Seymour Alternative Farming Expo: Get busy on bee-keeping

GARY Beavis started beekeeping more than a decade ago with just one beehive in his backyard at Kyabram.

Gary Beavis, of Beavo's Honey at Kyabram, will give a presentation on backyard beekeeping at the 2018 Seymour Alternative Farming Expo.

GARY Beavis started beekeeping more than a decade ago with just one beehive in his backyard at Kyabram.

Within four years, he turned his hobby into a full-time job. “I fell in love with them,” he said.

Beavo’s Honey, which Gary runs with his partner, Karen Bentley, sells everything from honey, beeswax wraps and lip balm to bee-keeping equipment.

Gary said he learned a lot of from his friend David Jackal, a third-generation beekeeper at Wangaratta.

“Most beekeepers are extremely friendly and generous with their information,” he said.

Recently, Gary has become a mentor himself.

Last year’s Alternative Farming Expo inspired Gary to expand Beavo’s Honey into educational courses.

“You can come to my talk and listen, but … it’s a hands-on a learning experience,” he said. “It’s not something Google can teach you.”

Gary and Karen have run three courses in the past year, with the growing popularity of beekeeping enabling them to expand their business.

Gary said an advantage of the job was that it did not require much property.

“There’s a guy in Melbourne who uses public land and council land, and runs 20-odd hives,” he said.

“A lot of the councils are now very helpful and happy to have bees in their area making use of public space.”

But Gary warned that keeping a hive was hard work.

“It’s not a set and forget,” Gary said. “Fifty per cent of bee keeping is knowing how to keep bees. The other 50 per cent is knowing trees and what’s happening in your area.”

While Gary said bees around residential areas had gardens to feed off, rural hives were “dependent on what trees are flowing on a farm”.

Gary and Karen agree that the downside of industry expansion was people who failed to register their hives and take care of them.

“If they’re not registered and not taking care of their hives they become disease-ridden,” Gary said.

You can catch Gary’s Beekeeping in the Backyard presentation on Saturday, February 17 at 12pm and Sunday, February 18 at 1pm.