Story Our Practice Learn Protect Cultivate Wild Bees Get Involved

Story

Rewilding honeybee songlines

The story of Pollinate Country is a living culture that advances knowledge of bees.

Since ever since, the practice of Apiculture has been guided by a connection to place.

Today on Bundjalung country, our Apiculture practice guides our connection to place.

As Guardians, we consider the health of bees for the next seven generations.

Our tenets are developed through academic research, collaborative partnerships and expeditions.

In the Bee Season we celebrate swarming, the harvest and sugarbag dreaming

Our Practice

To Learn, Protect and Cultivate.

Use these Learn, Protect, Cultivate icons throughout the website to navigate your Guardianship practice.

Learn

To observe the bee.

Bees, above all things love harmony, and many have observed, that in their Singing, Humming and Buzzing, they produce the notes of music in the most exact manner, keeping their Stops, Rings and Falls, and have something in their sounds that resemble each particular note used in Vocal and Instrumental Music, and are so attentive to Harmonious sounds, especially that are soft and sweet. They understand each other by Notes, and answer in harmonious strains, having as it were a sweet language among them.

- The History of Bees, Charles Butler

Protect

Defence of the city gates.

We guard trees with hollows provide animal homes. Hollow formation is a common trait in many Australian trees. At least 20% of bird species are hollow-dependent. All arboreal marsupials use tree hollows for shelter and breeding sites. Honeybee and Tetragonula Carbonaria stingless bees both use tree hollows to nest. Inside these hollows bees line the cavity with propolis.

"Propolis" comes from the Greek language and means "in defense of" (pro) the city (polis)." The essential meaning is "defender of the city. Propolis is used to reinforce structural stability, provide thermal insulation and makes the hive stronger in defence.

Propolis is comprised of 50% tree resins, 30% beeswax, 10% essential aromatic oils, 5% pollen, 5% other organic compounds. The main active ingredients in propolis are flavonoids which the honeybees get from plant and flower.

Cultivate

To nurture and care.

From colō (present infinitive colere)

1. To cultivate the land, till, tend, take care of.

2. To inhabit.

3. To frequent, be the guardian of, cherish, care for, protect and nurture.

4. To worship, honour, revere, give reverence to and respect.

Guardians cultivate Bee Sanctuaries to develop healthy pollinators and to Pollinate Country. We cultivate swarms to ensure the vitality and longevity of bees is maintained. We cultivate medicinal grade hive products for the health our community. And we cultivate reverence for the Queens of the Sun.

Wild Bees

Wild Honeybee

Wild Honeybees provide pollination for plants on country and provide hive medicines such as Sugarbag for our community.

Sanctuaries help to rewild bees and guard their important ecological actions that help us to achieve objectives such as SDGs, the Paris Agreement and Agricultural pollination.

Research shows that wild native Honeybees display advanced genetics that are developed through swarming and deliver enhanced biodiversity through pollination.

Learn about the Wild Bees of Blenheim.

Get Involved