Avalon Honey

Avalon Honey I love to educate people about honey bees 🥰🐝 Avalon Honey and bee pollen is available at 32 Elouera Road, Avalon Beach. I also make beeswax candles and wraps.

My hives are at home and near Barrenjoey High School. https://linktr.ee/avalonhoneybees 🐝🐝

Come along to Avalon Beach SLSC’s Bangalley Bar every Sunday during July to enjoy some complimentary food when you buy a...
01/07/2026

Come along to Avalon Beach SLSC’s Bangalley Bar every Sunday during July to enjoy some complimentary food when you buy a drink at the bar. They are all great options, but sharing a top tip to join me on Sunday 19th July to enjoy a grazing boat with some of my Avalon Honey to top it off 🍻🍷🥨🧀🍯 - while stocks last!

The live music on 26 July will be a blast 🎶🎸🎷

Question for experienced beekeepers: Do nurse bees move eggs from one cell to another?I’m not new to beekeeping but I've...
30/06/2026

Question for experienced beekeepers: Do nurse bees move eggs from one cell to another?

I’m not new to beekeeping but I've read conflicting information over the years. One view is that nurse bees can strategically move eggs to create new queens when needed. The other that this is simply a myth, and that nurse bees cannot move eggs because the queen glues each egg firmly into the bottom of the cell when she lays it. I've leaned towards the second explanation, but something I've recently observed has me questioning that.

Here's what happened:

13 June (Day 0)
I made a makeshift queen enclosure by cutting up a plastic queen excluder and attaching it over a small box. I placed the queen inside the enclosure and returned it to the hive on an empty frame with just a strip of foundation and plenty of empty space. I’m doing this intentionally to make a forced brood break as we don’t get a natural brood break here in Sydney, Australia. Photo 1 shows the enclosure when I was assembling it.

20 June (Day 7)
I inspected the hive a week later. There were no eggs or young larvae anywhere in the brood frames, so I felt confident the queen was securely confined. The colony was calm, suggesting she was still alive. The bees had started drawing fresh comb around the enclosure frame. There was still plenty of capped brood and some older uncapped larvae, exactly as expected.

27 June (Day 14)
This is where it gets interesting.
On the newly drawn comb surrounding the queen enclosure, I found several charged queen cells. Inside them were young larvae that I'd estimate were about 4 days old. There were no eggs in any regular worker cells anywhere in the hive, suggesting this isn’t due to the presence of laying workers and it’s too early for that. Photos 2 to 4 are from Day 14.

I know that nurse bees are capable of removing eggs from cells, for example, when a young queen lays multiple eggs in one cell or laying workers that lay multiple eggs in a cell.

I plan to let these queen cells hatch because I'm interested to see whether they produce queens from fertilised eggs or drones which could be from laying workers.

I'd appreciate hearing from experienced beekeepers who have direct knowledge or evidence either way. Could the nurse bees have strategically moved fertilised eggs from inside the queen enclosure to queen cups outside the enclosure? Or is there another explanation for what I'm seeing?

28/06/2026

Between the new day job and a busy week, my latest batch of Creamed Avalon Honey sat a few days too long. Result? A completely solid bucket this morning! 😬😆

Usually, I give it 24 hours to let the micro-bubbles rise to the top, a week was too long! If I don't scrape those light bubbles off, I can’t fit an honest 320g or 500g weight into the jars! 🫧🍯

We are back in action now and the front door stall is loaded! Pop past 32 Elouera Road, Avalon Beach to grab:
✨ Liquid Summer & Autumn 🐝
✨ Naturally soft set Autumn 🍯
✨ Hot Honey 🌶️
✨ Fresh Creamed Honey 😋

Treating myself to some La Banette sourdough with butter and creamed honey 🥖🍯😋 What are you topping your weekend toast with?


There’s an opportunity to win a ‘Beekeeping Experience’ with my Avalon Honey Bees. This is a prize in a fundraiser for t...
24/06/2026

There’s an opportunity to win a ‘Beekeeping Experience’ with my Avalon Honey Bees. This is a prize in a fundraiser for the Barrenjoey High School CAPA (Creative and Performing Arts) Tours. Our youngest son is in the school band and I donate jars of my honey to be won via in a small raffle at the CAPA night performances each term.

However, this is a big fundraiser, so I decided to donate a big prize. This hands on beekeeping experience is great opportunity to see what actually happens inside a beehive. Perhaps you’re considering starting beekeeping yourself or want to understand the life of bees more. They are fascinating insects that work collaboratively and efficiently together.

This is suitable for all ages and there’s a bunch of other great prizes available too: https://rafflelink.com.au/bhscapatour

I have restocked a variety of my Avalon Honey which is available at my front door at 32 Elouera Road, Avalon Beach. On t...
19/06/2026

I have restocked a variety of my Avalon Honey which is available at my front door at 32 Elouera Road, Avalon Beach.

On the left are jars of my Summer harvest and middle are my Autumn harvest. On the far left I also have a new batch of Creamed Avalon Honey which is delicious. Please message me if you have any specific requests such as a bulk order of the 200g gift jars 🍯🍯🍯

Prices for my regular Avalon Honey $7/200g, $12/320g, $17/500g & $30/1kg
Creamed Avalon Honey and Hot Honey $15/320g & $20/500g
Cut Honeycomb $10/200g & $20/400g (sold out until Spring)
Bee Pollen $15/100g & $30/250g (message for orders as pollen is frozen)

Our eldest son is studying at Oxford, so we follow Oxford University on social media and I read this article about honey...
18/06/2026

Our eldest son is studying at Oxford, so we follow Oxford University on social media and I read this article about honey bees being selective about how much they eat in order to remain healthy. It’s incredible that honey bees are one of the most studied insects on the planet and we’re still learning so much about them. I’ve had my own beehives for 14 years now and it’s been a constant learning journey.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2026-06-17-bees-avoid-too-much-of-a-good-thing-by-balancing-nutrients-in-pollen

We are so fortunate to live in an area that has such a wide variety of floral resources for my Avalon Honey Bees and the variety of pollen sources has been shown in a couple of recent studies now to help honey bees to stay strong and healthy 🥰🐝 Thanks for continuing to support my bees by making your gardens look pretty all year round 🌸🐝🌺🐝🌻 🐝🌼🐝

Photos of pollen that I’ve collected from my hives. I only take the excess, as I do with honey, and make sure my bees have plenty of their own food, but sometimes they bring in more than they eat.

I’m working on a redesign of the labels for my Avalon Honey jars and would like feedback on the new design. This is a pr...
14/06/2026

I’m working on a redesign of the labels for my Avalon Honey jars and would like feedback on the new design. This is a preliminary idea generated using AI and it’s easy to incorporate changes.

I like the idea of a lighter background and I’ve added some native looking plants and a beehive, but concerned it’s too busy. I’m definitely going with the honeycomb lids as I’ve bought those.

I’ve included photos of my current label design and my original label design for comparison.

Thanks for returning empty Avalon Honey jars 🍯🙏 I do like to reuse and recycle wherever possible ♻️ It currently takes ...
14/06/2026

Thanks for returning empty Avalon Honey jars 🍯🙏 I do like to reuse and recycle wherever possible ♻️ It currently takes some time to fully remove my existing paper labels, but I’m planning to change over to foil backed labels along with a design change. The new labels will be easier to remove without residue but will also go through the dishwasher without degrading.

I’m happy to offer an $1 discount off your next purchase for every one of my Avalon Honey jars that you return. Just to note, please don’t leave other jars as I’ve got a set size that I use to align with my labels. Whoever dropped jars today, please do take up this offer for these jars!

Beekeeping is full of ups and downs. This morning was a mixed day for inspections. I’d gone into my home hive hoping all...
13/06/2026

Beekeeping is full of ups and downs. This morning was a mixed day for inspections. I’d gone into my home hive hoping all the colonies would be strong going into Winter, with low mites counts and the bees keeping on top of the Small Hive Beetles (SHB).

Hive 1 is growing well, was from a nuc that I made this year and I’m happy they have enough resources and space. This colony made a new queen a couple of months ago and she’s laying well, so I’ve marked her with a white dot for 2026. There were a lot of SHB, so I moved them to a hive with a mesh floor that traps the beetles

Hive 2 had high expectations, but disappointed to find the population had dropped and there was no brood, no queen, loads of SHB and some wax moth larvae hatching out. This was a massive overhaul, many frames removed and relocated the bees to a 5 frame nuc box along with a frame from hive 1 with some eggs. This will give the colony a chance to raise a new queen. It’s late in the season, but my colonies have drones and I’ve successfully raised a queen over Winter last year.

Hive 3 is going full speed. 14 frames of brood across 2 boxes. I had reduced their space last month but they needed more room so I’ve given them a third box with their honey frames moved up to the top.

Thankfully the varroa mite count was low on all the hives. Keeping on top of these pesky mites with the OAV InstantVap tool that I’ve bought. You’ve certainly got to be passionate about keeping bees these days with the pests they have to cope with.

🍯 Spring Avalon Honey 🍯I discovered a bucket of my Spring honey (November harvest) and this is now available in jars at ...
11/06/2026

🍯 Spring Avalon Honey 🍯

I discovered a bucket of my Spring honey (November harvest) and this is now available in jars at my front door. I only have a few of the 500g and 320g jars available, positioned on the far left of the table.

This Spring honey is likely to crystallise slower than the Autumn honey, which is already going thicker quickly. The speed honey crystallises is mainly down to the ratios of fructose and glucose sugars. I understand that Paperback and Flooded gum have higher glucose and thus crystallise quicker. The May harvest will become soft-set and is still l delicious and you can spread it thick on toast! You can gently warm it to turn back to liquid, but it’s natural to change.

Tasting jars of each type are in the grey box on the right. These are arranged roughly as they are positioned on the table. The jars you buy have the batch label on the bottom.

Address

32 Elouera Road
Avalon, NSW
NSW2107

Telephone

+61425183605

Website

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