Episode 110: Helen Charles, Friends With Honey, Victoria, Australia

This week’s guest on the Bees with Ben podcast is Helen Charles from friendswithhoney.com.au. Helen is passionate about educating people about bees and has recently been working on a community project to encourage bees in a permaculture garden. She even roped in the local men’s shed in Brighton East to help construct the hives, and apparently the men had a ball! Helen explains that she has always been interested in nature and was introduced to bees by family members in Canada who run a commercial beekeeping enterprise. She was also into gardening and noticed a lot of bees in her area; she joined a local beekeeping club, got some bees from Ben, and hasn’t looked back! She says she loves the fact that she is always learning. Helen’s website, friendswithhoney.com.au, extols the principals of biodiversity, sustainability, pollination and citizen science, and is devoted to developing and delivering programs, experiences, events and workshops that link these themes with beekeeping. She explains to Ben that citizen science is all about offering the power of science to people and allowing members of the public to make a contribution. She has been working on an app called inaturalist that allows the user to upload data, which is then analyzed and added to the Atlas of Living Australia, an important tool for scientists and land managers. New species have even been identified through this process. Helen obviously loves sharing her knowledge of bees; she is also a certified permaculture designer and the list of programs and events on the friendswithhoney website include a course on basic beekeeping and a series of workshops entitled the ‘Powerful Pollinators Program’. A ‘Bee for biodiversity workshop’ examines the differences between native bees and introduced bees, as well as delving into the history of the honey bee in Australia and detailing how to support our hard- working pollinators. Along with her hives in suburbia, Helen also has an apiary in regional Victoria at Amphitheatre in the Goldfields region, which is located on rural conservation land. Unlike urban Melbourne, where there is a relatively constant supply of floral resources, Helen says this presents somewhat of a challenge in rural Victoria, and she has been busy planting native species of vegetation that will create resources for the bees to forage on throughout the year, her main goal being pollination rather than honey production. Finally, Helen and her partner Ben - who is an award-winning country singer and musician – have a very special event planned for World Bee Day on May 20. They have been composing some cool songs about bees and are performing a special kids’ show at the Arcobar at 10:00am (located at 8 Arco Lane, Heatherton). This free special event should be a blast, so get along and have a waggle dance with Helen and Ben! Further details at the www.friendswithhoney.com.au website or at arcobar.com.au