Benedict Hughes

Bees are important.  Really important.

Bees are vital for pollination of flowers, vegetables, fruit trees and nuts.  The bees spread pollen from one flower to the next and give those plants the best possible chance of producing a large healthy crop.  Without the bees there will be less produce.  That means less food for all of us.



You might have heard that our bees are under threat.  Worldwide bee colonies are being destroyed by a tiny little mite.  For something so small it's doing a lot of damage.  The Varroa Mite is not yet in Australia but you can be sure it's on its way.  Combine this with other pests and diseases and its clear that we need to do more to build up strong hives in our communities.

A well known registered beekeeper Benedict Hughes is The Practical Beekeeper.  He manages bee hives and delivers educational courses around Victoria.  Benedict is regularly called out rescue swarms of bees from the most unlikely of places.  Check out his YouTube channel if you want to see Benedict in action.

CERES Environment Park in Brunswick, Melbourne and Taranaki Farm in Woodend, Victoria are both committed to education, sustainability and community renewal.  In partnership with The Practical Beekeeper these organisations will provide the venue for education courses and a home for the bees.

So what are we going to do?

Bees have been an important part of CERES Environment Park since its inception, but the hives are a little worse for wear and need replacing.  The Practical Beekeeper has installed three hives at Taranaki Farm but more are needed.  With your help, The Practical Beekeeper is going to set up healthy, strong, accessible hives at CERES Environment Park and Taranaki Farm and use these hives to educate and train the next generation of beekeepers.

Beekeeping has been a tough business for the last few years and as a result there is a shortage of honey.  This is where this project can help.  Bringing Back the Bees will:
- Install more hives at CERES Environment Park
- Install more hives at Taranaki Farm
- Run a free bee group at CERES Environment Park where you can learn more
- Run courses and workshops at both locations where you can gain a more in depth knowledge
- Help you set up your own hives
- Increase productivity at each location through healthy bee colonies
- Raise the profile of back yard and small scale rural beekeeping
- Bring the bees back!!!

We need to purchase beekeeping safety gear, including veils suits and gloves, so that our visitors can participate in the beekeeping activities, we also need to purchase hive management equipment such as smokers, hive tools and a honey extractor. Finally the hives themselves will need new woodwork, new frames and new wax foundation and from time to time they will need requeening.

We have budgetted the costs for the 20 new hives - not including purchasing bees to be $7637 at full retail - we hope to negotiate this down with suppliers.

In addition to the physical hives we will be developing signage and educational material for sharing with the community, and we hope to develop a website as well. we have budgetted this to be $1550

There will also be administration costs estimated at $2480

Our total project requirement for 20 hives is $10292 so we hope to exceed our target and raise the full $10292 required for 20 hives, however if we only raise the project target of then we will scale back the number of hives and still be able to proceed with the project

The biggest challenge we face is the climate, if the weather is unfavourable we will need to closely manage the hives; feeding the bees if there is not enough available locally, and of course we will need to provide water for them and shade if it is a heat wave. We will also need to make sure the hives are clean and healthy, free from pests and disease, and we will follow the code of conduct for beekeeping

We have some great rewards to offer you for your help.
To find out more about the bees and me, check out the following websites and don't forget to join our facebook page.


www.ceres.org.au
www.taranakifarm.com.au
www.facebook.com/thepracticalbeekeeper


Thankyou. Benedict