in a world brimming with complexity few creatures
embody harmony like the honeybee with tireless
precision she dances from bloom to bloom each
motion guided by millennia upon millennia of
instinct each act in service to the whole and
then There are the beekeepers, watchful stewards
of this ancient symbiosis. Part agriscientist,
part poet, they move along their hives with the
efficiency of mow, levy and curly, tending to
the bee's needs as best they can comprehend,
and with the infrequency of a waterfall in the
Sahara, sometimes running off flapping and flailing
like a penguin on a hot sidewalk. This is their
journey. Welcome, welcome to Be Love, Be Keep
being presented by our good friends over at Man
Lake. It's fall here in the northern hemisphere
and that means it's time to get your bees ready
for winter. If you're in a cold climate, feed,
feed, feed. Decide if wrapping or insulating
the hives makes sense for you. And no matter
where you live, test and treat if necessary to
make sure Varroa is under control. Mites and
the pathogens they carry are the number one reason
for winter hive loss. And speaking of Varroa,
today we're traveling thousands of miles across
the oceans to meet with Shaden Hinvies, a beekeeper
on an island that is still Varroa free, and to
find out what they're doing to keep it that way.
If my voice will hold up, how about a bit of
news from around the world of beekeeping? And
this may be a big one. Greenlight Biosciences
just received EPA approval for Nuroa, the first
RNA -based treatment for Varroa mites. They describe
it as the first ever nature -based treatment
specifically designed to combat Varroa. This
comes at a time when USDA researchers are blaming
declining efficacy of existing miticides as a
leading cause of honeybee colony loss. You can't
buy it quite yet. It will be available soon.
In the meantime, we'll get someone from Greenlight
Biosciences on the podcast in the next couple
of weeks to tell us all about it. All right,
let's have some fun. Let's head down under for
a delightful discussion about Ligurian bees,
kangaroos, and a whole bunch more. I'd like to
welcome to the show today, Sean Hindbees. And
Sean, I think you are further away than anybody
else that we've had on the show before. So congratulations.
I feel honored. That's great. Say hi and tell
us where you live. Hello everyone who's watching,
wherever you are. I live on an island off the
southern coast of Australia and we call the island
Kangaroo Island and I'm a beekeeper over here
and that's pretty much my sole occupation and
that keeps me very busy. We run about 350 hives.
The island is the third largest island off Australia.
It's about 160 kilometers long. I can't work
that out in miles for you. You'd have to work
that out. And about 90 kilometers wide. So there's
about four and a half thousand people. Yeah.
I'm going to say roughly 50 miles wide, 90 miles
long. Okay. Yep. Yep. We have listeners all over
the world. So metric is great for a lot of people.
How far off the coast of Australia are you? We're
around, I think it's 16 to 18 kilometers off
the coast. So eight, nine miles, something like
that. Anyway, that's going to lead into what
we're talking about today. Australia is such
an interesting place. I've been watching it over
the years because for so many years we were all
jealous that Australia had no Varroa mites. But
you can no longer be jealous. No need to be jealous
anymore. But I believe about three years ago
they were discovered in Australia. Correct me
if I'm wrong. Yes, that is correct. Yes, and
they've taken over really quickly and I know
the people in Australia the beekeepers They've
done everything they can think of to eradicate
it. But I believe at this point it's okay We
can't eradicate them. So let's control let's
learn to live with them. Is that pretty much
the scenario? That's a scenario But from conversations
I've had with people If the eradication program
was remained in place and everyone abide by the
rules, it was possible that they may have been
able to eradicate it. But people weren't, you
know, people were moving hives illegally and,
you know, over 48 ,000 hives were killed to try
and control it. And it got to the stage, I think,
where they're sort of like, well, you know, what
do we do now? Basically, people keep moving their
hive and spreading it. And so I think they just,
they got fed up and decided to well that's it
we'll just manage it. Well and that's the problem
is them moving if they had all stayed in one
spot I imagine they could have done something
about it. Do you have people that do pollination
and move to different areas for pollination?
There's a lot of pollination contracts that happen
within Australia itself, yes. Here on Kangaroo
Island, there is no pollination contract. And
for me myself, I actually avoid pollination,
trying to keep my bees off of monocrops and farming
agricultural land where possible, and just target
the native flower. Good for you. Well, let's
talk about the difference with your island, because
my understanding is you don't have roa there
yet, correct? No, that is correct. I'm sorry
to put in the word yet. You don't have a row
a period. Hopefully you never will. We hope so
too, but that's a likely possibility in the future.
Yes. You're far enough off the mainland that
the bees can't fly that far, but you have fairies
that go over a few times a day. Yeah. Up to 10
to 15 trips a day. How do you keep bees from
hitchhiking on a ferry? That is the next problem.
We've got bar security officers. on the Cape
before the ferry leaves the mainland, and their
powers are not as strong as we'd like them to
be. I'm actually meeting with Senator Scriven
from the Agriculture, she's the Agriculture Minister
here in South Australia, and are trying to work
out ways we can strengthen the biosecurity so
that we can take measures to limit the possibility
of Varroa reaching us eventually. Good luck.
All I can say is good luck. I hope you're successful.
The hardest thing that I think with Varroa though
is, from what I've been told, the Varroa mite
can live about five days without a host. So,
you know, if a car drives through a swarm of
bees and they've got Varroa on them and a number
of bees are trapped in the radiator, that Varroa
mite could stay there for three or four days
and be brought to the island on a car. You know,
it's just, it's that possible. Yeah. It's like
a terrible disease. Yeah. Yeah. It just spreads.
So anyway, I wanted to ask you, is there anything
else that's being done to keep the Varroa away?
I mean, you can inspect cars and people. I don't
know how closely, how reasonable that is. I mean,
you probably have hundreds of cars going back
and forth every day. Possibly at times, almost
a thousand cars a day, possibly. I think that
the ferry holds, I think about 80, 80 to 90 cars,
I think. And, and if they're doing 10 trips a
day, then there's close to a thousand cars there
a day, traveling to the island. We're going to
try and ask if there's a wash down station. So
if someone pulls up and the inspector notices
that there's some bees in the radiator, that
they get a chance to take a car up and wash the
radiator out or something, something like that.
You know, it's, it's nerve wracking and uh, We
don't want to go down the path of using chemicals
to manage Varroa, so we're going to have to try
and work out ways of doing it a little bit more
organically. All right, let's talk about your
island. I hear you have an unusual kind of bee.
Well, for us it's not unusual, but apparently
for other people it is. So we have what's known
as the Ligurian Bee. It was imported to the island
back in 1884, and at that time that is when the
island was settled. uh, by the colonialists from,
from England. And, uh, and they were trying to,
they settled New South Wales, they settled Victoria,
they came around the Bight and they started to
settle South Australia. And they realized there
was no honeybee on Kangaroo Island. So they imported
a number of hives from Liguria in Italy. So it's
an Italian bee. And, um, in 1885, the island
was declared a a bee sanctuary to preserve the
genetics of the Ligurian bee. But be mindful,
at that stage, there was no honeybee on the island
until the Ligurian bee was introduced. And because
we have a very Mediterranean type climate, very
similar to Italy, the Ligurian bees have done
very well here. And I know of recent, within
the last, I think, 10 years, we've been DNA tested
with other patches of Ligurian bee around the
world. and we've been recognized as the most
pure strain of Ligurian bees left in the world.
Tell me about the Ligurian bees. Are they friendly?
Are they mean? What are they like? No, no, they're
a gentle bee. They're very hygienic. Some of
their hygienic abilities are some of the strongest
that many researchers have seen anywhere. We're
hoping that they may actually be... a help to
controlling Varroa long term. There's a beekeeper
over here that breached Queens that has sent
some bees off to some other countries. I think
the Philippines he sent them off to, he's received
letters back stating that they've been helping
with the control of Varroa within some of their
hives. So their hygienic ability is very, very
high. And they're also quite a good producer.
Probably not as good as the aggressive type bees,
but... We've found that the Lagerian bees are
very, very productive. We can, we can have some
pretty good honey flows sometime. And what do
they forage on, on your island? So we were about
a third national park. Uh, so it's nothing but
native flora and fauna. I shouldn't say fauna.
Fauna is my flora and fauna. Yeah, fauna is animals,
isn't it? Thinking about it. I'd stick with flora
if I were you. Yeah, that's true. And, um, and
so. Being a third national park, that's a huge
amount of land that is just native, what we would
call scrub or bushland. A lot of reserves, a
lot of native heritage land, and a lot of landowners
that have their livestock here also keep lots
and lots of patches of native wild trees present.
Tree clearing isn't a common practice here. The
trees that protect the paddocks also play an
important part in the agriculture. Tell me a
little bit about your bee business. Are you making
money just on honey since you're not doing pollination
or do you have other ways of... So we are making
money with honey. Obviously there is no pollination
paid contracts. There are people that produce
canola crops here and fava beans and lupins and
all the myriad of plants that need some form
of pollination. but there's no contract for it.
We have a very high population of feral colonies,
which obviously Varroa would play a big impact
on if it ever did get here. We are GM -free.
There are no GM crops allowed on Kangaroo Island
currently, so that also ticks a few boxes, I
think. We run about 350 hives. Going back to
just before 2020, we were producing somewhere
between 20 and 25 tonne per season. 2020, we
had the largest bushfire ever on Kangaroo Island
and it burnt just on half of the island. Pretty
much all the national parks and so forth were
taken out, which consists of about 70 % of our
productive area. Since the fires, we're sitting
on somewhere between five and nine tonne per
season. We still haven't yet recovered from that.
The trees are still in regrowth. Since the fires,
we've gone into a drought situation. And so there's
just not as much regrowth as there could be.
So the trees are being halted in that regards.
As you know, 2020, we were hit with COVID. So
after the fires, we had to diversify because
there was no real honey for at least 18 months.
And so we sort of went down the line of doing
beekeeping tours and experiences. We opened a
farm gate shop so that we could have people come
to the farm so we can do a bit of retail. And
then COVID stopped all that. So because everyone
was locked down. We just basically went along
with COVID and did what we had to do and we've
worked our way through that. The tourism business
has taken off. We're doing really well with that.
That's providing an extra income, which we didn't
have, but we don't have as much honey as we used
to. And so we play it by ear and go from there.
We do currently supply about 40 to 50 stores
on the mainland, which I go to Adelaide. Adelaide
is the capital center of South Australia. Go
to Adelaide once a month and do my deliveries
there. So we've sort of got our fingers in lots
of little holes. We do retail, we do wholesale,
we do tourism. It's provided enough income to
stay in the black, which is good. Glad to hear
it. We had somebody on the show recently in Hawaii
and the agritourism is an important part of their
business there as well. So I'm glad it's worked
out for you. Sorry, I can't help but ask probably
the dumbest question ever. It's called Kangaroo
Island. Does that mean you have a lot of kangaroos
on the island? We do. We actually have two pet
kangaroos ourselves. If I stand up a little bit
and just show you off my porch here, we've got
to look out over the farm a little bit. And if
you look down the hill a little bit, you see
the two kangaroos having a bit of a play there.
They're just under that big tree. So they're
two of our pet kangaroos. So it was called Kangaroo
Island because when the island was settled...
That was probably a lot of the diet of the settlers.
They were hunting and eating the kangaroos because
there's a large population of them here. So I
guess, anciently, the kangaroos swam that eight
or nine miles from the mainland over. Kangaroos
can swim, but I don't think that they swam to
the island. When the island broke off of the
mainland, however many thousands of years ago,
you'll find there's actually They're a subspecies
of the Western Grey Kangaroo on the mainland.
So over here, they're more brown. They're thicker
set. They're not as skinny as the ones on the
mainland. They're a subspecies of the Western
Grey, which would have been on the island when
the island broke off from the mainland. If you're
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$100 purchase. Here I've gotten totally off track.
We're talking about the wrong animal today. Normally
I've got bees. I'm wondering what else we can
learn from you. Do you have any other pests there?
Small high beetles, anything like that? Straight
after the fires, there was a big push to feed
the wildlife because when half an island burns
out, there's not the feed there to help feed
the wildlife. So there's a lot of fruits and
vegetables brought to the island and spread out
the paddocks for the wildlife to eat for quite
a period of time. And not long Probably a year
after that happened there was a beekeeper out
west who found several hives that had small hive
beetle in it. Now for small hive beetle to get
the western end it would have to have been brought
to the island by either someone bringing a hive
over illegally or the small hive beetle coming
from an area where it was found in the fruit
that was brought to the island. So apparently
small hive beetle can be found in fruit sometimes.
So that's a possibility. But those hives that
it was found in were frozen. They were put into
a freezer. And we haven't found small hive beetle
on the island since. It just sounds too easy.
Except for the fires and COVID and the fact that
you're trying to keep feroa out of there. Sounds
like a pretty easy place to keep bees. Yeah,
well, we don't have European fowl brood. We've
only had ASB on the island for the last I think
two years and So there's a small patch of the
island where it's been there was one beekeeper
found it in his hives and he'd spread it to a
few different areas and so several beekeepers
ended up getting a few hives and there's an outbreak
in the main township called Kingscote here on
the island and they haven't quite eradicated
it properly, but all the honey samplings and
everything that's gone in lately, there's been
no detection of AFB at the moment. It might be
lurking in the background, but we're hoping long
term to eradicate it from the island again. Yeah.
I wonder how in the world it got there. Tell
me about your honey. Is it just a regular, what
we call wildflower honey, meaning that these
are out foraging on all kinds of things and it's
just a nice sweet amber kind of color? Our honeys
vary a lot. So a lot of our trees are Eucalyptus,
Melaleucas, a lot of Australian native scrubland.
Some of our coastal honey can almost be a mauve
purple color or a deep red. Often it's just an
amber color. Yes, sometimes we have a light.
Our sugar gums and our cup gums are quite a light
color. We don't get anything really, really clear
and we don't get anything really, really dark.
Yeah, but that red color sounds interesting.
Yeah, well, it's sort of a deep red, deep red,
almost a slight purpley color at times. That's
the coastal flower. There's a couple of plants
there, the bubealibush, the coastal heath. A
few of them really give it a dark color and a
really amazing flavor. I just got back from Appamondia
and they had the world honey tasting bar. So
there were countries from all over the world,
including Australia. In Australia, I'm trying
to remember. I know they had a few different
kinds of honey. Is there something called Burberry
or something like that? It's possible. It's possible,
but we don't have it on Kangaroo Island. Now,
just for you to understand, I've never kept bees
on the mainland. I've only ever kept bees while
on Kangaroo Island. I've been keeping bees crass
for 25 years. And so there's lots of things I'm
not aware of that happen on the mainland because
we just don't do it here. Do you have any swarm
removal needs? Yes, yes, I spent a lot of time
playing with that. I have a YouTube channel which
I'm very, very slow in adding videos to of me
removing swarms and from buildings and barbecues
and I've got a list of things I've got to edit
to put up. But we have a bit of fun with that.
I do a little bit of TV presentation occasionally.
A few shows come through and get a video of me
doing an experience with them and done a UK show
last year and yeah. Dapple a little bit with
the with the film crews. All right. Give me a
link to that YouTube channel We'll post it for
you. So Ki living honey our YouTube forward slash
Ki for kangaroo island. So Ki living honey We'll
stick it in the show notes. So people don't have
to try to remember be keeping that long I'm guessing
you've got some kind of a wild and crazy story.
Have you ever had anything crazy happen to you?
Yeah I've got lots of little stories. Nothing
really big stands out to me. But you know, when
I first was starting out with bees, I probably
had 10 hives. There was one hive that was so
aggressive, I almost gave up beekeeping. And
I would actually wear two suits to go through
the hive. And I was still fearful. Since then,
you know, I hardly even put a veil on and...
I never wear gloves and I've got holes in all
my clothes. I've been stung pretty much on every
part of my body at some stage. And the most painful
areas is like the inside your nostrils and on
your eyelids and, you know, little things like
that. The groin area isn't as painful as other
areas. But that's all part of having holes in
your pants when you're out with the bees. Learn
by experience. Oh yeah, that's right. I've been
out with people moving bees and it was pitch
black and all of a sudden the box twists and
all the bees fly out and you're covered in bees
and they're attacking you because they don't
like to be moved obviously. But then there's
other times, you know, you're sitting down, you're
going through a hive, you've got 20 cows just
sitting behind you, watching what you're doing
and then you've got the... that the trees next
to you, and then you've got the ocean in the
distance, and it's just beautiful weather, and
just, you know, sometimes you wouldn't want to
be doing anything else. It's an amazing lifestyle.
We have our ups, we have our downs, and story
-wise, yeah, there's lots of stories, lots of
stories. How about with some of the tourists
that you have? You do some kind of tours of your
apiary, and what do you do with them exactly?
So we'll have what we call an education tour
which is talking about the bees and their life
cycle and what we do as beekeepers and why we
do it and how we do it and that's an education
thing. It takes about an hour. We show them the
facility and how it all works and how the extraction
and the packing works and then they have a tasting
and then they have an opportunity to buy some
product if they'd like to. If we're doing an
experience Once we've done the tour with them,
we then take them out. We've got six hives here
near the house that we will take them through
the hive and show them everything we talked about.
Everything from seeing the nectar, the honey,
the pollen. We watch a bee being, you know, hatching
from its cell. We check out the workers, the
drones, the queen. We go through the whole cycle
and we, you know, for me, I'm not one that pushes
time, you know, you've got to be in by nine,
out by 11 type thing. If they want to talk and
ask questions, we'll spend two, three hours going
through it all. And they lead with their mind
completely blown, you know? And then they end
up wanting to have a beehive too. And so then
I can supply them some bees later. And lots of
things are happening that way too. Yeah, sounds
great. Do you ever have some of those people
that sort of panic? They can't all be calm and
collected. No, no, no. Some people come through
to do it to try and face their fears. And so
there's some people and some... But I get them
all to hold frames of live bees. They're all
suited up. They've got gloves on. You know, the
chance of getting stung is very slim. And we've
only ever had one sting in the field in the last
five years. And that's because one lady decided
to not wear socks. And that was a choice that
she made. I've had one family group came through.
If the father was to get stung, he would have
to be rushed off to hospital because he was anaphylactic
and he could possibly die. And so he was going
to do the tour inside the shed. and that the
rest of his family go off and do the experience
part of it. I said to him, I said, if you'd like,
I can put a suit on you and you can watch from
the car park. And so he said, yeah, you will
do that. Well, by the end of the experience,
he was actually in there holding frames of bees
too. And his mind was blown. And you know, it
literally changes people's lives when they see
one little insect and the impact that they make
on us as humans. Leave us with one thought. Why
do you love bees? Why do I love bees? It's something
I've sort of fallen into. All right. So when
I first started, I was in a job. I was a tire
fitter and we're a liner in a workshop. We've
got five children. We lived on the farm here.
And in my job, there was no option of earning
more income. So we were always trying to find
ways of saving money. So, you know, we've got
milking goats. So in the morning before the kids
went to school, I'd milk the goats and they'd
have fresh warm milk on their breakfast. There's
the chickens for the eggs and the meat. We had
our cows, we'd butcher our own livestock, we'd
butcher our own sheep. We'd eat the kangaroos,
we'd grow a lot of our own vegetables. And then
getting a beehive was just another thing for
us to sort of save a bit of money. That's where
it all started. And then I just fell in love
with how they work, what they produce, what they
do for us. And so one became five and 10 and
20. In the beginning stages, we actually had
no electricity on our home. So back in 2000,
we lived here with five children. no electricity,
not even a generator for the house. We only had
gas lanterns, gas stove, gas hot water, and everything
was gravity fed. We don't have mains water. We
don't have mains sewage. It was whatever we can
collect and get rid of ourselves. And so the
bees have has been, it's pulled me out of where
I was to where I am now. We were able to sell
the honey to another beekeeper. And so we built
our numbers up. So I'd work the bees on the weekend
and And then we had the job in the week and then
I weaned off of the job and worked in bees longer
and longer. Eventually we were full time. And
now we've got an income here that's sustained
just quite comfortably. And I just love the smells,
the sounds, the environment, the produce that
they make. It's transformed my life and I watch
it do the same to other people. Great answer.
Sorry. I said that was the last question, but
I've got one more. You mentioned eating kangaroos.
What do they taste like? Well, whenever someone
says they eat meat, everyone says it tastes like
chicken, but kangaroo does not taste like chicken.
Are you familiar with what lamb tastes like?
Yes. So it's stronger than lamb and it's going
down the path possibly of deer. It's a bit gamier,
but it's not as strong as wild pig. If you sort
of know what I mean. Can you tell me what honey
tastes like? Yeah, it's sweet. Harder question.
Just tell me what salt tastes like. Yeah, that's
right. That's exactly right. But when it comes
to salt, I can't tell what it tastes like, but
everything you add it to tastes better. Kangaroos,
we would have a lot of kangaroo mince when the
kids were young. You don't actually notice the
difference when you add your vegetables and your
spices and your herbs and all that sort of stuff.
So it's not an overpowering meat. but it's definitely
stronger than lamb, but probably not, probably
not as strong as goat. Okay, gamey and needs
salt. Alright, Sean Hinvis, thanks so much for
being with me today. I appreciate it. Loved having
a chat with you. All the best and all the best
for your, your show and what you do. Thank you.
Thanks for joining us on Be Love Beekeeping presented
by Man Lake. If you like this content I hope
you'll share it with a friend, follow and subscribe
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at BeLoveBeekeeping .com Also, just a shout out
to Vita B Health for their support, we appreciate
them. Vita's Varroa Control range of products
includes Epistan, Epigard, and now Veroxen, Extended
Release Oxalic Acid Strips. Thanks guys. And
remember, if you're not just in it for the honey
or the money, you're in it for the love. See
you next week.