Community members are invited to celebrate the bees and come along to the World Bee Day Honey Experience and Bee Therapy Podcast Launch at The Beehive Honeysuckle this Thursday, May 20.
The new Bee Therapy podcast is co-hosted by bee-buddies Dani Lloyd-Prichard and Dr Patrice Newell, who decided to launch their podcast in perfect time for World Bee Day.
The pair are both Australian registered beekeepers and have over 50 years of bee knowledge and experience between them.
Podcast co-host and professional beekeeper, Dani Lloyd-Prichard is also a bee advocate, educator, researcher, and business owner of Time to Bee, a beekeeping and beecology guidance consultancy.
Lloyd-Prichard said Thursday night’s event was organised to help officially launch their podcast but to also inform and inspire other locals over the importance of bees.
“We have world days for everything, so why not the bees,” she said.
“They are just so unique and one of the most important pollinators on the planet; we need them if we are going to survive, we need bees!
“If we all did a small part in helping the bees, it would make such a difference; raising awareness over the significance of bees to our ecosystem, our health, our food, and our biodiversity is so critical.”
She said the evening’s experience would consist of fun activities with games, local honey tastings, bee trivia, and lots of bee-themed prizes up for grabs.
“The Beehive Honeysuckle will supply all the yummy honey themed treats, all locally sourced and produced,” she said.
“It won’t be entirely vegan friendly because guests will be eating a lot of honey, but it will be what I like to call ‘bee-gan’.
“The activity I’m most excited for is the honey tasting competition where everyone goes along and guesses which region of the Hunter Valley the honey is from; this will show the boutique nature of honey and how it’s so specific to the area in which the bees live.”
The honey experience will also raise funds to support Bee Day Australia’s ‘Plant Three for the Bees’ program, encouraging people to order bee-friendly seeds when planting flowers in gardens and pots.
Lloyd-Prichard said many factors affected the richness and diversity of bees, including mass land clearing, pesticides, and insecticides.
“If people can connect on any level with this little insect, it’s going to show them the much bigger picture and the impacts they are having on the planet,” she said.
“As we have seen with the pandemic, mother earth is constantly slapping us, trying to get us to wake up and show us that we are not immune to these problems.”
Lloyd-Prichard met author and biodynamic farmer Dr Patrice Newell at the University of Newcastle, where they instantly became friends.
“We are long time beekeepers of European Honeybees, and for me in particular, I have a background in education where I ran the Tocal College Certificate III in Beekeeping up until the end of 2019, and before that, I conducted and published bee research at the University of Newcastle.
“That aside, Patrice and I have been bee-buddies’ for years after meeting at the university while Patrice was studying her PhD.”
Talking for hours, the two would share their experiences and stories over bees, beehives, and the delicious recipes they had created using their honey produce.
At the end of last year, Newell suggested that the pair record their conversations and start a bee-themed podcast.
“When Patrice suggested the podcast, I was a little nervous because it was something that I had never done before, but, thankfully, it has worked out really well,” Lloyd-Prichard said.
“We are finding it easy to create episodes using our combined general knowledge, experience and interests.
“The episodes have a little bit of everything from fact and fun to some good recipes, stories, and even book and film reviews!”
Bee Therapy is available on all streaming platforms, including Spotify, and Audible with its official launch day on Thursday, May 20.
The World Bee Day Honey Experience and Bee Therapy Podcast Launch will be held at The Beehive Honeysuckle from 5:30 pm to 7:30 pm, with tickets still available for purchase at Humanitix.
Hayley McMahon