The buzziest thing to do in Tassie

I learn something every trip. Simply stepping on a plane is educational. I learn a lot by observing the behaviour of other humans, for a start.

On most flights I feel like I’ve found myself inside the cage of a fascinating and irritating zoo.

But beyond what I learn about human nature from travelling, I’m always on the lookout for a way to learn a new skill, something that’s useful when I get home.

A hive of activity... Saffire, Tasmania.

Even in the course of a holiday for leisure, an excursion or an experience offered by a hotel, tour or cruise can inspire a lifelong passion for a hobby, or at the very least satisfy an itch to try something I have never had the time or opportunity to try at home.

Which is why I find myself on a remote Tasmanian peninsula kitted up in a heavy-duty, mesh beekeeper’s suit with hood, rubber gumboots and protective gloves. Not my most glamorous look.

I’ve always wanted to try beekeeping. I’m impressed when I meet people with apiaries and even more so when I hear they’re keeping them on inner-city backyards and rooftops.

When I heard that luxury lodge Saffire Freycinet offered a beekeeping experience,

I jumped at the opportunity, even though the idea of swarming bees made me nervous.

Now they don’t.

We depend on bees. Some 35 per cent of what we consume is pollinated by them, says Rob Barker, a horticulturist and custodian of Saffire’s hives. He also has hives dotted along the east coast of Tasmania from Bruny Island up to Swansea and Freycinet.

Famous as “the bee man”, Rob sells his raw honey under the brand Wild Hives. It’s drawn from the diverse soil types and flora of this part of Tasmania, which determines the distinctive flavour.

The small amount of honey from Saffire’s hives is particularly potent as it’s gathered from the kunzea tea-tree, which has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory qualities. “It’s pretty amazing to taste the environment via insects,” Rob says.

I couldn’t have found a more entertaining and knowledgeable teacher, as we investigate the 10 hives kept on the lodge’s property. Over a couple of hours Rob introduces me to the wonderful world of bees and imparts mind-boggling information. My head is buzzing by the end.

One takeout is that it’s all about girl power.

Only 3 per cent of the world’s bees produce honey. The most common of these, European honeybees, operate as a family with one mother, the queen. She has 60,000 daughters and a handful of sons.

The all-girl workforce gathers nectar, pollen and resin and takes it inside the hive, packing it into hexagonal cells and turning it into honey by warming it with their wings, which flutter 240 times a second. Then they seal it with wax.

The queen is the only fertile female and produces a thousand eggs a day in the hive. While the females toil, the male drones are fed and cossetted. They have only one job to do – fly off and find a virgin queen in another colony and impregnate her. The queen can mate with 60 drones in a single flight.

What they don’t tell the drones, Rob says, is that once the male has mated, his reproductive organs stay inside the queen and he explodes. “They’re like these major egos, blind to the truth.″⁣ It’s very Game of Thrones.

Back in the hive, which is a city, nurse bees look after the children and prune out any mutants, undertaker bees carry out the dead and real estate bees look for new places to build colonies.

If you think they’re annoying things to be swatted away, you should know that bees recognise their keeper. Rob shows me how to smoke the hive to disguise my pheromones, in case the soldier bees see me as a threat and attack.

It’s easy to fall in love with bees after a walk with Rob and think about having my own colony one day. (I don’t even mind all the gear.)

It’s important more individuals and organisations think about keeping hives, as bee numbers are dangerously depleted, due to the loss of habitat from development, warming climate and increased bushfires.

Tasmania just had the warmest spring on record, which means the plants were so warm they needed to conserve energy and not produce the nectar the bees need.

That spells trouble for the bees – and for us.

The writer was a guest of Luxury Lodges of Australia and Saffire Freycinet.