: allows the queen to lay eggs in her preferred unbroken, spherical brood nest pattern. Cell sizing is entirely dynamic, allowing the colony to freely build drone cells and worker cells based on seasonal needs
Material: wild grasses, or wicker/hazel twigs. Traditionally bound together
Cavity size: 30 to 40 litres
Mechanism: Nautral comb
Acoustics: The continuous comb-to-wall contact allows these subtle vibrational frequencies to travel cleanly
Thermoregulation: Thick, domed walls, can also be rendered, create an optimal thermal boundary layer.
