IF you’re looking for an iconic food to have on Australia Day, then look no further than Australian honey.
The most popular varieties are stringybark, ironbark, yellow box, river red gum, and leatherwood.
Burradoo resident Reg Marsh has been an avid apiarist for more than 50 years.
It’s not his main job but it’s a hobby that he really loves.
Mr Marsh said it started when he was younger because he was into fitness.
“It was in the days of old Percy Cerruty and Herb Elliott,” he said.
“And we used to hang on every word that Percy Cerruty said. And he said ‘you had to have chopped fruit and raw rolled oats and honey’.
“So I found myself eating quite a lot of honey.”
This led the physiotherapist by trade to make his own honey.
Working in a commonwealth rehab centre in Hornsby, he had a colleague who was working as a remedial gymnast.
This friend wasn’t making a great deal of money so on the side he was an SP bookie.
Mr Marsh said he was reading a magazine about beekeeping one morning before work.
“There was an ad on the page, 100 hives of bees at a deceased estate in Springwood,” he said.
“He [the friend] was looking over my shoulder and said ‘what do you think those are worth?’
“I took a stab and he put his hand into his pocket and pulled out the notes. He said ‘go and buy them and we will run them on shares. We will work them out later’.”
Eighty hives later, Mr Marsh had kicked his hobby off.
Growing up in Katoomba, it worked out well, as his wife and children visited his parents while he shot off around the mountains running bees.
Mr Marsh said when bees were getting honey it came in quite quickly.
“On a really good yellow box flow they can put in 60 pounds of honey in two weeks,” he said.
After getting rid of the hives at Springwood, Mr Marsh went back to only having a couple of hives when the family moved to Burradoo.
Mr Marsh said he always had a few hives throughout his life.
“When I retired from full time physio five years ago I upped the number to 50,” he said.
Like all beekeepers he moves the hives around, following primarily the flowering eucalypts.
To get an optimum amount of honey the bees need to be continually moved.
Mr Marsh said bees were put on the peak flowering period.
“You produce your honey and then you move them to another site,” he said.
“The commercial guys move them a lot and they move them big distances.
“Last winter they moved truckloads of bees from Armidale right down to the far south coast on the spotted gum, for instance.”
This year doesn’t look like it is going to be a good one for the beekeepers.
With a dry hot spring, the bees didn’t breed as well.
Trees are also an important link in the chain because of the flowering cycle.
The spotted gum on the south coast buds and then it will flower two or three years later.
Yellow box, one of Australia’s top honey producing trees, buds but doesn’t flower until 12 months later.
The bloodwood, another favourite with honey connoisseurs, buds six weeks before it flowers.
Flora knowledge and watching the weather is very important to an apiarist.
Mr Marsh said hot weather as well as extreme cold weather affects bees.
“Sometimes they can be a little bit more agitated when it is hot,” he said.
“Particularly if there is changeable weather around. It does affect their temperament.
“They will tend to hang out in the heat. You will see the bees come out and cluster in front of the hive to keep cool.
“To keep cool they sit out the front with their little wings fanning like crazy.
“This helps keep their temperature in the hive fairly even... they will try to keep it at around 30 degrees.”
By fanning their wings, which beat at 11,400 times per minute, they cause a draught over the cones inside the hive, which keeps the temperature regular.
This is one of many fascinating habits of bees, but the Mr Marsh said the most important thing for the consumer is that bees produce the nectar of the gods.
*Reg Marsh’s honey Highland Apiaries can be bought in a variety of stores around the Southern Highlands.
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