Alexandra and Sam from Warriwillah Farm - Part 2: Small-Scale Beekeeping
Following on from last fortnights chat with Alexander and Sam; land stewards of Warriwillah farm in Moriac. We jump onto the topic of all things small-scale bee keeping and honey production! Alexandra and Sam are one of our fantastic honey suppliers here at Common Ground Project so we were keen to dive deeper into their experience with producing honey.
What drew you to working with bees initially and how has this curiosity grown with experience and time?
Sam: I have always wanted a beehive, but not until we moved to Warriwillah Farm and noticed that the previous owners had bees that it started to become a reality. We were then given a beehive as a wedding/house warming present and my interest was really sparked! We’ve had a few ups and downs and stings along the way, produced some amazing tasting honey and grown our hive numbers. Unfortunately, we lost all but one hive in the 2022 floods, but we are slowly building the numbers up and catching swarms as we go.
Alexandra: Interestingly, my uncle has bees in a community garden in Geelong so has really helped nurture our interest in apiary. When we got our first hive I was anxious at first as I am allergic to bees but once I had confidence Sam knew what he was doing and we invested in the right equipment it’s been a great experience. Undoubtedly honey tastes better when you grow it yourself and it makes me so disappointed to hear that so much commercially available honey is sugarised or watered down or processed in very artificial ways. It’s such a shame when the raw product is so good!
So how did you learn to work with the bees given your allergy?
Alexandra: I just try to avoid getting too close. One of the worst experiences I’ve had getting stung was when my niece was doing a school project on bees, so she wanted us to take a video of hive. So while Sam was doing hive checks I videoed with a big zoom from a fair distance away. Somehow the bees went nuts and came to me. One of them got caught in my hair and stung my head. My whole head was so swollen, I couldn’t see out of one of my eyes for a couple of days.
What varieties of honey do you make and does it change with the seasons?
Sam: All our honey is natural and raw, straight from the hives with no additives. The majority of our honey is collected through spinning the frames. We also have a small amount of pressed honey which creates a creamy thicker honey; this is actually our favourite. We are reliant on the seasons and the bees, so what they produce we can harvest. The flavours of the honey change from season to season and depend on what flowers the bees get their nectar from.
Alexandra: I find that the flavours tend to be richer and creamier in the creamed honey. I don’t know exactly why that is, but I think it's maybe it’s more naturally formed, often on the lid or rogue in the hive rather than in the designated frames. Harvesting using the pressed method is a lot more manual and time consuming. Maybe that’s what makes it taste so good too!
Our honey can be runny, thick, dark or light depending on the seasons – what’s in flower, how much rain we’ve had etc. What we harvest in late spring is often really different to late summer because the flowers and the nectar that the bees are accessing is different. When we moved here the house garden was cottage style with more exotic species that weren’t really resilient to the climate. Over the past few years we have replace most exotic species with natives. Interestingly, blue and purple flowers are more attractive to bees, so we’ve planted native rosemary and other species of those colours. We also have quite a lot of flowering gums, our whole driveway is flowering gums (mainly eucalyptus cladocalyx and corymbia maculate) which attract a lot of bees. There are always bees in the driveway. We also have many acacias, flowering melalucas and callistemons all around the house and in wind break plantations between paddocks.
Do you practice a particular style of beekeeping and how does this differ to other methods e.g. mainstream apiaries?
Sam: We use the traditional method of harvesting honey. It’s quite labour intensive, aided now by an electric spinner. When we started out, we either manually pressed all of our honey or drove into Geelong to use a manual spinner (where you turn the handle), both of those methods are a lot of effort for big batches.
When we only had the press you'd have to literally scrape all the trays down, so all the wax would come off and go through the press. Whereas when you spin it, you only have to take the top capping off the honeycomb, so the honeycomb structure stays in place. This is much more efficient because the bees can start filling the comb and cap it off much faster because they’re not having to spend time and energy rebuilding the comb structure.
At our peek (pre 2022 floods) we had six thriving hives. At any time there are always some hives that are doing better than others. We have bought some of the hive boxes and frames and some we have acquired and had to restore or fix. When we have strong hives we make them double stackers (i.e. put a box on top) and use a queen excluder so that the top box becomes purely honey production.
I think our style is pretty standard, but a small operation compared to many businesses. I’ve learnt most of what we do through other local beekeepers and some reading and YouTube.
How do the seasons (reliable or unreliable) influence the maintenance, harvesting and yields of your hives?
Sam: The seasons play a big part in the reliability and productivity of the bees and their honey. We like to leave the bees to do their thing as much as possible, but do conduct regular checks on the hives and harvest when they are filling up. The better the season in terms of plant growth and flower, the better the harvest and honey supply. Last year was a very wet spring and we lost a number of hives so the honey supply wasn’t great.
Alexandra: The seasons play a huge part. Of all the produce on our farm honey is probably most influenced by the seasons. Like fruit and veggies there isn’t all year round reliability with honey. It’s very much spring and summer; winter’s not even an option for harvesting. Luckily honey stores well through. Sometimes we open an old jar that is a few years old! Sometimes it’s a bit crystalised but it’s still delicious.
During the winter the bees bunker down, so we compress the hives to make them smaller for hibernation (of sorts). Spring is when the most production occurs but also when lots of hives swarm (look for new homes). Last spring we caught two swarms on our property. One stuck to the new hive we put them in, the other was pretty crazy and swarmed again and we never found it. If you don't get the queen and bunker them down properly, they don't know that it's a home and they'll just swarm again. The previous spring we had half a dozen swarms, include a couple at our neighbour’s.
The following summer one of the hives was so full we could hardly get the lid off. They had built comb of every time space in the hive. It was fascinating and certainly prompted us to undertake more regular inspections in summer!
Bees are such an integral and invaluable part of ecosystems pollinating plants, fast providing us with food. However, many spaces are sadly under threat due to climate change, intensive and harmful farming practices, habitat loss, and pests and disease. How do you feel about their future with this in mind?
Sam: I never truly understood how important bees were and are to the ecosystem and farming practices until getting our own hives. I’ve done a fair bit of research and learning to understand bees I’ve realised what fascinating creatures they are and what a vital role they play not only in farming, but general life too.
Alexandra: Bees have been in the news a bit recently due to pests and disease, mainly varroa mite. The bee population and honey supply in Australia have taken a hit due to this disease.. Interestingly as a bee keeper you must be registered so we receive lots of information through government. Like all food processing you have to consider and be quite sterile in the way you process honey. Being sticky it can attract dust and bugs easily.
The varroa mite issue in Australia has been interesting. Whether we should try to eradicate a disease like that by killing off infected hive or learn to live with it realising that bees are such an important part of our ecosystem. I heard that industries like the almond industry were really struggling when all of the varroa mite hives were being killed off because bees are so important to almond pollination and the varroa mite was precent in almond growing parts of the country.
What are some of your favourite recipes to make using your honey?
Alexandra: We generally just eat it raw, often by the spoon! I Often use it in cooking as a sweetener alternative and have it with porridge or in stewed rhubarb. If you can handle the sugar intensity it literally just tastes the best on a spoon! Or on a crusty piece of sourdough.
Thanks for stopping by for the read! We hope you enjoyed it. And a big thanks to Alexandra and Sam for sharing their experience of life in honey.
If you or someone you know has a story they want to share with our community about food or farming, we’d love to hear from you! Get in touch with us foodhub@commongroundproject.com.au
