How'd ya bee?

Ever tasted native honey? Truly one of god's foods, it comes from the Australian native stingless bee, the sugarbag. Unlike most commercial honey, it comes untreated; no heat is applied and its not filtered. It's runnier than honeybee honey and has a slight porty/lemon finish. Unfortunately, because the bees make so little of it (about 1/2 kilo a year from memory)it's very expensive. Luckily a little goes a long way. I love it drizzled over some really good quality vanilla ice-cream best.
(Stephane Bremont of Tukka in West End uses it in his restaurant and you can also buy it from him).

In Brisbane you can also buy your own hive from Tim Heard, an entomologist with the CSIRO. He rescues the native hives from land being cleared (plenty of that around here unfortunately)and 'rehouses' them in specially built hives. As well as (eventually) producing honey, they are fantastic pollinators for the garden, and Heard says do very well in suburbia. The bees, as the name says, are stingless and they look nothing like their honey bee cousin. They're a lot smaller and black and look more like flies than bees. I bought a hive from Heard about a month ago and am enjoying watching them. They don't seem to mind inner city living either. One of the concerns about the sugarbag is that with all the land development going on they'll disappear before scientists have had the chance to really study their honey and find out what medicinal qualities it might have. Certainly Australia's indigenous owners have long used it for healing. There's a bit of a wait if you want a hive, but I'll put up Heard's contact details later, so if you interested in both helping our environment, your garden and getting a real treat for your taste buds, you can contact him.