Australian Stonefruit Grower Magazine Issue 4 April 2017 | Page 11

Feature
barbed and you have to scratch it out
– don’t squeeze it, that just squeezes
more poison into your system. Also it’s
true that the bee dies when it stings you
which is pretty sad.”
For someone who has been stung
as many times as that, Elizabeth
is remarkably gung-ho about the
prospect.
While I’m all covered up, she wears
no gloves as she inspects the hives
– “it’s more tactile without gloves”-
pulling out frames of honey.
She notices hive beetles in the
frames, which are a native of Africa
and were introduced to Australia
accidentally, probably in soil. They
are a pest and she starts squashing
them individually with her thumb or
Beekeepers must always leave some honey in the hive to sustain it.
Photo courtesy www.talkingwithbees.com
forefinger – whatever’s closest – at
breakneck speed, missing the bees by millimetres.
Her sting count will be 201 before the day’s out at this
rate, I think to myself. But sure enough, she manages.
“So, tell me about bees,” I say in what was the broadest
question I could come up with, informing her that, like
most people, my entire knowledge of bees is that they
sting, occasionally swarm, produce honey and I now know
officially that they die when they sting.
And off she goes, telling me about a social structure
that seems to flog the females to death while the boys sit
beekeepers. In spring, one colony can contain up to 50,000
bees in spring.”
There are 3445 beekeepers in NSW, and annually
Australian produces 25,000 to 30,000 tonnes of honey.
I ask if Elizabeth has become a honey snob in her line of
work. She pauses a second.
“Well, I always have a stash at home of three or four
varieties,” she says. “I’ll try one depending on my mood.
“I usually end up buying directly from a beekeeper or at
a farmers market.”
back and watch, how their sex lives would put Hollywood I ask her if she has it with toast. She’s unimpressed.
Housewives to shame, what it takes to make a bee happy, I guess it is like asking a lover of single malt whisky
and the requirements of good beekeeping.
By the numbers
“There’s 1600 species of native bee in Australia, of
which 14 are stingless. The European honey bee (species
Apis millifera to be exact) is not native, but is the one that
pollinates a vast number of crops, fruits and vegetables,
and the lucerne that feeds cattle which ends up on your
if he has it with coke, or a wine man if he puts ice in his
chardonnay.
“No,” she explains. “Just a spoonful, nothing else,
although sometimes I’ll make ice cream with it.”
I decide to get her back to bees.
Hive of activity
For a happy hive you need warmth, shade and nearby
burger. They produce more honey and reproduce more water. As bees are sensitive to temperature, this may entail
readily than others and is overwhelmingly the choice for moving the hive depending on the season. A hive left
summerfruit.com.au
April 2017 | Australian Stonefruit Grower
11