The largest mass migration of livestock in Australia is underway.

By September 14, more than 227,000 bee hives from all over the nation will have been moved in to pollinate almond orchards in Victoria, South Australia and a small area in southern New South Wales.

That’s a total of 9 billion 18 million bees says the woman overseeing logistics of the Queensland contingent of the migration.

Jo Martin from Boonah is the secretary of the Queensland Beekeepers Association. It’s a role which normally involves government advocacy, biosecurity challenges and organisation within the membership of the State’s peak industry body.

But the Covid-19 pandemic changed Jo’s working life; it has become more intense and through her State Government appointment to a food production steering committee, the focus of her role has shifted.

Jo is not normally involved in the annual migration of hives to ensure a harvest from Australia’s most lucrative horticultural export, but this year is different.

And the change was brought about through her role on the steering committee.

“Bees don’t see borders. In our industry, borders only exist in a biosecurity sense.

“Due to the nature of beekeeping, you need to keep migrating your bees from resource to resource or from pollination to pollination,” Jo explains.

In the early days of the Covid-19 crisis, the Beekeepers Association received a call from the Agriculture Minister’s office asking for a representative to form part of the food production steering committee that was being set up.

“Initially, there were 40 of us but now there are 167 members representing all different aspects of agriculture and horticulture in Queensland,” Jo said. 

“In the initial stages, we were dealing with a lot of unknowns. 

“Then it was flagged that there may be the potential for a border closure so we immediately began to work on what that border closure was going to mean to our industries.”

For commercial beekeepers, first and foremost the problems were to do with trucks carrying hives across borders.

“We had to put systems in place to ensure those trucks were moved through the check points, quickly and easily.”

One solution was to identify the border crossings which were less trafficked. 

“We had to make sure that members were aware of all the quarantine requirements,” Jo said.

“Really, our industry had to become recognised as one where freight and logistics were paramount and that our live freight had to arrive at the destination alive and healthy.”

Commercial beekeepers, Jo explained, are essential facets of the agricultural and horticultural industries. 

“There are 57 crops which require pollination by managed European honeybees - almonds, blueberries, zucchinis, pumpkins, avocados, macadamias, strawberries, cucumbers, even the humble carrot needs to be pollinated to produce seed and that pollination is all carried out in places as far away as Tasmania.

“We are only a little piece in the food production jigsaw puzzle, but without us, for many crops, there would be no harvest.”

For the last four weeks, Jo and her counterparts in other States have been watching the evolving situation in Victoria.

“I’ve had to closely monitor it and stay abreast of the changes in restrictions.”

The almond pollination season and the need for an unimpeded mass migration of hives was fast approaching and the Victorian situation was worsening.

To put things into perspective, the almond industry, based on the 2019 figures, is worth more than $772 million to the Australian economy. 

Currently, there are 53,104 hectares planted with almonds in Victoria, South Australia and southern New South Wales and that equates to 15.4 million trees that must be pollinated.

“Last year, Queensland sent almost 11,000 hives to Victoria and this year, we’ll be sending 20,000 hives,” Jo said and explained that the increase in number was drought-related.

“Due to the drought, the State’s honey production is down 90 percent and there’s commercial beekeepers who haven’t had an income cheque for a long time.

“While keeping bees for honey production is very different to keeping bees for pollination; a lot of the commercial honey producers have geared up to get hives ready for pollination.”

The inducement lies in the bottom line.

“A producer who has 1,400 hives to take to Victoria for a four week period could expect to get a pay cheque in excess of $200,000,” Jo said.

“If you’ve spent $50,000 buying feed for your bees during the drought, then the opportunity to get paid that amount of money makes the short term conversion to pollination hives worthwhile - even after you take out the heavy cost of fuel.”

Jo has high praise for the concept and the workings of the steering committee.

“Having a seat on the agricultural co-ordination steering committee gave us the key group of contacts that we desperately needed as an industry so that we could make sure we could get information to the State Co-ordination Centre about the movement of the hives.

“The government couldn’t have been more helpful. I was even getting phone calls from the Director General and the Deputy Director General to ask if everything was working well.

“I’ve had phone calls at 9 or 10 at night from Senior Department officials who have been helping us and their execution has been exceptional.

“Every concern and worry that I have had they have been able to address immediately or say that we’ll get in contact with our NSW counterparts and we’ll get that taken care of.” 

Four weeks ago, a national group was co-ordinated to specifically respond to the almond pollination.

“It’s become a great harmonisation and collaboration of State agencies and industry bodies as well as national bodies.

“It’s been tremendous.”

And so, as Jo puts it, while you are sleeping at night for the next few months, there will be trucks plying the route from Queensland to Victoria, carting bee hives in and out.

A typical example is Rex Carruthers from Cooroy who left with his first convoy of hives to Victoria last Wednesday night.

“He’ll be taking down 1,400 hives in total,” Jo said. “He’s accumulated them all to a point at Goondiwindi and from there he’ll do three loads down to Victoria.

“Rex will have a co-driver with him and he and all the other beekeepers moving hives into Victoria from Queensland have been instructed by the Chief Medical Officer.

“Once they make it into Victoria there’s no stopping to buy a coffee or a meal.

“They take the hives into the orchards they’ve been assigned to and they get out.”

After four weeks they’ll return to pick up the hives and take them straight up north for the avocado pollination.

“Commercial beekeepers in Queensland are usually running in excess of 400 plus hives, most of them are running 1,000 to 1,500.

“One of our biggest beekeepers in Queensland runs in excess of 3,000 hives.”

The logistics of this year’s migration may have been made a logistical nightmare due to Covid-19 restrictions and border closures, but Jo says there have been some benefits.

“I believe that a number of commercial beekeepers who have converted to pollination hives this year may continue to do so in the future for the short term almond pollination.

“And the contacts we’ve been able to assemble through the State steering committee and the national one will be invaluable to our industry in the future.”