Hello and welcome to Odd Acres Apiary
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Our Business
Odd Acres Apiary is a small familiy business operating in southern New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory surrounds of Australia. We focus on queen breeding and supplying queen bees to the recreational and commercial beekeepers around our local region. Our bees are calm, productive and bred for the cooler climates.
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Mission
At Odd Acres Apiary, we strive to promote the genetic suitability of bees to cope with the world around them as an alternative to using chemicals and unsustainable beekeeping practices.
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Purpose
Our purpose and social responsibility are founded upon producing sound, healthy queen bees as a basis for regenerative and sustainable beekeeping practices. We share our knowledge and skills with our beekeeping community in ways that equip current and future beekeepers for the increasing challenges ahead.
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Focus
Our primary focus is queen bee breeding, yet we provide additional services such as supporting bee research in our region and providing training in regenerative and sustainable queen rearing and breeding techniques. If this resonates with you, share via our Contact Us page - we’d love to hear from you.
Commercial Viability Balanced with Sustainable Practices
Our Sustainable Beekeeping Principles
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Spread Out
Spacing our bees as widely as possible increases their welfare, lessens competition for forage and reduces opportunities for disease and pests.
We have multiple small apiaries in New South Wales, located from Newcastle to Cooma.
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Value Drones
As queen breeders we encourage colonies to maintain as many drones as they deem fit. The number of drones in a colony are a good indication of colony health as well as improving our own mating operations when we are rearing queens.
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Minimise Moving Colonies
As bee breeders, we do not move our bees.
This reduces the stress placed on the bees and maximises our ability to observe and measure their performance of our apiaries in different regions. Our approach provides surety for our customers when we sell our bees.
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House Colonies in Small, Well Insulated Hives
Our colonies live in a single deep hive body made from expanded polystyrene (EPS) to closely mimic the cavities and insulation found in nature - like tree cavities.
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Local Adaptation
We work with bees that are adapted to our location.
By taking the time to engage with nature, we can design solutions suited to our apiary surroundings. Importantly we also promote genetic diversity that is so important to bees.
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Value Diversity
Diversity is central to our queens, the honeybee wellbeing. Their ability to adapt to new environments and challenges is important to us to ensure the bees can perform their best in the areas they reside in.
Meet Peter
My background is in computer programming and geospatial science. To me, bees operate much like a large computer program. Kim and I are keen gardeners and we've had bees for many years. Moving into beekeeping seemed such an interesting fit – bees, plants and programming. What could go wrong? Well, started with a dozen or so colonies, progressed to 50, 100, 200 and.......
But seriously, it is the environmental aspects on the geospatial side of my life that compelled me to take an interest in sustaining the viability of bees. I recall 50 years ago, driving from Sydney to the Snowy Mountains in NSW, and my Dad would secure fly screens in front of the radiator, to protect it from the number of insects collected on the drive trip. Drivers would frequently stop at service stations to wipe windows, clear grills, and sweep the front of their cars. These days, you can drive from Sydney to Melbourne with hardly a bug on the windshield. Is that normal? It got me thinking “Where have all the insects gone?"
Meet Kim
Like Peter, I, too, wondered why the insects are disappearing. Every summer, the beehive in our backyard suffered dead bees on the ground outside the hive’s entrance, and I wondered how many neighbours were spraying their gardens with insecticides. Seeing the carnage outside the beehive, I knew that if improvements were to occur, I needed to be part of something that could make a difference: our business model.
Bees are an exciting choice to establish a business upon. In the early days, I helped Peter at the apiaries where I could. The hands-on activities in the field and being out in the open air gave me time to chill and learn to interchange with nature again. My corporate background guided me in establishing a solid business structure and operations. I photograph our beautiful bee-related media for Odd Acres Apiary to soothe my creative side.
And the Family
Apart from a good dose of outdoor fun, our family helps with apiary activities, operates the video and IT recording for our maintenance records on the apiary sites.
Our family also takes experimental photographs and videos which can be used for our queen bee training. All this apiary activity enables our family to learn the importance of connecting with nature, and to witness nature deciding what stays, what goes, and what changes.
Fast Facts
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Member
Australian Queen Bee Breeders Association (AQBBA)
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Member
NSW Apiarists Association Inc.
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Work with
Australian National University (ANU)
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Work with
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO)
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Sponsor
ANU Bee Lab
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