Fact sheet
Fact sheet: Identifying new revenue opportunities for the native bee industry
The primary objective of the
Identifying revenue opportunities for AgriFutures Australia’s rural industries project was to identify potential new and alternate revenue sources within 28 of AgriFutures Australia’s levied and emerging industries, and for Australian agriculture generally. Through a combination of stakeholder consultations and literature reviews, additional, new and alternate revenue sources were identified. These revenue sources range from completely new and novel opportunities to those previously explored but that could benefit from further investment. Similarly, what may be ‘old’ in one industry may well be new and untried in others.
New revenue opportunities may contribute to industry profitability and sustainability in four ways. Firstly, they provide diversification, reducing reliance on existing sources of income and thereby enhancing resilience against economic fluctuations and environmental uncertainties, such as drought or market downturn. Secondly, they can promote sustainable practices and innovation, encouraging industries to adopt environmentally friendly and technologically advanced approaches, which in turn supports long-term viability. Thirdly, they can foster economic growth and job creation in rural areas, helping to counter urbanisation trends and maintain vibrant rural communities. Finally, they can strengthen Australia’s position in the global market by tapping into emerging trends and consumer demands, ensuring the continued competitiveness of its rural industries on a global scale.
Industry-specific challenges
Specific insights relating to the Australian native bee industry include:
1. Stingless bees are only active in summer or warm weather, unlike honey bees, which are active even in cooler conditions. While this means that year-round availability of honey and potential pollination services is a challenge, there is opportunity to build the industry in warmer northern Australian regions where stingless bees are found.
2. The volume of honey produced by native bees is significantly smaller compared to that produced by honey bees due to hive colony size and the impact of climate. This challenge is mitigated by the premium price native bee honey can be sold for.
3. The honey from native bees does not fall within some official definitions of honey and is referred to as ‘sugarbag’, which may include honey or a mix of pollen and honey. Its appeal, however, lies in its high concentration of the sugar trehalulose, its higher moisture content and its lower sugar content.
Industry-specific opportunities
Specific opportunities relating to the Australian native bee industry include:
1. Investment in the development of the pollination services sector – articulating and spreading the word about the complementarity of the pollination capabilities of native bees, including specialist applications, backed by further research could help establish paid native bee pollination services. Doing so could address the decline in pollination by honey bees.
2. Promotion of the health benefits of native bee honey (sugarbag) through evidence-based research and marketing efforts. Also, differentiating native bee honey from honey bee honey and promoting it as a niche ‘superfood’ that can command a premium price.
3. Hive by-products, including beeswax, pollen and propolis, offer additional revenue streams for beekeepers and value chain stakeholders. Products could cater to various industries, including those that produce cosmetics, nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals and dietary supplements, contributing to the industry’s growth and diversification. Native bee tourism, especially in tourism hotspots, also presents a niche market that indirectly promotes native bee honey.
The European honey bee and its use of native and exotic floral plantings
High-quality and diverse floral resources are required throughout the year to support honey bee populations and therefore secure the delivery of vital pollination services in agroecosystems. Protein-rich pollen is key to bee nutrition and colony viability. A varied diet in the form of diverse pollen sources from multiple plant species ensures bee health and longevity, by providing the different types and amounts of amino acids required for growth and reproduction.
Yet in many agricultural landscapes, crops typically flower for only a short period, limiting floral resource availability and diversity. Additionally, the recent bushfires combined with widespread drought have further reduced floral resource availability in native habitats surrounding agricultural areas.
The protection and enhancement of natural habitats that provide floral resources is an increasingly promoted strategy that aims to support pollinator health and thereby promote pollination service delivery to target crops within agroecosystems. Establishing plots of flowering herbaceous plants is a prominent example of a strategy used to enhance floral resource availability, and such floral enhancements have been studied considerably over the last decade in Europe and the United States.
But despite this increasingly common approach, relatively little is known about the extent to which honey bees exploit and benefit from the floral resources associated with floral enhancements in Australia, and how the importance of these extra resources varies throughout the year. There is also almost nothing known about the suitability of Australian native plants for on-farm alternate floral resources, as all currently commercially available seed mixes comprise non-native species.
Knowing this knowledge gap existed, this project answered a series of key questions about how the European honey bee uses native and exotic floral enhancements: What non-crop floral resources are used by European honey bees and how does this change throughout the year? What are the key plant species used outside the crop flowering season? Do European honey bees preferentially forage for pollen from native or exotic plant species?
In the process of answering these questions, the project assessed pollen collected from honey bee hives. Foraging preferences and diets of honey bees were compared between flower plots comprising a native plant mixture, developed in collaboration with Greening Australia, and a commercially available exotic seed mix. The project further determined seasonal flowering patterns to identify any floral resource gaps.
The Honey Bee and Pollination Strategic RD&E Plan (2020-2025) Mid-term Review and Economic Impact of the Chicken Meat Program 2019-2022
Transmission of deformed wing virus (DWV) via imported honey
Beekeepers back genetic improvement to boost honey bee industry performance
Around half of Australian beekeepers desire more information to be made available on the queen bees they purchase, with selection traits and queen bee pedigree at the top of the list.
Optimisation and Evaluation of an External Trap as a Mass Trapping and Monitoring Device for Small Hive Beetles
... to the Australian honeybee industry and its estimated $14.2 billion annual pollination services, with predictions that the situation could worsen with our changing climate. In a recent project (PRJ-009334), significant progress was made towards developing a mass trapping technology to control SHB. Several...
Fat Bees Skinny Bees – a manual on honey bee nutrition for beekeepers
Report
Determining the impact of Varroa on virus transmission in Australian bees
This research aimed to contribute to ongoing surveillance of the Australian honey bee virus landscape as varroa establishes and spreads.
Report
Reducing the impact of Nosema and viruses through improved honey bee nutrition
To understand our bees, we must understand our plants
In Australia, through the Plan Bee program, we are embarking on a journey to implement estimated breeding values to assist in genetic selection.
Supporting the health and expansion of the Australian stingless bee industry
Ensuring Lucerne seed production in the absence of bees
Lucerne is a globally important crop. It is used as an animal feed, both as a grazing pasture and to produce conserved fodder; it provides a break crop in cereal crop rotations; and improves soil conditions. Given Lucerne’s importance across a number of agricultural industries, it is also a valuable seed crop.
Effective Lucerne seed production is reliant on pollinators; in Australia, pollination is typically achieved by honey bees. This reliance on bees and other pollinators for seed production raises concerns about the potential impact of pollinator decline on Lucerne seed production. To address these concerns, a scoping project was undertaken to investigate the development of self-pollinating Lucerne genotypes.
A pedigree breeding program was developed under this project to enable the screening of a very large population of diverse Lucerne genotypes, with the aim to identify genotypes that consistently set seed in the absence of pollinators.
The key finding was that some Lucerne plants were able to seed in the absence of bees, thus self-pollinate. These Lucerne plants did not occur commonly and their ability to self-pollinate over multiple years was often unreliable. One population was identified that set seed consistently over three generations in the absence of bees.
Seed from this potentially self-pollinating population has been collected and saved for use in future research. More research and breeding is required to determine the ability of the population to reliably self-pollinate and the applicability of the other phenotypic traits of the population to meet the current market requirements of Lucerne.
This population provides an avenue for researchers and seed breeders to continue developing the population. This may result in the development of a commercially available variety capable of self-pollination. Although there is still a significant amount of work to achieve a commercial reality for this work, this is the first step to creating more security for the Lucerne seed industry and those industries reliant on Lucerne in the face of pollinator decline.
A passion for honey bees is what drives Therese Kershaw to help the industry stay connected through tough times
To celebrate International Day of Rural Women, we are shining a light on some of the incredible women from regional, rural and remote parts of Australia who we get to work with at AgriFutures Australia. One of these incredible women is Therese Kershaw.
Report
Queen bee production survey 2022
Plan Bee, the National Honey Bee Genetic Improvement Program, surveyed queen production for the 2020-2021 season to report on the state of queen production nationally. This report summarises the findings of the survey.
The report is the first of its kind to describe values for queen and package bee sales from all major Australian beekeeping states. Surveys were completed online using REDCap (Vanderbilt University) and promoted through Plan Bee communications, the extensionAUS Professional Beekeepers website and social media, Facebook advertising, presentations to beekeeping groups, industry newsletters, and emails to industry associations. Additionally, 19 surveys were printed and posted with return envelopes to queen breeders identified as not accessing technology, with a return rate of 50 per cent.
Recommendations
An official register of Australian queen breeders and producers could assist domestic market participants with locating production or breeder queens to purchase and sustain their business enterprises, while also connecting queen breeders and producers to potential new markets.
Clear delineation of queen breeders and producers will assist in the development of a market for queen breeders’ elite selected stock. Queen breeding requires additional work that must be renumerated, which is difficult when the market doesn’t understand the difference.
The low volume of queen exports as well as domestic sales proportionate to registered beekeepers does not justify raising the queen bee levy, which is currently set at zero.
Beekeepers throw support behind genetic improvement
Around 94% of Australian beekeepers see value in a national honey bee genetic improvement program, such as Plan Bee.
Australian Native Bee Strategic RD&E Plan
Australia has approximately 1650 named native bee species. Most Australian native bees are classified as solitary or semi-social, however there are 11 described species of highly social stingless native bees. All species are valuable pollinators, with stingless bees also producing a highly valued honey with reported health benefits.
Australian native bee honey production is estimated to have an industry value of less than $1m. By 2030, this value is expected to increase to $3-5m, with native bee honey retailing for $200-450 per kilogram. The supply of colonies for beekeepers and the provision of pollination services for growers are where the highest returns in the value chain currently rest.
The development of a Strategic Research, Development and Extension (RD&E) Plan is a crucial first step in growth for an emerging industry. This Australian Native Bee Strategic RD&E Plan clearly identifies opportunities and barriers to industry growth, and subsequent RD&E priorities for the industry. Strategic RD&E Plans for emerging industries are resources that can be used by industry to help drive investment and growth within the industry.
This Strategic RD&E Plan is the result of extensive desktop research and stakeholder consultation across the Australian native bee industry, and pulls together specific recommendations for future investment to support the long-term growth and competitive advantage of the industry.
Industry summary
Project snapshot: Honey bee probiotic to combat glyphosate and oxytetracycline hydrochloride exposure
Agrochemicals used in Australian agriculture have the potential to harm honey bees, which puts at risk the ability of beekeepers to produce honey and provide pollination services, and thus industry sustainability. Specifically, the antibiotic oxytetracycline hydrochloride (OTC), used to treat European foulbrood, and the herbicide glyphosate can impact honey bee health, behaviours and gut microbiome.
As the gut microbiome is linked to overall animal health and behaviours, the effects of OTC and glyphosate on honey bees may stem from their effects on the gut. Probiotic supplementary feeding to restore the gut microbiome after exposure to agrochemicals could relieve their negative effects.
This project investigated the impact of glyphosate and OTC exposure on honey bee survival, cognition and gut microbiome, and whether probiotic supplementary feeding alleviates negative effects. Although glyphosate, OTC and probiotic supplementary feeding were found to alter the gut microbiome of honey bees, they did not impact honey bee survival or cognition. This finding meant we were unable to determine the potential survival or cognitive performance benefits of probiotic supplementary feeding against these specific agrochemical stressors.
However, we now better understand the impact of the two agrochemicals on honey bees, including their limits, and how probiotic supplementary feeding alters the gut microbiome; probiotics remain a potential strategy to support honey bee health. With further investigation, probiotic supplementary feeding could be ecologically and economically valuable for honey bee care and management.
Book
Commercial Beekeeping in Australia (Second Edition)
Drone honey bees – semen production
Book
A Genetic Test for Africanised Honey Bees
