Victorian Bushfires Impact Beekeeper Access to Essential Winter Bee Trees

Victorian beekeepers say they are concerned that the bushfires that hit the state earlier this month will compound with fire damage from last year and restrict access to suitable land and trees. For the second year in a row Victoria has experienced significant bushfires impacting communities and agriculture. Last year 320,434 hectares burnt in Victoria and more than 400,000 hectares have been razed this year. Losses in both areas include trees apiarists use to feed bees through winter. The combined loss has thrown plans into disarray and sparked concerns about the flow-on effects onto the agriculture commodities the bees support, such as canola, berries and almonds. 'Not sure where they'll go' Victorian Apiarists Association (VAA) president Lindsay Callaway said access to nectar and pollen was an immediate concern. "We had significant loss of resources last year and we've been hit again this year," he said. "In some cases it can take up to eight years before the bush has recovered enough for us to go back and use those high-quality trees to build strong and health hives." Mr Callaway said the impacts on beekeepers had repercussions for other industries reliant on pollination. The farm-gate value of the beekeeping industry is estimated at $363.6 million by Agrifutures, with much of the value coming from the pollination services provided to other high-value crops, including almonds. More than $700 million worth of almonds were exported to China last year. Mr Callaway said it took months of planning to ready bees to pollinate certain crops. "Planning for almonds doesn't start two weeks before [pollination season] — it starts six to nine months before," he said. "We're thinking about the nutrition that the bees have going into autumn and the trees which meet those requirements, like messmate and red stringybark. "I was talking to fellow beekeepers across the state who were planning on working trees like red stringy — they've lost access to those from the fire, so they're not sure where they'll go." 'An economic question' University of Wollongong biological sciences lecturer James Dorey said the loss of access to suitable trees was a serious issue. "Honey bees are an important agricultural species which produce an important product and support other agriculture industries like crops — it is an economic question," he said. "For native bees, the question is similar and different. "Both native and managed bees will be looking for resources in those huge swathes of land which have been burnt." A strategy of last resort for apiarists is supplementation or dry feeding, which Mr Callaway said was an option but not a preference. "Supplementation is definitely an option if we can't access resources, but we'd prefer to be able to work the trees which provide more than just sugar," he said.