Can bees be the key to battling burnout? One beekeeper has seen Canberrans flock to his Bywong property to do just that.
Ben Merrivale of 8 Frame Honey runs in-person beekeeping workshops for people hoping to get into the hobby to not only get their own supply of liquid gold but to help battle stress. They've proved so popular that he now offers online courses for people who can't travel to the rural property.
Mr Merrivale knows all too well the benefits beekeeping brings. His venture into the world of beekeeping started with a course, following his family's relocation from Sydney to regional New South Wales.
Now he has 20 hives on his property - producing up to one tonne of honey every year.
"Some of the benefits include being outside - getting back in touch with nature - but there's a lot of mindfulness and focus required for beekeeping," Mr Merrivale said.
"When you're in the hives, and you're working with the bees, you can't be thinking about anything else, because you can make a mistake, you can upset the bees and potentially get stung. If you're focused and just worrying about the bees ... you forget about everything else that's going on.
"So you lose that stress. It gives you a bit of an escape for half-an-hour to an hour, depending on how long you're spending in the hive. And that then can be expanded - if you've got two or three colonies, you might get two or three hours of stress-free, bee time, every week or two."
While beekeeping was traditionally a hobby for retirees or empty nesters, Mr Merrivale said he's noticing more younger couples taking it up.
Beekeeping has also been used for therapy, in particular treating post traumatic stress disorder in military veterans, through organisations such as Hives for Heroes.
Researchers from the University of Sussex Laboratory of Apiculture and Social Insects researched how beekeeping could benefit mental health and wellbeing.
They found keeping bees can help the economy, provide a great sense of community, and can teach children about the value of nature.
This was particularly emphasised in the isolation during COVID.
Then there is the sustainability factor as well.
"Some people are doing that because they've got an orchard that they'd like to pollinate and then get honey as well. They're trying to be self-sufficient," Mr Merrivale said.
"But some people are also doing it just because they would like to do something to help the bees along. They know that some bees are struggling and they're trying to help our pollinators as well.
"And then there is the honey. Generally speaking, you do have to extract some honey for at least most years. There'll be bad years where you don't get any honey out of the hive. But generally, I say to people, you'll be taking somewhere between five and 50 kilos per hive of honey per year."
