Sugarbag dreaming - Native bees management
The most pure honey that money can buy is not on the supermarket shelf. It is tucked away in the scrub about 100 kilometres east of Jabiru in the Northern Territory. The name of the land used by the Indigenous community is Sugarbag Dreaming.
The land is part of the West Arnhem plateau and is some of the most unpolluted native landscape in Australia and the highest plant diversity in the Territory. It is not suitable for conventional agriculture, horticulture or pastoralism.
There is a real need to find an innovative, sustainable and commercial use for this kind of landscape. So whilst the native bees here produce relatively small quantities of honey, the native bee population is a boon for the area. And the Mok Clan, using $8000 from the Australian Government Envirofund, established a project for native bee management on the Kabulwarnamyo outstation on the Mankung Djang estate of the Mok Clan.
Project officer Peter Cooke says the Indigenous elders, who grew up in the bush, followed a traditional lifestyle and have an intimate knowledge of native bees. "They have classified the native bees into six named types, of which three have now been lined up against Western science taxonomy," Peter says.
"We still have to establish the identity of three Indigenous-named types - if indeed they have been classified by science."
The three native bee types known to western science are: 'nabiwo' (Trigona mellipes), 'diwara' (Trigona hockingsii) and 'Bobidj' (Austroplebeia symei). The ground-nesting species 'nabiwo' is the principal dreaming associated with this country and its people.
Indigenous elders know where to find the different bee-types, what plants are important to them and their nest structure, how seasonality affects bee reproduction and food collecting as well as spiritual aspects of native bees in this society.
Lofty Bardayal Nadjamerrek, 79, who was previously appointed as an Officer in the Order of Australia for his contribution to Aboriginal art and also for his leadership in Indigenous land management in this part of Arnhem Land, is the leader of the Mok clan. He and other elders participated in the project using their expertise and Indigenous knowledge of native bees.
"With this project people have learned how nests can be transferred into nest boxes and go on being productive in the longer term," Peter says. "When transferring wild nests into man-made boxes, some honey and wax is taken but enough is left for the bees to start again.
"Techniques and artificial hive designs mean that a nest that recovers and flourishes can be divided to make two nests in boxes, in addition to the original bees being able to naturally reproduce by daughter colonies moving out to find new nests in the wild."
Results so far indicate that the nest box design might have to be revised for better insulation due to the higher temperatures in North Australia.
In the rocky country Indigenous people are experimenting with locating nest boxes in rock shelters, which offer a lower and more stable temperature than boxes erected on star pickets in forest.
"Using the boxes we can harvest honey without destroying the nests but we aim to become much better at doing this with minimal disturbance to the colonies," Peter says. "Our first goal is to develop the more basic aspects of husbandry with native bees, such as situating artificial hives in good locations for access to key flora and looking at which species take best to living in artificial hives."
In the longer term, Indigenous people see honey as more than a product, using other parts of the nests such as the cerumen (wax and resin) on the mouthpieces of didgeridoos and other craft applications as well as traditional medicinal uses of nest by-products.
There is also an increasing commercial need in north Australia for pollination services in horticulture.
More information
Peter Cooke: (08) 8948 2306
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