Dudley beekeeper Neil Keene is - in a sense - living in the land of milk and honey.
His most recent harvest - only last Friday - yielded 42 kilograms of honey.
Thursday is World Bee Day, which is designated by the United Nations to highlight the importance of bees as pollinators, the threats they face and their contribution to sustainable development.
"I've always had a fascination with them," said Neil, a former Newcastle Herald journalist.
"I remember watching a beekeeper come to our preschool at the top of Northcott Drive and I was mesmerised by the suit and the smoke and what he was doing."
His interest in bees took flight when he met Jane Goldsmith, an NBN journalist and news presenter, who he married.
"Her grandfather kept bees, and then her late father started keeping them and that prompted me to get involved too," he said.
"I got a hive about five years ago, then created a second hive after they swarmed and I collected the swarm."
He also has a native beehive, which he described as "really lovely".
"They are tiny and stingless. They sit on our back deck and the kids sit in wonder at their comings and goings. They are beautiful, intelligent creatures with such sophisticated colonies - each bee has a specific role and purpose and they change gradually through their lives."
His honey bee hives "sit on a small balcony off our bedroom".
"They take flight at altitude to avoid their flight paths intersecting with the kids playing at ground level.
"So I can lie in bed and two metres away the bees are humming busily at work."
This creates the unusual situation of having to "cart everything through the house when I harvest honey".
It also creates the difficult situation of "trying not to drip honey everywhere."
He said it was "amazing how much honey they can produce".
"More amazing is how far they have to fly, collectively, to produce a single jar of honey. It's like thousands of kilometres," he said.
"So it's very low food miles to sell it around here to other people in Dudley, but most people don't realise how far the bees have had to wing it to collect it and return it to the hive."
Mind you, he doesn't enjoy the bee stings.
"I seem to react worse to them each time. Some people become less reactive to them, but that's not me," he said.
"Harvesting the honey is always interesting too. Seeing what they've been up to, and how much honey they have produced. And then extracting it and bottling it. That's always really nice - to see it flow into the jars. It has a lovely viscosity."
He likes that there is very little waste.
"The honey all gets used, and I render down all the wax and have started giving it to a local school kid who uses it to make all-natural surfboard wax.
"If the honey crystallises, which is actually normal but puts some people off buying it, I give it to a local woman who makes soap from scratch and she adds it to some of her various soap recipes."
Keeping bees makes him more aware of the environment, like "what's flowering, when the eucalyptus trees are in blossom and that kind of thing".
"And it's a nice community - older, more experienced beekeepers are always happy to offer advice and assistance."
Another dad at his son's school helps him extract the honey.
"So it's a great way to catch up and have a yarn too, even if we are often surrounded by bees who are a bit upset at being disturbed."
To Bee or not to Bee
Bees play an "invaluable role" in producing what the world eats, Australian Honey Bee Industry Council chair Trevor Weatherhead says.
He said everyone can help protect the welfare of the bee population, including home gardeners and farmers who he urged to "take great care with pesticides, which could inadvertently harm bees".
A few years back, the Senate held an inquiry into the future of the beekeeping and pollination service industries in Australia.
It found, for example, that crops of almonds, apples, avocados, cucumbers, pumpkin, rockmelon and blueberries were totally dependent on honey bee pollination.
Mangoes and cherries were 90 per cent dependent. Mandarins were 30 per cent dependent, while squash was only 10 per cent dependent.
Crazy Cicadas
Speaking of insects, a colleague told us about cicadas infected with a fungus that makes them energetic and keen to mate.
Scientists investigating this so-called fungus-fuelled bug rave found traces of amphetamines and hallucinogens in cicadas infected with a Massopora fungus.
The fungus causes the cicadas to lose their backsides and genitals. They lose their minds too, as they keep trying to mate despite their predicament.
Yikes!
