The sting: my sweet career

Andrew Mathieson
BEE stings are nothing new to John Edmonds, Geelong’s king of the bees lamentably admits.
“I get stung more nowadays because of the amount of times I’m working the bees,” he shrugs.
“They hurt but I don’t think about the pain.
“It’s a bit like a boxer – think about how much pain he goes through but all he’s thinking is ‘I’m gonna hit him’.”
The Mount Moriac beekeeper estimates he’s stung hundreds of times a day.
John has slowly built up an immunity since his bee hobbyist dad had about 60 hives at the You Yangs and at Anakie.
Handling bees, unlike the experience for most kids, is a fond memory for John.
“The funny thing is it was only during a field day we had a few years ago that I understood people’s fear because it was only natural for me to go over to a hive,” he says.
“We had people here wanting to learn beekeeping and when I went over to the hive and lifted the lid off they all went ‘Oh’ and took a step back.
“I looked at them and said ‘What’s wrong with you silly bastards?’.”
Placing something cold on the sting will help, John recommends.
A nifty zapper he found for his wife, who swells up like a marble, can deactivate the sting.
“You know what an electric fence is like, don’t you?” John mischievously asks.
The sensation is fairly light but still enough to make his wife jump, even watching it applied to someone else.
John’s lack of fear is apparent when he retrieved a swarm of bees on a rural property outside Geelong.
He removed them wearing nothing more than a T-shirt and without a protective veil after warning scared farm workers bees can smell fear and will attack in response to aggressive behaviour.
“Don’t they sting you on the arms?” a worker in disbelief howles out.
John first “ran a few bees” while out on the road in his former job as a hardware salesman.
“That job was good for finding bee sites because I was driving around and I could see where the honey was,” he remembers.
Edmonds Honey was born in 1978 after John bought a trailer, a honey-extracting van and 30 hives from another beekeeper.
Operating out of a Mount Duneed property, the business sells honey from a diverse variety of different trees.
Yellowbox has the sweetest taste, John says, but honeys from citrus and ironbark trees are the most distinctive.
Manuka flavour is a popular seller because it provides relief from stomach ulcers, John has discovered.
Plans to sell Geelong Cats commemorative honey this year featuring blue and white rings, rather than yellow and black, hit a snag.
“I thought they were going to win the grand final, didn’t I?” John laughs.
“I thought if they won, that would be a hit around the place.
“The funny thing is that it’s selling better in other places than what it is in Geelong now”.
Honey is even sold in humongous 20kg tubs – but not in Japan.
Sold in ricebowl containers, honey worth $3.50 in Australia can sell for $30 on the Japanese market.
“They don’t spread it on their toast – they cook with it,” John says.
He now intends to expand a wild cactus garden on his land to lure busloads of tourists and tempt them to buy honey for cheaper than prices they pay at home.
John’s apiarist passion even extends to founding Geelong Beekeeping Club a decade ago, which mostly attracts naturists.
“Once you start playing with bees, they get you in,” John warns.
He now has more than 700 hives and wants close to 1000 next year for an expected bumper almond season.
“Most of our living is going to come out of pollinating fruit trees, like almonds,” he says, “and whatever we get out of honey in the future is going to be a bonus.
“Honey sales have been really bad at the moment because the supermarkets are importing cheap honey from China and also from Argentina.”
The 54-year-old has also turned his hand to breeding from Russian queen bees costing $400 a pop.
One common breeding technique is to flood the area with male drones to attract the virgin Russian bees to mate.
Breeders can manipulate the reproduction because scientific research suggests most bees fly down hill.
“It’s instant death when they mate with the queen,” he smirks.
“Their sexual organs are inside out and they explode into the queen.
“They fall back dead and then the next bee comes up from behind.
“It is the ultimate orgasm – they die.
“Ladies love hearing that.”