Bea, a beekeeper on the surf coast is interviewed by her sister, Eliza
Hey Bea! About time I get you in for an interview. Tell us about Beaswax, and where the passion for beekeeping was born?
Hey lyz! Beaswax began in covid, when I quit my office job in Melbourne and moved to the surf coast to work for a local beekeeper, working behind a screen full time wasn’t for me. The slower pace lifestyle on the coast and beekeeping really helped me when I was diagnosed with Chron’s disease.
When you’re in a hive you have to be mentally and physically so present and focused on what you’re doing - it’s a form of meditation, a sacred practice that humans have been doing for thousands of years since Ancient times.
Each hive has its own personality and temperament, every time you go into a hive you learn something new, they are always teaching us, and no colony is the same. Bee’s can even recognise human faces and they remember their beekeeper.
Over the past 15 years, bee colonies have been declining. Over clearing of land, sprays like pesticides, climate change, natural and man made disasters are a few reasons why.
2 out of 3 mouthfuls of food we eat comes from bees. They even pollinate cancer drugs and cotton for our clothes too. We would be fucked without them. In some parts of China, they are having to pollinate fruit trees by hand because there are no bees.
For the average city slicker, what does beekeeping entail? What is your average day of beekeeping?
Everyday is different and it depends on the season too. In spring the bees swarm, this is a natural way that they reproduce, the old queen leaves with the worker bees and lets the new younger queen continue in the existing hive. In spring I catch swarms or do cut outs (when a bee colony makes a home in a cavity of a building).
My days vary from checking in on my hives, spinning honey, catching swarms and cut outs, helping people with their hives and I’m also starting to teach local schools. I’ve also started a product line selling tees, jumpers, candles and honey.
Do you beekeep purely for harvesting honey, or do you save and relocate endangered bees?
Haha no! Honey is a bonus. Every new beekeeper thinks they will get a lot of honey and are disappointed when they don’t.
80% of beekeepers quit after the first year because they don’t realise how much effort and time it takes. I love saving and relocating bees by catching swarms and doing cut outs, it’s always so much fun and you end up in random places whether it’s chasing bees around the streets of Corio, or lying under a red-back infested calf shed, it’s always an adventure.
Bees are becoming more and more talked about. The danger of bees becoming extinct is a threat that will affect humankind massively.
How can we all help bees if we aren’t beekeepers?
By planting flowers that are indigenous to your area or that are bee friendly. Bees get their protein from pollen in flowers and each flower has different nutrient levels.
Don’t spray! use your hands and weed don’t use pesticides. Weeds are trying to tell us that there is something wrong with the soil, so fix that instead of spraying pesticides that kill bees.
Plant a herb garden - bees love herbs and they are healing for them, it’s like vitamins for our bees!
Don’t clear land and leave your garden messy! Bees love piles of leaves or fallen down trees, this is where our native bees (they live on their own not in a hive like honeybees) set up their nests.
Buy honey from your local beekeeper not the supermarket (most of supermarket honey is heated up sugar syrup from the anyway with no nutrient benefits)
So, you sell 100% beeswax candles and Merch designed by your friend, Nick Mez. Where does one purchase your products?
I currently sell my products on big cartel. You can also purchase my candles in person at Boom Gallery, in Geelong. All of my profits from merchandise and candles go back into saving the bees. You can stay up to date with new designs and releases via my instagram.
How do you stay motivated, and what are some obstacles you have encountered with beeswax?
My biggest obstacle has been my health - I’m in hospital writing this now. I was diagnosed with Chrons disease a year ago and it has a been a really tough recovery, it’s a chronic illness that I’ll have for life and they still don’t know the cause of this or have a cure.
What I do for Beaswax is so physical, I need to be mobile, checking hives and going from one place to another, it’s not something I can do from a laptop or hospital bed. If I’m not there to check on the bees, no one is. I’ve spent over 83+ days in the hospital in the past year and what keeps me motivated is the feeling I get when I’m out with my bees.
You are an inspiration for women in the field of beekeeping, a rare occurrence. What words of advice would you give women who want to begin beekeeping but are intimidated as it is a field of mostly men?
One of the first encounters I had was with an older male beekeeper, he told me that I should give up because I’m a woman, and you know what I say to that, fuck them.
Never let anyone tell you that your gender is holding you back, I even painted my first beehive bright pink in honour. Don’t listen to them and use it to drive you — there is no better motivation. There’s a reason why they’re called queen bees and not king bees.
What’s your favourite beekeeping memory?
I got a call out one afternoon to a hive that was going to be exterminated if the bees weren’t removed. They had moved into the side of a couch. This was a pretty special job because it was the first one I was going on my own without any of my mentors. My sister (you) and best friend came to give me a hand, it was sunset and we were in a big rush to get all the bees inside the box and to find the queen safely.
We were there for hours lying on the ground trying to find her with the flashlights on our phones getting more worried by the second as the sun was setting. We ended up scooping all the bees into the hive.
The next day I just knew we hadn’t caught her, I went out and there she was sitting on the couch, I didn’t have any of my bee gear with me, I scooped her up with my hands and put her into the hive.
This happened on WORLD BEE DAY last year, the day I launched Beaswax, I also met my partner on this bee job and we’re expecting our baby girl to arrive in June. Ever since that day James has realised the importance of Bees
Which bee is your favourite, and why?
It’s hard to pick because we have the best bees in Australia, at the moment my favourite is the Teddy Bear Bee, they are so cute and literally look like fluffy flying bears. They also use buzz pollination where they grip on the the flower and buzz at a high frequency to release all the pollen, they pollinate tomato’s and blueberries
