Hawkesbury Beekeepers club meets monthly at EarthCare at WSU in Richmond

With the rising popularity of cooking shows and the slow food movement, many Australians are making a concerted effort to spend more time in their gardens.

Add to this a number of beehive systems on the market that manufacturers claim simplify the beekeeping process, and it’s not surprising this state’s main amateur beekeeping body has 18 registered clubs, providing support to some 1000 bee-loving individuals.

Members of the Amateur Beekeepers Association (ABA) are hobbyists, who keep swarms of the stinging insects in order to be more self sufficient, for pollination, and (of course) for honey.

Hawkesbury Beekeepers is a fairly new branch, providing 25 local residents with a platform to share skills and knowledge, and socialise with fellow bee enthusiasts.

Kurrajong Hills resident Sheila Stokes is secretary of the club, and keeps two colonies of the critters in her garden.

For Ms Stokes, it’s about sustainability, and is an important element in her plan to live off the land as much as possible.

“We’ve always had chickens and cows,” Ms Stokes told the Gazette.

“But that’s not the way it is for everybody.”

The beekeeping seed was planted in Ms Stokes early on, as a child growing up in suburban England. No one kept bees in the ‘burbs, and her mother longed for them.

“I’d been in Australia 25 years but never took it up until we bought our own house. You have a different kind of investment in the land - you’re more conscious of your garden and your surroundings. So I thought, it’s time,” she said.

“I now know keeping them in a suburban area wouldn’t have been a problem.”

Ms Stokes completed a NSW Department of Primary Industries course on beekeeping, then joined Nepean Beekeepers - which was the closest ABA branch at the time.

Though Hawkesbury Beekeepers is still in its infancy, its members are enthusiastic. And, though they don’t have any communal hives set-up just yet, they have begun meeting at Hawkesbury EarthCare Centre at Western Sydney University’s Richmond campus once a month.

Plans are afoot to set-up five bee colonies on campus, so members can get some hands-on experience. Down the track, the club hopes to help out with institutional research on bees - something the ABA promotes through its constitution.

“We have some of Australia’s most respected native bee and honeybee experts in the Hawkesbury, and the uni funds a lot of research into bees, both European and local species,” said Ms Stokes.

Only recently, the club gathered at a residence in Richmond to witness local bee expert Dr Jenny Shanks split a native stingless bee hive. Dr Shanks is a specialist in this particular type of bee, and recently completed her postgraduate research at WSU, focusing on bee diseases.

Beekeepers are also sometimes referred to as honey farmers, apiarists, or apiculturists. An apiary (also known as a bee yard) is a collection of beehives, and a beekeeper is simply someone who keeps bees in these hives, boxes, or other receptacles - it doesn’t have to be on a grand scale.

According to Ms Stokes, local beekeepers refer to hives as boxes, “because Aussies like to be down-to-earth with things!” she said.

Australia has a wide variety of native bees, which pollinate our endemic crops. However the vast majority of amateur beekeepers keep European honeybees, which are one of the most important pollinators for our modern food system.

“Australia has its own bees and insects that pollinate the native plants, but they’re not successful at pollinating European veges. That’s why the First Fleet struggled so much at Farm Cove - their crops failed,” said Ms Stokes.

European honeybees can give the amateur beekeeper something akin to ‘honey on tap’. Further, they thrive in our moderate climate, which is another compelling reason to keep them.

The traditional white boxes you see in yards around the Hawkesbury most likely house European honeybees. There is one type of native stingless bee that can be kept in a hive – the species Dr Shanks is researching –  but the hive is much smaller, “about the size of two child-size shoe boxes,” said Ms Stokes.

Most native bee species don’t live in colonies - some are loners, and some even burrow into the ground. They also don’t produce as much honey as honeybees.

“Most of the Australian native bees are solitary bees. In a European beehive there’s up to 50 or 60 thousand in that hive, whereas a lot of Australian natives are sole traders,” said Ms Stokes.

Compared to the breadth of knowledge we have about honeybees, experts know little about our native species. However there is a growing interest in these stingless varieties, including among the members of Hawkesbury Beekeepers.

According to WSU’s Dr Shanks, Australia’s native stingless bees are not as susceptible to diseases and parasites that have affected colonies of honeybees worldwide.

From her research, she deduced that different behaviours and antimicrobial activities in these bee colonies actually limited brood disease development, which is an important finding for the future of Australia’s bee industry.

In Kurrajong Hills, Ms Stokes has identified around eight different species of native bees buzzing around her garden.

Bees are in trouble in various parts of the world. With so many different species, their threats vary, but amateur beekeepers across the globe are compelled to help protect them.

In the Unites States for instance, a major insecticide brand was found to be dropping bee-killing chemicals earlier this year.

Closer to home, a creature called a small hive beetle is having devastating effects on European honeybees.

“A lot of the pests and diseases of honey bees are infectious. If you have a hive that has succumbed, it’s quite possible that can transmit to other hives,” said Ms Stokes.

“As a beekeeping club, we have a responsibility to make sure our bees stay healthy. We also teach biosecurity.”

Globally, an insect called the varroa mite has been devastating honeybee populations. Though it hasn’t spread on our shores, two hives which had the mite were found in north Queensland earlier this year.  

“The whole industry is mobilising to make sure the pest doesn’t spread. It’s looking like we’re on top of it,” said Ms Stokes.

“Our club president, David Hadfield, flew up there last month to take part in an education program to get control of the varroa mite.”

Amateur beekeepers – like those involved with the local club – are well-placed to contribute to biosecurity efforts as they are a lot ‘closer’ to their bees than large producers.

“This is why the ABA is heavily involved in biosecurity, because we’ve recognised we’ll notice if something is strange in our hives, and be better able to identify it,” said Ms Stokes.

“Amateur beekeepers like to open our hives and see how our bees are doing. Most of us have one or two hives, and we kind of ‘know’ our bees.

“Whereas the larger honey farmers that have hundreds of hives, they don’t open them up and say ‘oh look at that isn’t it lovely’, like we do.”

Visit www.beekeepers.asn.au/hawkesbury/ for more information.