Local bee-keepers and educators Ally Shepard and Steph Blum are on a mission to raise public awareness about the importance of bees and the threats they’re facing.
“European honey bees are responsible for one in three mouthfuls of food,” Ms Shepard said.
“We also have up to 1700 species of solitary bees, and a lot of the time, people aren’t aware that we have beautiful solitary bees in our gardens, who help with different kinds of pollination.
“We really want to educate people about how pollination powers the planet and engage younger generations to look after the planet into the future.”
Every pollinator is important to local ecosystems and environments, Ms Shepard said. One way locals can help bees thrive is by creating a bee haven in their garden at home.
“Leave a little bit of unkempt lawn and some leaves scattered in a particular area to allow our ground nesting bees,” Ms Shepard said.
“Our Amegilla or blue-banded bees, which pollinate tomatoes and guavas, are ground-nesting bees.
“And stop using pesticides, instead you can plant some amazing companion plants, like marigolds or nasturtiums.”
At their upcoming session at Logan West Library from 10.30am to 12pm on Saturday, 31 January, run by Urban Bee Education, small logs with holes drilled into them, which are perfect homes for solitary bees, will be given to session participants.
In 2022, two years after Ms Shepard had established her business, Norma May Honey, she met Ms Blum from Urban Bee Education.
A business that runs workshops, educational sessions, and incursions for all ages about the role of bees in our environment.
Together they began collaborating to deliver workshops, educational sessions, and workshops at Mayes Cottage, environmental festivals like LEAF, and at local schools and libraries, and are collectively known as the Girls in Pink.
“Our very first session was at the Logan library in Woodridge, and it was very popular,” Ms Shepard said. “We then did three more booked-out sessions at Mayes Cottage.”
LEAF Eco festival, held annually at Griffith University’s Logan campus, has booked the pair for the last three years.
“Now we’ve moved to delivering workshops in other councils, like the Gold Coast, Moreton Bay, and the Sunshine Coast.
“It was really Logan libraries who were like, ‘We love what you do, and we see your passion,” she said. “They really inspired us to be who we are now.”
Since May last year, Queensland bee hives have been underthreat from varroa mite, an invasive mite or lice, that target bees as they pollinate flowers and return to their hive.
Back at the hive varroa mite can infect, weaken, and eventually kill thousands of bees in a hive, and other hives nearby.
“It came into Australia, in New South Wales, in June 2022, and the government tried to eradicate it by euthanasing bee hives to try and stop the spread,” Ms Shepard
“But unfortunately, we couldn’t get on top of it, and in 2023 the government declared it a pest.”
Now the challenge is managing the damage the varroa mite does to bee populations and the knock-on effect that will have.
“We have a huge infestation at the moment, all the way from Scenic Rim to Redlands; People have lost huge numbers of bees.
“Steph and I are using something called the varroa controller, which is thermal heat treatment,” Ms Shepard said.
“We were the first in Queensland to bring it in, and we’re one of three to use this fire heat mite treatment.”
Ms Shepard is documenting the results of using heat instead of chemicals to treat mites, in the hope it’ll give hives a better chance of survival, she said.
So far, all of Ms Shepard’s aperies in Daisy Hill, Shailer Park, and Tanah Merah are withstanding the storm.
But three other hives in Redlands have been killed.
“When we first found out we had varroa mite, we were already hugely infested, so we had just started learning about heat treatment,” she said.
“Steph and I are trying to educate everybody about the detrimental effects varroa is having on the bee population, and how it affects our food system.”
Visit Norma May Honey’s website for more information on how you can attend a workshop or educational session.
