You may be right Adam, I don’t have experience with the Avocado pollinating scene apart from seeing bee hives in an Avocado farm on the Gympie/Tin Can Bay road.
Maybe the farmers want all the pollinators they can get in their orchard.
Regards
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Yeah, my understanding is bees are just one group of pollinators, and a variety woks best (native bees, wasps, birds etc). Anyway, she’s happy to have them so I’m happy she’s happy.
Another swarm call today, at Bli Bli. I couldn’t manage it as I’m out of lids and bases but my friends are collecting them now. In the rain. Poor things (both them & the bees)!
Hive looks great @Brad13. If I was a bee I’d love that house…
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Native bees, butterflies and other insects are pollinators as well as our Honey bee. Native bees are in decline as is the honey bee in Australia.
I told Maureen I was going to run 4 hives, I have trouble counting !!! Think it’s about 12 now and making up more boxes, frames, etc.for more splits. Maureen loves the rain, recons that is when she gets time with me.
Regards
Brad, you aren’t a wood worker, your a craftsman. What you have done is really great, remembering back to you nuc box. All have been well thought out and craftsman made.
Cheers
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Thank you Peter, but I’m a long way from being a craftsman.
I"m doing the best i can on each project, making mistakes along the way but learning from them and improving each time.
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Native bees yes, but honey bees? It’s my understanding honey bees are one of the reasons the natives are struggling.
Your new hives look great @Brad13, branded and all, nice one.
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With so much mass spraying of insecticides and other toxic poisons I think both the native bees and honey bees are getting a hiding. After all they are feeding on flora and spraying to kill off weeds is done in back yards to broad acre farming in ever increasing amounts.
Cheers Skeggs
According to my observations, since we have honey bees, we have more native bees. Our insect population has definitely increased.
Figures, natives feed on diffferent flowers and are attracted by Hive smells.
No poisons here in foraging range, so it may be different than other places.
Perhaps you are just noticing more since you began keeping bees Webclan, I know I have . 
Potential impact. There are many native plants which are relied upon by native bees which is also forage for ehb. There are also many native plants that rely upon native bees as a pollinator and ehb is unable to pollinate.
So much research yet so little.
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There is a really good app for looking at native species in SE Qld. Can help to assist in planting bee attracting natives in your garden. Whether it is a tree or shrub or ground cover. - “GroNative” App, It is from Griffith University. Currently only app form, unfortunately no website
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True, one sees more insects as an insect keeper.
Just remembered how many insects were caught on windscreens a few decades ago. That doesn’t happen any more.
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that’s a sad fact: I remember as a child in the 70’s driving to the country at night- at the end the windscreen and headlights would be plastered with mashed bugs: you just don’t see it anymore. it’s a real worry- the world is changing before our eyes. Studies in Germany showed something like a 70% decline in insects since just the 1970’s. We are heading for a reckoning if you ask me- but our stupid Government thinks everything is fine- purely because they wish it was.
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Hey Brad, shouldn’t the text read ‘killer of bees’ 
I have a few families of magpies and butcher birds visit my apiary for a few minutes every afternoon for a snack. They have become very tame with me when I am suited up but if I am mowing the area they don’t recognize me and fly off.
A small price to pay to help them out if at the end of the day they are still hungry.
With the recent rains I am seeing an increase in SHB numbers, finally putting my traps to use, for a while anyhow.
Cheers
Hi Peter,
The chooks and dog have all leant that as long as they don’t put their faces near the landing board the bees aren’t fussed by them.
I’m seeing an increase in SHB in my other two production hives, this one is really strong and seems to be keeping them under control.
I got hit really hard with chalkbrood in the other two and the observation hive, I tried the banana treatment and it seemed to work with the bees feeding on the fruit and an increase in numbers up until the flow started, then they ignored the banana which the SHB then used as a hideaway and nursery for laying maggots 
I’m trying just the skins without the flesh to try and keep the chalkbrood under control without giving the beetles a breeding area.
I’m also avoiding splitting this hive by pinching a frame or two of brood every couple of weeks and using them to boost numbers in the other two which hopefully will strengthen them to the point of being able to deal with their problems themselves.
This is the only hive I’ve been able to super so far, the bees are going great guns on waxing the flow frames and have started putting nectar in.
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Hey Brad, I recently have rotated some new QX’s into hives so I can bring the waxed up ones home to clean them with a heat gun. What I have found with the metal QX is that there is an ideal place for the SHB to hide in the fold on the outside edge, eventually the bees will propalise the gap. That has made me use beetle blaster traps for the first time on the affected hives.
Seems there is a flow on just this past 2 weeks so I have extracting to do so the girls can have work to do storing more honey, they don’t like having full capped frames and nothing to do.
Cheers mate
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Just finished extracting from 8 frames and lots of comb in the lid on one of my hives 27.4 kg’s of honey and all the frames were capped. Last extraction from that hive was late October so I am more than happy with that result.
Didn’t have a lot of issues with my hands after being burn’t and new skin on my right hand, I had great helper today and quite a few breaks because of the heat. The bees showed no interest and it all went well but rather slow, but hey, there is always tomorrow.
This was Lysa’s first foray on anything but a Flow Hive so it was exciting for her to see a comb full of honey. She has 2 Flow Hives that I set up for her and supplied the bees, good to see her working with confidence.
Cheers
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Fantastic yield, Peter! The bees are wonderfully productive at the moment.
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Over the last couple of days I’ve seen dozens of drones being kicked out of the hive,
Two theories I’ve got for this are;
Ten days ago I removed a full frame of capped brood along with two frames worth of nurse bees as a weakening of this hive/strengthening of another and an on the spot census has decided the ratio isn’t right.
We may be coming into a dearth and resources aren’t going to be wasted on drones. I’m in suburbia so I find this one the least likely.
Has anyone got more explanations?
Going into Autumn, it is normal for the hungry, gobbling males to be thrown out. OK, I know you are not in Autumn yet, but dearths happen in Autumn, and the female bees are just controlling how many mouths they have to feed. 
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