KELLY Lees has been a beekeeper for over a decade, and it all started when she noticed a lack of pollination in her veggie garden.
"It literally just took over my life," she said.
Ms Lees became a recreational beekeeper before co-founding a small commercial urban beekeeping operation.
With a background in teaching, she now works as a honeybee education officer at the NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development.
"I love education. I have a background as a school teacher, and I'm a science nerd, so it just brings together all the things I really love," she said.
The 50 year old from Cardiff Heights will expand her knowledge of honeybees when she travels to Southeast Asia for eight weeks early next year after receiving a Saskia Beer Churchill Fellowship.
The sponsored program will allow her to connect with researchers and beekeepers to investigate ways of managing parasitic mites and honey bees, including varroa and tropilaelaps.
"There's lots of research into tropilaelaps - which we don't have yet - but we are seeing it spreading to more temperate climates. The chances it will come to Australia are pretty high, and we're not really prepared for it," she said.
She said varroa mite taught the bee industry to be proactive rather than reactive.
"We were prepared to eradicate varroa, but we didn't really have a plan. We were on the back foot a little bit, and I don't want that to happen. Varroa taught us we need to get on the front foot with this stuff because we live in a global environment now where things move around and everything's connected," she said.
Ms Lees said NSW is in the transition to managing varroa mite, and people were starting to see honeybees back.
"Operators and commercial businesses are managing them, but with increased costs and time management, it's been a big learning curve. We're basically learning how varroa behaves in our environment," she said.
She said her aim on her overseas trip was to learn from researchers and beekeepers about managing mites and what management strategies could be translated into the Australian beekeeping context.
"What I want to do is learn and come back and make that information available to everyone in the industry because I want people to be prepared. I'm so excited; beekeeping is my passion," she said.
She thanked her sponsors for her fellowship and said she felt "extremely privileged".
"It's an honour. It's a highly competitive process, and I just hope I can do it justice," she said.
As The Winston Churchill Memorial Trust approaches its 60th anniversary next year, 103 of Australia's most passionate and determined individuals have been awarded a Churchill Fellowship.
The honour celebrates a diverse group of everyday Australians committed to positively impacting their communities and beyond.
Like Ms Lees, this year's fellows will explore a wide array of fields and topics, each driven by the desire to bring innovative solutions back to Australia.
