Frequently Asked Questions
2. How do beekeepers in other parts of Australia manage without leatherwood?
1. We keep hearing reports about the beekeepers and their fight to secure the remnants of the accessible leatherwood forests, is the situation really that bad?
It is dire. Most commercial beekeepers in Southern Tasmania (where the majority of pollination is required) have left the Southern forests because clear felling and burning have severely depleted the accessible leatherwood forest. The last piece of accessible leatherwood left to commercial beekeepers is in an area near Lake Gordon, known as the Wedge. Forestry Tasmania is cable-logging this area and destroying the leatherwood-rich forests as you read this. Over the next three years sites for some 450 hives will be lost as a result of this logging.
2. How do beekeepers in other parts of Australia manage without leatherwood?
Beekeepers in mainland Australia rely on eucalypts for their honey flows. They have approximately 300 different species of eucalypt available and can travel long distances (often interstate) between commercial stands to obtain these flows. Tasmania has just 27 different species of eucalypt, all of which flower unreliably (e.g. the Tasmanian Blue Gum flowers once every two to four years).
Tasmania also has a distinct winter and fairly fickle weather conditions. The best weather conditions usually occur when the leatherwood flowers (January-March). Outside that period hives have been known to starve because the bees cannot leave the hive to collect the nectar.
3. We've heard that European bees are not native to Tasmania and that they may compete with other nectar-eating fauna. What research has been done to prove that European bees aren't damaging the Tasmanian environment?
The European honeybee was introduced to Tasmania in the 1830s. Since that time it has spread to all areas of the island. Dr Stephen Mallick from the University of Tasmania recently undertook an extensive four-year study and found that the European honeybee had little or no affect on the numbers and habits of other species that rely on the Tasmanian leatherwood for their nectar supply. If this sounds incredible, you may be interested to know that the Tasmanian leatherwood is an extremely prolific nectar producer. Flowers have actually been known to drip nectar.
The main reason for this prolific production is the fickle weather conditions related to Tasmania's position in the roaring 40s. Lots of nectar seems to be the leatherwood's way of making sure that it can attract pollinators and set seed, thereby ensuring its survival. The European honeybee is now the primary pollinator of the leatherwood. It does not damage the leatherwood blossom and is not anti-social to other insects collecting the nectar.
4. Why can't we simply plant leatherwoods plantation style to provide leatherwood honey and meet the demand for honeybee pollination?
Forestry Tasmania conducted research on this very question using seed collected by the beekeepers. The results (reported in a paper by John Hickey and Mark Neyland in TasForests, 1990) showed that germination from stored seed was poor and that the seedlings needed expensive protection from browsing animals. You'd also have to ask how sensible such a move would be when you have a 'God-given' leatherwood nectar resource (with its supporting ecosystem) already in place and crying out for real multiple-use management. Forestry Tasmania's research proves that God does leatherwood plantations best.
5. Couldn't pollination hives be brought in from the mainland to overcome shortfalls in the number of hives available for pollination in Tasmania?
No. Mainland Australia has a hive parasite called 'small hive beetle' that destroys combs and makes a terrible mess. We don't have it here in Tasmania and we obviously don't want it either. There are always quarantine risks associated with the movement of livestock between Tasmania and mainland Australia - why should we take these risks when a change in forest policy and forest management could provide what the local beekeepers need to keep their hives alive?
6. Why can't you feed the bees sugar syrup (carbohydrates) and pollen substitutes (protein) to make up for the loss of the leatherwood nectar resources?
Sugar syrup and pollen substitutes for bees are like take-away food for humans. Inadequate protein and refined carbohydrates cause various digestive problems for bees, just as they do in humans. A poor diet affects the bees' size, ability to work and decreases their resistance to disease, again just as in humans.
Bees under quarantine conditions are kept on such diets. We asked the very experienced quarantine beekeeper Bruce White from NSW Agriculture to comment on whether it is possible to keep bees alive for pollination on such a diet. Not surprisingly, he said that it is not possible. Again, you'd also have to ask how sensible such a move would be when you have a 'God-given' leatherwood nectar resource already in place.
7. I've heard that there are n-times 100 000ha of leatherwood-bearing forest in reserves in Tasmania. Why can't the beekeepers use that?
Firstly, the map that these figures are based on is a prediction. It's a map of where leatherwood might be, not necessarily where it is. (The map has major deficiencies, well known to those who like to quote such figures.) Secondly, leatherwood is only useful to bees if it is within 3km of a road that will support truck access so that the beekeeper can bring in the hives, which weigh between 30-50kg each, and take out the honey boxes. Most of the leatherwood in reserves cannot be accessed in this way and might as well be on the moon for all the use it is to beekeepers.
8. Just how much honey does accessible Leatherwood in Tasmania's forests produce and why isn't there enough for the beekeepers and their bees?
In one study of 5 commercial sites in NW Tasmania, the yields of Leatherwood honey ranged from 1.7 tonnes to 7 tonnes in good climatic conditions (Stephen Mallick's PhD thesis).
However these yields were typically obtained from between 100 and 300 hectares of patchy Leatherwood forest around these sites.
You can see why beekeepers are concerned when Forestry Tasmania clear fell and burn areas near hive sites of up to 50 hectares at a time - especially in southern Tasmania where the Leatherwood trees are more likely to be an understorey in eucalypts.
The yields show that the potential is there for a good return to Tasmania, its beekeepers and the fruit and seed crop industries that rely on honeybee pollination - without destroying the forest.
9. We've heard that the Government is working hard with beekeepers to find new areas of Leatherwood and build access roads using money from the Community Forest Agreement. Why aren't beekeepers happy with that?
Beekeepers are always happy to find new areas of Leatherwood that their bees can access. However this solution, which has been proposed many times before, ducks the really hard issue of coexistence between beekeeping and wood fibre production - also known as multiple use. Multiple use has been a failure in Tasmania because the regulations and political influence are always with the wood fibre industry - leaving other users like beekeepers well and truly in the lurch. Multiple use management must be introduced because in southern Tasmania and some areas of the NW, there simply aren't any significant areas of Leatherwood to open up - so this solution isn't a solution at all.
At present there is no chance of multiple use management because beekeepers and other forest users have no formal involvement in the forest planning process. This means that they cannot appeal decisions and there are no forest practices regulations (apart from one claytons regulation regarding class 4 streams) governing Leatherwood. What’s worse is that Forestry Tasmania, the agency charged with multiple use forest planning, has refused to consider such formal involvement.
10. I heard that clear felling and burning will actually be reduced under the Community Forest Agreement. Won't that help beekeepers?
The seductive sophistry of government propaganda! The proposed reduction in clear felling and burning whilst loudly trumpeted as the solution to all ills, is really just a switch to partial clear felling and burning. Partial clear felling and burning (or aggregated retention) means that up to 30% of the area that used to be completely clear felled and burnt will be left alone.
Whilst this is welcome, it should be remembered that the devil is usually in the detail and the detail is that beekeepers (along with other forest users) have no formal involvement in the forest planning system. This means that beekeepers have no say over what part of the logging area will be retained and no right of appeal if their interests are being ignored (as they have been all too often in the past).
This measure will only have some benefit if beekeepers are formally involved in both the forest planning and forest practices system as has been proposed in our solution: the Leatherwood Management Code.
11. If the leatherwood is so valuable, then why don't the beekeepers pay the loggers or anyone else responsible for destroying habitat not to destroy it?
In essence, the beekeeping industry is too small and the regulations and political influence of the wood fibre industry don't allow it.
The beekeeping industry directly provides jobs and investment underlying around $4 million per annum honey production and supports the jobs and investment in over $200 million per annum of fruit and seed crops through honeybee pollination.
Unlike the wood fibre industry, which has yet to prove its sustainability beyond the second planting (or rotation), these benefits can be delivered forever.
However the wood fibre industry says that it is delivering over $1 billion per annum to the Tasmanian economy. Despite some doubts about this figure, the economic clout of the wood fibre industry is clearly much bigger than the beekeeping industry.
This clout has brought about a system of regulations and political influence which support the wood fibre industry to the disadvantage of industries like beekeeping.
12. It seems that the beekeepers are looking for government handouts and industry protection, why can't the beekeeping industry find a way forward without using these methods?
All industries in most western countries get some form of government handout - be it directly, like the wood fibre industry in Tasmania which has had millions of dollars poured into it to prop it up, and/or indirectly, in the form of government provided infrastructure and development.
We believe that people should be informed about what they are subsidising through their taxes and be able to make appropriate choices. We feel that government investment in forests for beekeeping is a worthy cause which will not be a burden on the public purse.