Frogmouth Ponds

31/08/2026

Turn your sound up 🔊

A whole swarm moving into their new home. This colony was hanging off a bottlebrush over summer — we set a box under them, and this is the moment they took it: pouring over the frames until the whole box was wall-to-wall bees.

Swarm season is only weeks away here in Tassie. If you want to know what to do when a cloud of bees lands in YOUR garden, we run hands-on beekeeping courses at the farm: https://www.frogmouthponds.com.au/beekeeping-course-tasmania/

30/08/2026

Turn your sound up 🔊 Two days out from spring and the girls are already dressed for it.

This one worked a single daisy in the garden until she was wearing more pollen than she could carry — that yellow dust is protein for the first round of spring brood back in the hive.

Every jar starts exactly like this, one flower at a time 🌼

🍯 Shop our raw Tasmanian honey: https://www.frogmouthponds.com.au/tasmanian-honey/

28/08/2026

Cold, hard ground is rough on paws. 🐾

Kind Paws Co. Paw Repair is an everyday barrier for dry, rough paws and noses — before and after the walk. A lick-safe beeswax balm, 62g, hand-poured in Tasmania. For dogs and cats. $18, link in bio.

Kind Paws Co. Paw Repair is a grooming product, not a therapeutic or veterinary medicine. Information here is about ingredients, origin and craft — it is not veterinary advice.

26/08/2026

Skip the socks this Father's Day. 🐝

Put Dad in a bee suit instead — our Intro to Beekeeping Course is 3 hands-on hours at the Port Sorell apiary, taught by a practising Tasmanian beekeeper. Small classes of just six, and we provide all the gear.

Pick his Sunday: 15 November, 29 November or 13 December. $95 a seat.

And because it's a ticket, not a parcel, there's no postage cut-off — you can book it right up to Father's Day morning (Sunday 6 September).

Book Dad's seat: https://www.frogmouthponds.com.au/product-category/beekeeping-courses/

25/08/2026

From our own hives to your dog's paws. 🐾

Kind Paws Co. Paw Repair is hand-poured in small batches in Tasmania from our own beeswax and calendula-infused oil. Nothing artificial. 62g, for dogs and cats. $18, link in bio.

Kind Paws Co. Paw Repair is a grooming product, not a therapeutic or veterinary medicine. Information here is about ingredients, origin and craft — it is not veterinary advice.

23/08/2026

Walked past this three times before it moved.

It was sitting on the brick wall by the house at East Glen, and every one of us read it as a stick that had blown in off the gum. Then a leg shifted, and it stopped being a stick.

Two questions, and we actually want the answers:

1. How long do you reckon it is? There is a hand in the shot for scale, so no excuses. Closest guess in the comments wins the bragging rights.

2. Does anyone know exactly which one this is? We have a hunch. We are not confident enough to print it and be wrong in public.

This is the same paddock the bees work. We leave the scrub along the fence line alone, and the longer we leave it, the more turns up on the wall.

Tasmanian honey from these hives: https://www.frogmouthponds.com.au/tasmanian-honey/

22/08/2026

Made to be licked. 🐾

Every ingredient in Kind Paws Co. Paw Repair is food-safe and non-toxic — beeswax and calendula-infused oil, nothing else. Apply with confidence. 62g, made in Tasmania. For dogs and cats. $18, link in bio.

Kind Paws Co. Paw Repair is a grooming product, not a therapeutic or veterinary medicine. Information here is about ingredients, origin and craft — it is not veterinary advice.

20/08/2026

He says he doesn't need anything. Let him choose anyway.

A Frogmouth Ponds gift card covers everything we make — varietal honey, beard balm, candles, beekeeping equipment, or a course at the apiary in Port Sorell. Pick an amount from $25, add your message, and it lands in his inbox within minutes with a printable voucher.

No postage, no cut-off — it still works the night before Father's Day.

https://www.frogmouthponds.com.au/gift-cards/?occasion=fathers-day

19/08/2026

Varroa is here to stay. Beekeepers can't carry it alone.

A piece went up in The Conversation this week that's worth ten minutes of your time.

Varroa mite was found near Newcastle in June 2022. Eradication was called off in September 2023. It's now established in Queensland, NSW and the ACT, and moving through Victoria and South Australia. The mites are already showing resistance to some of the treatments we were told would hold the line.

Here's the number that stopped us — the Australian Honey Bee Industry Council reckons close to 40% of commercial beekeepers could walk away from the industry within a few years.

That's not just a honey problem. That's apples, cherries, berries, canola, almonds. Roughly a third of what ends up on your plate needs a bee to get there.

Down here in Tasmania we're still Varroa-free, and we'd like to keep it that way. But "still clean" isn't a strategy.

What you can do, honestly:
- Buy Australian honey. Read the label — a lot of what's on the shelf is blended imports.
- If you know a beekeeper, ask how their season's going. Most are doing it tough and won't say so first.
- Plant something that flowers. Even a pot.
- Leave a shallow dish of water out with pebbles in it over summer.

Full article:

The honeybee-killing Varroa mite is marching across the country, as two experts explain.

19/08/2026

One tin. Months of paws. 🐾

At 62g, Kind Paws Co. Paw Repair is one of the largest natural paw balms in the country — three to six months of daily use on one dog. Lick-safe, made in Tasmania. For dogs and cats. $18, link in bio.

Kind Paws Co. Paw Repair is a grooming product, not a therapeutic or veterinary medicine. Information here is about ingredients, origin and craft — it is not veterinary advice.