WORKER BEES

As pollinators, architects and cooks, bees play a critical role in our ecosystem, writes MAGGIE SCARDIFIELD. Plus, they give us nature’s sweetest treat.

Bees play a key role in our ecosystem, and give us nature’s sweetest treat.

There are 1700 native species of bees in Australia, as well as the introduced species: the European honeybee, apis mellifera. Sure as hell, at least one of these bees stung you as a child: perhaps while running under the sprinkler in the hot January sun, at the local swimming pool or playing backyard cricket. More often than not, being stung by a bee is a human’s first encounter with the tiny, diligent insects that waggle-dance from plant to plant, flower to flower, pollinating a massive one-third of the world’s food supply in the process. Some of them sting. But there are plenty of other reasons to look out for them, too.

BEES ARE AT MAJOR RISK

Global bee populations have been in decline for years. Varroa mite disease is one of the biggest causes: a tiny parasite with the power to unravel our entire food system. Australia is one of the only varroa-free zones in the world, and so far it's managed to avoid the mite and colony collapse disorder (where entire hives are wiped out overnight). “We still have great, healthy colonies and the best conditions for honeybees anywhere on earth,” says urban beekeeper Nic Dowse, founder of Melbourne creative studio, Honeyfingers. “But how can we keep it that way? It's all about communication.”

BEES ARE COOKS

Dowse produces small-batch, raw honey in urban hives across Melbourne, and his studio works to educate people on the collective intelligence of bees and their importance to our food system. One of his favourite topics is how bees cook and ferment their own food, just as humans might bake sourdough bread or turn surplus cabbage into kimchi. "A beehive is a very warm and humid place, about 35 degrees, and any food would spoil at that,” Dowse says. “The bees ferment their pollen to control the decay rate.

It's a lactic-acid ferment and the same process humans use to make bread.”

BEES FEED US

Bees are needed to produce countless products we rely on (coffee, cotton, myriad fruits, seeds and nuts). Broadcaster and avid gardener Indira Naidoo had never seen bees on her balcony in inner-city Sydney, until she began growing her own food. “I thought that was a good thing because

I am allergic to bees,” she says. It wasn't until her zucchini flowers weren't ripening into zucchini that she realised the critical role pollinators play in feeding us. “Now I don't think about eating what I grow,” she says. “It's more about, oh, the bees are going to love this borage!”

BEES WORK FOR FREE

A massive 70 per cent of bees in Australia are wild, which essentially means they're working to pollinate our crops for free. Climate change poses a huge risk to this. Not only because bees are losing their natural habitat as fires burn and drought wages on, but high temperatures are causing crops to flower at irregular times, which is confusing for the bees. “We have to have an open, honest discussion around what our future is going to look like if we don't have those free pollination services,” says Dowse.

BEES ARE ENGINEERS AND ARCHITECTS

The shape of honeycomb, the hexagon, is known for its efficiency and strength, and has been employed the world over for everything from nuts and bolts to the insulation in aeroplane wings. “It's good under compression, and uses the least amount of material for the most volume gained,” says Dowse. “It's quite magical to think that bees have figured this out by working together over millennia.”

BEES LOVE THE CITY

At Yerrabingin, the Indigenous-run native rooftop garden in Sydney's South Eveleigh, there are more than 2000 native plants. Many of them, such as hardenbergia, have been planted to lure bees. “Normally it's quite difficult to attract them to rooftops as they don't really like the wind, or to fly too far or too high,” says co-founder Clarence Slockee. “But we've had a heap up here.” This doesn't surprise Dowse, who believes that bees will not only survive, but thrive in our cities, if we put in the work. “The drought hits us last. We don't have floods. We don't have broad-acre chemicals being sprayed,” he says. “We're in the last continental golden age of beekeeping on earth. With that comes huge responsibility.”

More often than not, being stung is a human’s first encounter with the insects that pollinate one-third of the world’s food supply.