Honey in the Gardens

There is a new buzz at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. An exotic home-grown honey brand from beehives at the Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney, is now commercially available at the Garden Shop, with the income going towards plant conservation.

Acting Executive Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens and Domain Trust, Dr Brett Summerell says it is very important bee populations remain healthy and plentiful.

"In each of the five beehives at the Garden there are at least 80,000 bees. It,s rewarding for us to contribute to sustainability in this way when bee populations around the world have been dwindling," he said. "Without bees many of our favourite fruit and vegetables could not grow. Bees pollinate a wide range of crops including apples, cucumbers, broccoli, onions, pumpkins, carrots, avocadoes, almonds - the list goes on. Bees play a vital role in plant pollination. About one third of all plants we eat rely on bee pollination."

"There is a buzz here because the income we generate from the honey brand will go directly back into the Garden's conservation programs," he said.

Founding Director of Urban Beehive, Doug Purdie installed the hives and keeps a close watch over them. "We check the hives every two weeks and go through them to make sure there is enough room to store honey and check on the bee's health, Mr Purdie said". Out of our first batch, each beehive has the capacity to produce at least 30 or 40 kilograms of honey. The Royal Botanic Garden, Sydney has an abundance of a wide range of flowering plants which makes it the ideal environment for beehives to flourish and produce delicious honey."

What's more visiotrs can enjoy it in the Botanic Gardens Restaurant. Chef Todd Hunt said he is delighted that he can now add the home-brand honey as an ingredient in items on the menu. "Some ideas are fresh ricotta with crepes with honeycomb from the Garden," he says, "or maybe a cheese plate served with a little pot of honey and grapes and an entreé of roast baby beetroot with honeycomb crumble and créme fraéche."

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