If Jon Lockwood had known that a mythical bee could halt the gold mine next door to his apiary, he may not have spent so much money trying to prove the risks posed by the project to the real European honey bees he keeps near Vittoria in NSW, midway between Bathurst and Orange.

“It’s a bit ironic,” says Lockwood, of federal Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek’s decision to effectively block the $996 million McPhillamys gold mine because of an Indigenous creation story about a mythical blue-banded bee.