Why we decided to keep bees

I come from a bee keeping family.  My Grandpa and Dad were beekeepers until my grandpa died in1969 and my dad became an apiary inspector for the South Australian Department of Agriculture. What they didn’t know about bees and honey wasn’t worth knowing. I remember my dad sitting in front of our open fire during winter soldering frames and wax sheets together. It was fascinating to watch and know that soon bees would be making honey and honeycomb in the wax.

We always had beehives in our backyard, which was useful as we grew most of our fruit and vegetables, so plants were pollinated, and honey was abundantly available. I remember being stung countless times as I grew up, mainly my fault for annoying them or being too close to the hive.

When we moved to Greendale my dream was to raise chickens for eggs and meat, grow our own fruit and vegetables and have a beehive. Jon bought me a Flow Hive in 2023, and being able to source a swarm of bees in March 2023 we were on our journey to producing our own honey.

As our bees feed from any flowers they can find, and we don’t have a predominance of any one type of tree or flower, we do not produce a specific type of honey (i.e. Red Gum). Our 2024 harvest has a slight clove/cinnamon flavour so our bees are definitely enjoying the clover that keeps appearing in our paddocks. We look forward to tasting our yearly harvest to see what flavour our bees have decided to share with us.

I cannot thank family enough, Judy, Vic and Aaron Woollston (Meningie, South Australia) for all their help and advice on keeping and caring for bees and producing honey. Thanks also to the Amateur Beekeepers Guild (Bega) for their support and advice.

Looking forward to sharing our honey and its associated story with you!