The Mission Our Practice Learn Protect Cultivate Get Involved

The Mission

Rewilding honeybee songlines to pollinate country.

The Colony Bees practice is committed to delivering works that advance the knowledge of bees.

Our tenets are developed through academic research, collaborative partnership, expedition and a connection to place. Our projects are delivered in line with wild honeybee culture, traditional bee hunting and the humming bee breath.

Our Bee Season follows a solar path and natural cycles to mark celebrations for times of swarming, the harvest and sugarbag dreaming.

Our Practice

To Learn, Protect and Cultivate.

Use these Learn, Protect, Cultivate icons throughout the website to navigate your Guardianship practice.

We observe patterns and sounds of bees so we may understand how to protect their habitat and ultimately cultivate Honeybee produce to the highest standard.

Learn

To observe the bee.

Bees, above all things love harmony, and many have observed, that in their Singing, Humming and Buzzing, they produce the notes of music in the most exact manner, keeping their Stops, Rings and Falls, and have something in their sounds that resemble each particular note used in Vocal and Instrumental Music, and are so attentive to Harmonious sounds, especially that are soft and sweet. They understand each other by Notes, and answer in harmonious strains, having as it were a sweet language among them.

- The History of Bees, Charles Butler

Protect

Defence of the city gates.

We guard trees with hollows provide animal homes. Hollow formation is a common trait in many Australian trees. At least 20% of bird species are hollow-dependent. All arboreal marsupials use tree hollows for shelter and breeding sites. Honeybee and Tetragonula Carbonaria stingless bees both use tree hollows to nest. Inside these hollows bees line the cavity with propolis.

"Propolis" comes from the Greek language and means "in defense of" (pro) the city (polis)." The essential meaning is "defender of the city. Propolis is used to reinforce structural stability, provide thermal insulation and makes the hive stronger in defence.

Propolis is comprised of 50% tree resins, 30% beeswax, 10% essential aromatic oils, 5% pollen, 5% other organic compounds. The main active ingredients in propolis are flavonoids which the honeybees get from plant and flower.

Cultivate

To nurture and care.

From colō (present infinitive colere)

1. To cultivate the land, till, tend, take care of.

2. To inhabit.

3. To frequent, be the guardian of, cherish, care for, protect and nurture.

4. To worship, honour, revere, give reverence to and respect.

Guardians cultivate Bee Sanctuaries to develop healthy pollinators and to Pollinate Country. We cultivate swarms to ensure the vitality and longevity of bees is maintained. We cultivate medicinal grade hive products for the health our community. And we cultivate reverence for the Queens of the Sun.

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