HONEY runs in the blood for this apiarist family. TONY FAWCETT reports

Moss MacGibbon has a deep affinity with bees. They've been buzzing around her world since she was a young girl.

• PICTURE GALLERY: Taste of honey
  

The daughter of former full-time honey producers and the grand-niece of a pioneering Rushworth apiarist, Moss (her name means "maternal love" in the language of flowers) reckons bees are sweet.

When her career as a high-end interior architect slowed several years ago because of the global financial crisis, bees came to her rescue. In tandem with her father, Kevin, a long-time apiarist in Nalinga, 30km east of Shepparton, she embarked on what she calls a "huge hobby" to make ends meet.

In four years, that hobby has steadily grown into their business, Raw Honey. Moss, 25, is the Melbourne-based marketing brains of the operation while Kevin, 57, is a full-time businessman - running Nalinga Steel, an independent steel and roofing supplier - with a never-ending passion for bees.

The pair started selling their cold-extracted raw honey at farmers' markets and, despite their customers' lack of knowledge about the various honeys, customers quickly found their favourites and this father-and-daughter business was away.

The income angle aside, Moss's love of bees clearly runs deep. "Yeah, they definitely know me," she says of her buzzing buddies. "When I was new to them, they were often going at me, whereas now they happily accept me.

"They're smart creatures. They always know when a stranger comes close. Kev will get out of the car and say 'morning' or 'afternoon' to them - and they know it's him and leave him alone."

Not that Moss, who has rarely been stung, takes chances. She respects the bees and religiously wears her protective white suit and veil when working around them.

FARM FACTS

RAW HONEY
• Kevin MacGibbon and his daughter Moss have 150 bee hives in the forests of northern Victoria and the North East.
• They extract the honey and store it at Kevin's property at Nalinga, near Shepparton.
• They sell straight-line, or unblended, honeys including manna gum, stringybark, blue gum, red gum, grey box, ironbark and orange blossom. A 1kg tub costs $11.
• Their honey is available at farmers' markets in Spotswood, North Melbourne, Sunbury, Knox, Fairfield, Ashwood and Preston.
• For more information on becoming a beekeeper, visit www.vicbeekeepers.com.au

MOSS and Kevin have 150 hives split into three groups which they move around the state forests of northern Victoria and the North East.

Once every two to five weeks, more often when bee activity is brisk, Moss will drive from Melbourne to Nalinga to work alongside her father.

They hold Department of Sustainability and Environment permits to operate in various state forests, such as the Rushworth and Strathbogie forests.

"We'll go into a forest when its trees are flowering and then move the bees when somewhere else comes into flower," Moss says. "A honey flow - when the flowers are blooming and the bees are collecting nectar - can last from two to eight weeks."

Moss, 25 and Kevin, 57, do most of their honey collecting in the early morning or late afternoon when conditions have cooled, while the moving of hives is done at night.

Once the honeycombs have been collected, the pair return to Kevin's Nalinga home where the honey is spun out in a honey extractor. It is then left to settle so the wax particles float to the top, before being strained and stored in containers.

"When stored correctly, where it is unable to come into contact with moisture, this stuff will last a lifetime," Kevin says.

The honey season runs from July to May. Last season, in what Kevin described as "as good as it gets", they collected up to 160kg of honey from each hive. This year, in dramatic contrast, they have collected about 14kg from each hive, thanks to torrential rain at all the wrong times. "It's just lucky we've both got other jobs," Kevin says.

Currently they sell their honey at seven farmers' markets, while a small amount is sold in local produce shops. Market sales are inevitably higher in winter ("that's when people like to put it on their porridge and crumpets"), and their top-selling products are stringybark, a stronger honey, and red gum, a medium-strength honey. A 1-kilogram tub sells for $11.

Moss says most customers taste two or three before buying.

"You can never really predict what they'll buy," says Moss. "Generally people at city markets know less about the various honeys than those in the country. Often they might have heard of red gum or orange blossom, though perhaps not stringybark or manna gum."

Of the honeys they regularly sell, Moss lists them from strongest to mildest as manna gum, stringybark, blue gum, red gum, grey box, ironbark and orange blossom. Her own favourite is stringybark.

Moss credits her dad, who has kept bees since he was 20, with teaching her most of the tricks of the trade. "He and Mum were among the first apiarists to sell straight-line (unblended) honey," she says proudly. "They were distributing through over 400 health-food shops throughout Victoria.

"The great benefit of being a smaller enterprise is that it allows us to use a cold-spun extraction process. Avoiding the use of heat retains the natural goodness and flavour of the honey."

Moss is a big supporter of the recent farmers' market revival and enjoys speaking directly to her customers. "Farmers' markets are a fantastic opportunity for people to get to know where their food comes from. I love that I can tell my customers where and when each variety of honey was produced. I love that I can offer local Victorian honey in its purest most natural form."

For Kevin, who is president of the North East Victorian Apiarist Association, it's simply a way of life. "I'm a third-generation beekeeper," he says. "We have had beekeepers in the family for 100 years, that we know of. It gets in your blood.

"I'm not sure whether the bees work for us or we work for the bees," he says. "Without us, they don't get to move around to all the best honey crops, but without them, we don't get a honey crop.

"It's a two-way street. Without bees, there's no food. Two-thirds of all the food we eat is pollinated by bees. Cows eat grass that has been pollinated by bees. You take away the bees, you take away humans."

Kevin says conditions this year have made beekeeping extremely difficult. But for now, Kevin and Moss will stick at it.

"It's a lifestyle thing," Kevin says. "Once a beekeeper, always a beekeeper. You don't ever retire. Most beekeepers die beekeepers."

STICKY SITUATION

WHILE Moss thanks her bees for a new career, she warns that the industry faces diabolical threats - from loss of bee habitats to insect plagues.

Controlled fuel-reduction burns following Black Saturday have destroyed many good production areas for apiarists - and Victoria's wettest summer ever has caused havoc with honey production, literally drowning bees and "wrecking the flowers".

"There is a whole heap of threats that we're up against all the time … including diseases and different insects that come into Australia," says Moss.

Most threatening, says Moss, is the Varroa Mite. "It hasn't got to Australia yet but it's everywhere else in the world."

The CSRIO estimates this pinhead-size mite, a parasite that attacks larvae and adult bees, has the potential to decimate the local honey and pollinated food industries. Already it's in New Zealand and Papua New Guinea and is predicted to arrive in Australia soon.

Then there's the threat of the Asian bee incursion in far north Queensland spreading disease and wiping out the hives of apiarists' European bees.

Moss recently joined apiarists from across Australia in Canberra to encourage politicians to overturn the Federal Government's decision to abandon attempts to eradicate Asian bees from Australia.

It is estimated the pollination of Australian food crops is valued at up to $6 billion annually. The Asian bee is the natural carrier of the Varroa Mite, and the spread of these insects could devastate both the honey and food industries throughout Australia.

TASTE BUD

Moss' Carrot and Honey Cake
• Preparation: 30 minutes
• Cooking: 45 minutes
• Ingredients
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup olive oil
• 1 cup Stringybark Raw Honey
• 1 1/2 cups self-raising flour
• 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
• Pinch of salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 1 2/3 cups grated carrot (about 3 average-sized carrots)
• Topping
• 125g cream cheese, softened
• 30g butter
• 3 teaspoons of Ironbark Raw Honey

Note
Stringybark Raw Honey has been chosen for the cake because of its stronger and less sweet qualities. For a sweeter cake, try manna gum, blue gum or
red gum Raw Honey.
Ironbark Raw Honey has been chosen for the topping for its milder and sweeter qualities. Again, this can be substituted with other honey varieties.

Method
1. Preheat oven to 180C. Grease a deep 23cm square cake tin and line the base and sides with baking paper.
2. Combine eggs, oil and honey in a mixing bowl.
Hint: Measure out the 3/4 cup of oil into a one-cup measuring cup. Add oil to mixing bowl. Using the same oily measure cup, measure out the one cup of honey by pouring it out of the jar or tub into the cup and cutting off the honey stream with a knife. The honey will now simply slip out of the cup into the mixing bowl leaving little honey behind.
3. Add the sifted flour, bicarbonate of soda, salt and cinnamon and beat with an electric mixer until smooth.
4. Add nuts and carrot and stir well.
5. Pour the mixture into the cake tin and bake for 45 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean. Leave to cool in tin for 15 minutes before placing on a cooling rack.
6. Topping: Place the cream cheese, butter and ironbark Raw Honey in a mixing bowl and beat with electric beaters until spreadable. Spread over the cooled cake. Decorate with extra chopped walnuts if desired.