The Australian New Zealand Food Standards Code defines honey, prescribes its composition and identifies the information that must be provided when labelling it for retail sale.

Definition

Standard 2.8.2 provides the following definition of honey:

The natural sweet substance produced by honey bees from the nectar of blossoms or from secretions of living parts of plants or excretions of plant sucking insects on the living parts of plants, which honey bees collect, transform and combine with specific substances of their own, store and leave in the honey comb to ripen and mature.

Aethina Tumida, or the Small Hive Beetle (SHB) is a member of the Sap beetle family and is a native of South Africa (first described by Andrew Murray in Nigeria in 1867) . There it is regarded as a nuisance, but not a dangerous pest possibly because of greater aggression shown by African bees towards the beetle.

It was first identified in Florida in 1998.

This pest is new to Australian beekeeping and was found in October 2002 around the Hawkesbury district of New South Wales and, as a result of migration of beehives, at Beerwah in Queensland.

The adult bees of a colony obtain their dietary protein from the pollen the workers collect and bring back to the hive. The proteins of some pollens are deficient in certain amino acids required by bees. Some of these amino acids are essential for bees and cannot be synthesized by them. If there is insufficient pollen, or during rapid hive expansion, the beekeeper should provide a protein supplement.

What is it ?

The Queen Rearing kit enables the queen to lay eggs directly into a plastic "plug". This avoids the dangers of grafting, and ensures correct age of larvae.

The simple definition:

Honey is a sweet, thick fluid produced by honey bees and derived from the nectar of flowers.

(But then you already knew that).

A bit more information please:

Bees collect nectar or sugars in liquid form, usually from plants or trees.

They suck it up into their honey sac or stomach and take it back to the hive.

How to get a queen :

There are three basic ways to obtain a new queen bee:

1. Buy a laying queen from a commercial queen breeder.

2. Allow the hive to raise their own (emergency) queen, or

3. Raise your own queens.