Who We Are
BeautifulBees.org is a beekeeping resource run by two experienced beekeepers — Matt Flood in Australia and Thomas Callaghan in the United States. Between us, we cover both hemispheres: different seasons, different regulations, different forage, and different pest pressures. Everything on this site comes from direct experience with real hives, not from aggregating other people’s content.
Matt Flood — Australia
Matt has kept bees for over ten years, starting out helping on his uncle’s farm and eventually building his own urban apiary. He currently runs several hives across different setups: rooftop Langstroth hives, a hive in his chicken pen, and a Flow Hive 2+ — an Australian-invented system he’s been using since it became widely available.
His three kids are involved in the hives and have been since they were small — inspections, feeding, and the occasional swarm chase are family activities. That background shapes how he writes: practically, with a preference for honest assessments over promotional content, and with an awareness that beekeeping looks different when you’re doing it in a suburban backyard rather than a rural paddock.
Matt’s focus areas on the site include hive management, varroa treatment in the Australian context, urban beekeeping setups, and equipment that he’s tested personally rather than reviewed from a spec sheet.
Based in: Australia | Hive types: Langstroth, Flow Hive 2+ | Experience: 10+ years
Thomas Callaghan — United States
Thomas has been keeping bees for over 30 years, running Langstroth hives across multiple US locations. He’s the kind of beekeeper who has seen most things go wrong at least once — and learned from it. His grandkids are now involved in the hives, which puts him in the same position Matt is in with his own kids: passing on what works through direct experience rather than textbook instruction.
Thomas contributes the US perspective to the site — state-level regulations, Northern Hemisphere seasonal timing, USDA guidance, and integrated pest management advice drawn from three decades of working with Varroa mite, which has been established in American beekeeping since the late 1980s. His articles and contributions are marked as US-focused where the advice differs meaningfully from the Australian context.
Most new content on the site is written by Matt, but Thomas remains the reference point for anything specific to US beekeeping practice, regulations, and conditions.
Based in: United States | Hive type: Langstroth | Experience: 30+ years
Why We Built This Site
Most beekeeping content online is either too basic to be useful after the first month, or written for a single region without acknowledging that the advice doesn’t translate. Seasonal timing, varroa management protocols, legal registration requirements, and even which hive types are widely available all differ significantly between Australia and the US — and most sites treat one as the default and ignore the other entirely.
BeautifulBees.org exists to fill that gap with content that is specific, honest about what we do and don’t know, and grounded in the actual experience of running hives rather than summarising what others have written. Where we cite external sources, we link to them. Where we give an opinion, we try to be clear that it’s an opinion based on our own experience rather than a universal rule.
The biology of Apis mellifera — the European honey bee — is the same in Sydney, Sacramento, or Surrey. The management decisions around it are not. We try to be useful for both.
Our Setup
- Rooftop Langstroth hives — urban setup, full sun exposure, harvested annually
- Chicken pen hive — the chickens and bees coexist well; the chickens clean up fallen debris and the bees ignore them entirely
- Flow Hive 2+ — used since early on, reviewed honestly including what doesn’t work as advertised
- US hives (Thomas) — standard Langstroth setup across multiple seasons
All equipment reviews, treatment guides, and management advice on this site is based on gear and methods we have used ourselves. We don’t review products from spec sheets or press releases.
Get In Touch
Questions about a specific article, corrections, or beekeeping questions are welcome via the contact page. Matt is also on LinkedIn if you’d prefer to connect there.