Mornington Peninsula beekeeper Jan Dwipa was introduced to the fascinating world of bees 58 years ago when he was six years old. His father was a beekeeper, as were his grandfather and great-grandfather. “My grandfather sold honey through the Depression,” Jan says. “I’m still using his smoker that he made back in the 1920s.”
Jan’s grandfather was the only beekeeper in the family to sell honey. Jan is in it for the love of bees. “I’ve always just liked hanging out with bees. Dad always had one hive in the backyard. By the time I was a teenager we had about four because I liked bees so much.”
Jan describes bees as “good company”. “It’s easy to enjoy your bees. It’s been shown that the sound of bees, the vibration they put out, is good for you. It has a good effect on the parasympathetic nervous system.”
When it comes to beehives, different types have different features. Jan grew up with the commonly used Langstroth hive. “It depends on what you want out of your hive. If you want table honey, something like the Flow hive is good. I find the old-style Langstroth a bit labour-intensive. Warre hives are good because you get an assortment of flavours in your honey.”
Having a beehive doesn’t automatically mean an endless supply of honey. Last spring wasn’t a good season for making honey, Jan says. “Ideally, you’d get a good harvest before Christmas. But we had warm weather in early spring and the queen started laying, then we had nearly two months of rain, wind and cold and the bees can’t leave the hive in that weather. That meant the hives were full of newborn bees with nowhere to go for food. When they could get out, which wasn’t very often, the flowers were either blown off or washed off by the rain, and all that means no honey.”
After many years working as a beekeeper, Jan now has three apprentices and is moving more into educating people about bees and beekeeping. “Bees aren’t to be taken for granted, ever. Appreciate what they do and how they do it, appreciate everything about their contribution to life. The bees do a lot of work for the honey. Honey is an incredible product; it’s one of the wonders of nature. But don’t expect honey, appreciate honey. In fact, value honey very highly.”
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