We're thrilled to be hosting bees -- lots and lots of bees -- on Croobyar Farm. Fresh air. Acres of flowers. What more could our esteemed Air-bee-n-bee guests want?
Apiarist Vince Ingold from Pointer Mountain Honey has relocated some of his surviving bees to Croobyar Farm after his business was devastated by bushfires during Black Summer.
The New Year's Eve fire ripped through Vince's property, destroying millions of bees, turning hive structures to ash, and causing metal drums of stored honey to explode open. (You can read more about Vince's experience here.) Even before the bushfires arrived, drought had devastated many of the bees' most important sources of pollen, particularly flowering gums.
Since being relocated to Croobyar Farm, our bee guests are gathering pollen from fireweed (delicious for bees; annoying to Farmer Rob), thistle, Purple Top and many other flowering weeds appearing after the fires scorched Croobyar. Red and white clover is abundant in the farm's pastures after the recent rains.
Bees, probably the most important pollinators in our ecosystems, are responsible for pollinating a third of all the food humans eat. Across the planet, bees are under significant environmental stress due to habitat loss and climate breakdown. Given these facts, it is so much more than a privilege for us to be able to host Vince's bees on the farm -- it's a way of helping reverse the decline of the world's bee populations.
We need bees. We love bees. And, as Eddie Izzard famously said in his comedic skit, we're "covered in beeeeees!"
