Honey supply under threat in Australia as native flowers fail to bloom

In the sandy hills of the Yanchep National Park, Anton Esterhuysen is on the hunt for flowers.

The native bushland on Western Australia’s central coast would normally be bursting with springtime blooms but after four years of increasingly dry winters, only a handful of plants are starting to bud.

“WA has had less rain and a very hot summer, and that’s probably the after-effect we are seeing now,” Mr Esterhuysen said.

“A lot of dead plants and blooms, the buds are not there.”

Each season, the migratory beekeeper has brought his hives down from the warmer blooms in the state’s north for the springtime flowers, but this year the dry weather had delayed the move.

“This time of year, we would like to be here in the spring country on the sand plains,” he said 

“We see a very good flow happening here. It helps us to get ready for queen breeding but this year, it looks as if this probably is not going to happen.”

Bees go hungry as blooms fail  

Western Australia has the world’s largest collection of wildflowers, with more than 12,000 species bursting into bloom each year, but as the seasons become dryer that number has declined.

On the state’s southernmost coastline, 600 kilometres south of Yanchep, retired farmer Graham Tonkin’s bees have also been struggling.

“Apart from the starvation in this area, it’s been very quiet,” he said.

When the grain and sheep farmer moved to the coastal town of Hopetoun, he left the running of the family farm to his son but the bees came with him.

However, with the dry weather impacting even cooler climates, Mr Tonkin has been forced to feed his bees to keep them alive.

“Because of the season, the mallee hasn’t flowered like it normally does and the heath country hasn’t flowered,” he said.

“It normally flowers late in the spring, and then we get the autumn heath, that blossom hasn’t flowered this year.

“I’ve been feeding them sugar syrup and a little bit of honeycomb, which I shouldn’t.”

Already some of the hives have been abandoned and he was concerned more would follow.

“The bees normally want to build up in the springtime to big swarms … I didn’t have to worry about it this year because they weren’t building up,” Mr Tonkin said.

“The queen doesn’t lay as many eggs and so they go down in smaller hives and then they’ll evacuate the hive to go away to look for more honey.”

Dry flowering phenomenon 

Liz Barbour is an academic at the University of Western Australia and chief executive of WA-based bee research centre Y-Trace.

She said Western Australia once held the world record for honey production but over the years output had declined and even the flowering plants were showing signs of stress.

“There’s been a lot of flowering … but it’s been dry flowering, there’s actually been no nectar or pollen,” Dr Barbour said.

With some WA apiarists sitting on the previous year’s stock and imports entering the domestic market, Dr Barbour said honey supply for consumers wouldn’t be immediately impacted but its quality could decline.

However, she said the bigger concern was the long-term impact on producers and the environment.

“Honey bees are an indicator so it’ll be an absolute sign that all native animals, whether marsupials or native bees … will all be under stress at the moment,” Dr Barbour said.

“The prediction is that this year might be kind of okay with flowering [but] thereafter is going to be an absolute collapse.

“That’s what the beekeepers are predicting.”

Shaggy spine bee under threat 

The impact has already been noticed in one of the state’s most celebrated and prolific wide-flower regions.

Ravensthorpe in the state’s south has been a biodiversity hotspot, attracting thousands of visitors each year, in part due to its seasonal wildflower displays.

Horticulturist and coordinator of the Ravensthorpe Wildflower Show Sue Leighton said while flowers continued to bloom, the sporadic seasons could have an impact on the region’s unique biodiversity.

“If you go walk out in the bush you see the ground’s dry, the leaves are looking a little grey or not as vibrant as they should be and the flowers aren’t as full as they should be,” she said.

She said Western Australia was home to 801 of the 2,001 bee species identified across the country. 

“The latest is the Ravensthorpe Bee, it’s called the shaggy spine bee, and its whole life cycle lives on one flowering eucalypt that flowers once,” she said.

“[The bee] is only active during that time when it’s in flower at the bottom of the Ravensthorpe Range.

“We could lose that species if we don’t take care of it.”

Search for alternative pollen sources 

Work is underway to protect bee populations which could provide a solution to the pollen shortage.

Research from UWA has used high pollen clovers and legumes in farm pastures to provide bees with an alternative food source to native flowers.

“We combined both the bees as well as the pasture, to see if we can actually make these bee-friendly pastures, and they’ve been very successful,” Dr Barbour said.

“When we know we’ve got a really bad year, or most likely going to have a bad year, you can plant them now and you can have flowering at least through to December.

“That’s what we’re working on.” 

For Mr Esterhuysen, who has been keeping bees for decades and planned to pass the business to his son, a solution couldn’t come soon enough.

“I do think people are already exiting the industry. You see on social media equipment that’s for sale,” Mr Esterhuysen said.