Each night as we sleep, thousands of bees are crisscrossing Australia on trucks as they try to keep up with the pollination needs of agricultural producers.
Migratory beekeepers have thousands of bees that they deliver to farms, leaving them for weeks before packing up their hives and moving them on to the next farm.
Some migratory beekeepers from Queensland will travel as far as Victoria to help pollinate crops, and as agricultural production ramps up there's a shortage of migratory bees and beekeepers.
Jo Martin, state secretary of the Queensland Bee Keepers Association, said that most people tended to think of a beekeeper as someone who had a few hives in their backyard.
"Most people are unaware that beekeeping is a large industry," she said.
"Often when we are asleep the beekeepers are moving truckloads of bees through the night.
"They will move anywhere between 100 and 150 hives at a time, from location to location.
"They will travel from the south of Queensland all the way to Far North Queensland and down to Victoria as different crops require pollination."
Once the bees have settled they then pollinate plants including mango, avocado, blueberry, macadamia and almond.
Pollination can take anywhere between four to six weeks to happen, and Ms Martin said that there were about 190 commercial beekeepers currently operating in Queensland.
"The beekeepers load the hives on the back of the truck around 4pm, and when the sun goes down the bees return to their hives," she said.
"Once the bees have finished on a farm, they are usually trucked off to a state forest or native bushland to recuperate."
Challenges facing the industry
One of the problems currently facing the beekeeping industry is that demand is outstripping supply. As food production across Australia increases, younger people are choosing not to get into beekeeping as a career, it is something that Ms Martin says the industry is trying to combat.
"In recent years there has been a large increase in agriculture in Australia, especially with orchard crops," she said.
"We need to start planning now because, in a few short years, there will be an explosion in demand for migratory beekeepers."
Fourth-generation migratory beekeeper Jacob Stevens from Warwick has about 1,500 mobile hives, with about 50,000 bees in each hive. Due to recent droughts, fires, and climate change he has noticed a decrease in honeybees.
"We have had severe droughts affecting most of the country and bushfires have burnt beehives that would have been available for pollination," Mr Stevens said.
"There's also the increase in pesticides and insecticides that we have to contend with. Over the past few years bee numbers have been fluctuating."
Other challenges facing beekeepers include access to crown land, which Mr Stevens said was imperative to the heath of honey bees.
"At the moment we are talking to the state government to ensure that we have access to state forests beyond 2024, as we are hoping to get an extension until 2044."
Bee shortages
North Queensland director of Avocados Australia and a Tablelands farmer Jim Kochi was also worried that there may not be enough beekeepers to go around.
"Bees are very important to our business and agriculture across Australia, and there are not enough beekeepers to supply our needs," he said.
"A lot of the big farming companies have contacts with beekeepers and sometimes the smaller farms miss out or we have to rely on hobby beekeepers.
Mr Stevens said the role of migratory bees was often underestimated.
"If you look at avocados, around 90 per cent of crops are attributed to bee pollination. That's a pretty big impact," he said
"If it wasn't for migratory bees, fresh produce production would drop and we would see prices skyrocket, so we really need to protect the bees that we have."
