Australia’s 10,000 registered beekeepers are worried. In the last 20 years hive numbers across the country have halved, and the industry is currently battening the hatches for a perfect storm of multiple pressures on the European honeybee.

Chief among their concerns is the phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). This occurs when bees simply vanish from their hives leaving the capped brood and queen in abandoned colonies. CCD was first observed in Pennsylvania in 2006, and losses in North America and Europe have averaged about 30 to 40 percent in the years since. It is important to note that no cases of Colony Collapse Disorder have been recorded in Australia.

Does that mean we can rest on our laurels. Definitely not! Beekeepers are worried that a major outbreak of the feral Asian honeybee, which was first detected in Queensland in 2007, will bring into the country the parasite Varroa destructor, a mite that has been implicated in CCD overseas. In the long term, however, both varroa and the Asian honeybee can be controlled. The issue that really petrifies beekeepers is the growing use of insecticides.

Editor of the Australasian Beekeeper Journal, Des Cannon, wrote in a recent editorial that he regards “the use of pesticides in our environment as the single biggest threat to the survival of beekeeping”. Cannon singles out for special attention a class of chemicals called neonicotinoids, so called new generation insecticides that have gained widespread usage since they were introduced in the mid 1990′s.

Neonics, as these chemicals are commonly known, include the popular garden insecticides Confidor and Conguard. Both products are systemic. This means that although neonics can be applied in a variety of ways – as a soil drench, a foliar spray, in granular form or as a seed treatment – they work by being absorbed into a plant’s vascular system where they are able to attack the nervous system of any insect that ingests the chemical.

Herein lies the problem with neonics such as imidacloprid and clothianidin: they are extremely toxic to bees. No big deal says Bayer CropSciences, the multinational company that sold more than a billion dollars worth of neonicotinoid products last year. They insist that bees spend little time foraging on infected pollen, that little if any neonic insecticide finds its way into hives, and if it does, the concentration is so low that the effect on hive health is negligible.

These claims are called into question by the findings of a Purdue University study released last week in the peer reviewed journal Plos One. Researchers found damning evidence that bees from hives located near neonic treated cornfields were exposed to insecticide in various ways throughout their foraging period, and were actively foraging on maize pollen.

Most alarmingly though, the research indicated that the neonic clothianidin was present on bees found dead at the entrance to hives as well as in pollen collected by the bees and stored inside the hive. Considering both imidacloprid and clothianidin are almost universally used in Australia as seed treatments for canola (some of which is also genetically modified), corn and other crops, beekeepers have every right to be concerned about the future of their livelihood.

So what can we as gardeners do to support the local honeybee population. Firstly, we ought to abandon formal style gardens for the environmental folly that they are and embrace a more relaxed, cottage style dominated by flowering plants such as daisies (among the best bee attracting plants), clovers, fruit trees, herbs and natives including grevilleas and dwarf eucalypts.

Secondly, and most importantly, gardeners should cease using imidacloprid and other neonicotinoid chemicals. Most pest problems can be solved in the long run by creating a biodiverse garden full of a broad range of plants, along with organic soil building techniques. The latter will help boost the immune response of plants, making them naturally resistant to any minor pest outbreaks that might occur.

Paul Watson of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society made an interesting comment on an Australian chat show last year. He said that “worms are more important than people, and the reason for that: worms can live on the earth without people, but we can’t live on the earth without worms.” Whether you love or hate what Watson does each summer in the Southern Ocean, his comment is spot on.

We’re not the centre of the universe. We can’t live on the earth without worms any more than we can without honeybees, so the sooner we get over ourselves, and drop the sense of entitlement that has infested all corners of our privileged society, the better.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 28th January 2011. Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

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The major pests in my garden aren’t insects or diseases, which are mostly kept in check by building biodiversity and other organic methods – they’re animals. Some are native, like possums, parrots and bandicoots, others are introduced, such as hares and rabbits. All have their own appetite for destruction.

Possums wreak havoc in the vegie garden. Silverbeet seems to be a special favourite, but few leafy plants are spared. In some years they even develop a taste for rhubarb, eating it down to the ground despite the fact that’s it’s supposed to be poisonous to mammals. Bandicoots aren’t quite as bad, but if they do get into the vegie patch they dig up seedlings in search of worms.

Parrots are lovely additions to the garden, but some have an insatiable desire to bite chunks out of every piece of ripening fruit they can get their beaks into. King parrots are the worst offenders at my place. They’ve become semi tame and are mostly unafraid of people, even rabid gardeners clapping their hands loudly and yelling threats of taxidermy.

Rabbits and hares are notorious pests for a reason. If they find a way into the vegie patch they’re even more destructive than possums, but it’s the damage they do to young fruit trees that really bothers me. They have a special preference for apples and love to chew the bark, especially during winter when the tree draws sugars back into the trunk.

Do I sound frustrated? Too flipping right I am! For years the garden was mostly pest free. Now, the animals have learnt that if they want a decent feed, it pays to hop or fly over to Thistlebrook – it’s a land overflowing with milk and honey!

If the animals were able to share, then good and well, but as cute as a possum or a rabbit appears, they’re not human-like characters from a children’s picture book and if my family is to eat, they need to be controlled. In this regard I have three options: eradication – killing the animals through various means; removal – trapping and relocating; or exclusion – preventing the animals from accessing the plants in the first place.

Before all the animal rights people get their knickers in a knot, I’m not about to reach for a shotgun. Besides the fact that I’d rather not kill any living entity, native animals are protected by law (for good reason), and I’m not quite hungry enough to kill rabbits and hares just yet. Trapping and relocating is a bit useless. Remove a native animal, create a vacuum, and nature will fill it up again. This leaves exclusion. To me this is the only feasible way of creating some kind of harmony between animals and a food producing gardener.

To some extent, fencing works very well. Our boundary is nearly all fenced in chicken wire, which keeps most of the hares and rabbits out, and the picket fence around the vegie patch does a sound job of keeping the blighters away from my precious crops. I know where some gaps are, however, and I need to make it a priority to block them up. Possums simply use timber fences as a thoroughfare, but netting fences, particularly those that are floppy at the top, tend to discourage them.

Electric fencing is brilliant if you can get it to work properly. I’ve been caught a couple of times where energisers have failed and the pests have simply pushed under what I believed was a hot wire. With better quality gear though, it’s very effective. For small areas, a couple of low wires is sufficient to keep the bunnies at bay.

Birds are a trickier proposition. Netting is one possibility, but it’s simply too difficult to work with nets directly thrown over a tree without some kind of supporting frame. I know of a few gardeners who’ve netted their entire orchard with good success, but this is beyond the budget of many. Exclusion bags are a cheap, effective option. These can be made at home or purchased from a company such as Green Harvest, and come in a range of materials including waxed paper, cloth, gauze, and flyscreen. The lighter materials protect the ripening fruit from fruit fly, but they won’t stop a hungry bird or possum. The heavier materials will.

As for bird scarers, chilli sprays and other home remedies, forget about it. They might work for a while, but animals are creatures of habit – once they get used to something, they’ll simply ignore it. But as my favourite poet Robert Frost wisely wrote, “good fences make good neighbours”. This just as true for our animal friends as it is for people.

First published in the Toowoomba Chronicle 10th December 2011. Photo by Doug Beckers via flickr.com

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Are you’re a sprayer, or a stayer? Do you instantly reach for a trigger pack at the first sign of pests, or do you take a patient, wait and see approach? Is your garden shed full of bottles labelled with caution signs, or does it contain substances you might purchase in the cleaning and cooking aisles of the supermarket? I’m not trying to create an unnecessary division but it think it’s instructive to consider what pest management actually means.

To me, the concept of garden health is similar in practice to the use of antibiotics and probiotics. The word antibiotic means “against life”. When a patient develops a bacterial infection, antibiotics may be administered to kill or inhibit the growth of bacteria, restoring health.  The argument in favour of probiotics is that they are “pro life”, and when used in adequate amounts promote good health and help prevent illness.

The same general principles are true in the practice of gardening. Spraying an insecticide, herbicide or fungicide, whether organic or not, is literally “anti-biotic” in effect because living organisms are killed or inhibited by the action. For this reason, there are gardeners that suggest spraying is never warranted. My views tend to be more pragmatic. Because I’m growing food, I’d argue that the use of a fungicide or insecticide is sometimes warranted in order to produce a decent yield. In such a situation my first thought is always to use an organic spray that will do the job while causing the least amount of harm.

I should clarify what I mean by organic. The word itself has become a weasel word in our cultural landscape, much like the term “climate change”, or even the term “pro life”. All have lost their meaning and potency because they are vague. They are open to false impressions and misleading claims. This is unfortunate in the case of organics, because the term derives from the word organism, which suggests a living, organised system. When Lord Northbourne invented the term “organic farming” in 1940, he described a holistic, balanced approach to agriculture that avoided the use of chemicals and viewed the farm as a living system.

So when I use the term organic spray I refer to any non-synthetic formulation that is an allowable input under the Australian Organic Standard. Sometimes I make these sprays up at home from simple ingredients, and on other occasions I’ll buy a ready made product that carries official organic certification, as indicated on the label. If you’re unsure as to what is and isn’t allowed under the Organic Standard, I’d suggest downloading the most recent copy from the website www.australianorganic.com.au for your reference.

Products aside, the main point I want make about organic gardening is this: as gardeners, we’ve been taught to reach for a spray at the first sign of trouble. The chemical companies love such automatic behaviour because leads to whopping great profits. But as far as I’m concerned, we owe the big chemical companies nothing. In fact, considering the human and environmental damage that’s been caused by the toxic products of such companies, they probably owe us. It’s time we made positive, life affirming choices.

Genuine organic gardening is pro-biotic in its application. It’s positive and preventative. It takes a long term view and sees the garden as a living system, an organised collective. In practice, this means that the building of well structured, humus rich soil full of thriving micro-organisms will head the organic gardener’s list of priorities. Healthy soil is the key to a healthy garden. It also means that the organic gardener will seek to create an ecosystem that contains a broad diversity of plants and animals. Biodiversity remains the best means of controlling horticultural pests and diseases, because it creates a sense of balance and order.

The next time you notice a pest or disease outbreak in the garden, think twice before you act. Consider the garden as an organism. Think about the ramifications of different actions. If it’s appropriate to spray, use the gentlest spray available for the task at hand and realise that you’re probably spraying because an ecological balance has been thrown out of whack. If spraying isn’t necessary, don’t do it. Do something pro-biotic instead. Make some compost, build a frog pond, add some plants to attract bees. Choose life, in all its complexity and diversity, and you won’t go far wrong.

First published in The Chronicle 14th November 2009. Photo by Justin Russell.

A garden without wildlife is a garden without soul. I’m pretty sure this is a quote by someone famous, and though I can’t track down the author, it’s a mantra that I’ve been really keen on since I started gardening enthusiastically a decade ago. These days, I find it hard to imagine a garden without scurrying lizards and twittering birds. I’m not engaging in hyperbole to suggest that I’d be inclined to give up gardening altogether if I wasn’t able to share my patch of dirt with some friends in the animal kingdom. So long as they’re not pests.

In our previous Toowoomba garden there were feral birds galore. Indian Mynas were the main pest. These birds are highly intelligent, extremely territorial, and have the dubious distinction of being named one of the world’s top 100 invasive species and the Most Hated Pest in Australia. They are known as the flying cane toad, and in surveys are more loathed than foxes and feral cats.

Thank goodness there’s none here at Thistlebrook. In fact, since moving here three and half years ago, the one and only feral bird we’ve spotted on a single occasion was a pheasant. This bio-secure status hasn’t come about through any particular effort on our part – for some reason I’m yet to put my finger on the ferals just aren’t here.

What is here is a growing list of native bird species. There’s a colony of blue wrens that produce a new generation each spring, a family of willy wagtails, native swallows, finches, tawny frogmouths, various parrots and plenty of honeyeaters.  My favourites of the lot are the wrens. But the avian highlight of our time here was watching a soaring wedgetail eagle spot a rabbit in the neighbour’s paddock, then bomb dive from the thermals with all the daring of a kamikaze pilot. It was a thrilling sight that resulted one less bunny to ringbark my young fruit trees. Thanks Mr Wedgie.

Providing habitat for birds is basically the same as providing habitat for people. Like us, they have three main requirements: water, food, and shelter. Provide these in the garden, and it’s a case of “build it and they will come – birds will inevitably take up residence because they find the conditions habitable.

A water source can be as simple as a glazed terracotta saucer, topped up every day or two, or it can be as elaborate as a specially designed wildlife pond. Just make sure it’s permanent. I live opposite a creek, and though it’s mostly dry at the moment, the occasional pool provides year round water.

Food sources are a bit trickier, because different species have different needs. Wrens and wagtails are flycatchers who feed on small insects. That’s welcome, and easy enough to accommodate by avoiding the use of chemical insecticides. Let the birds do the work for you. Honeyeaters and other nectar feeders go for flowering plants like grevilleas and bottlebrushes. Finches prefer grass heads and seeds. The moral of the story is that if you want to attract a diverse range of birds, you’ll need to supply a diverse range of food plants.

Shelter is also easy enough to create, as long as you’re prepared to lighten up. In my view, very formal gardens such as those with a limited plant palette and a very tidy appearance aren’t overly friendly to anything but the garden owner. If you want to attract birds, it’s important to recognise the value in leaving some parts of the garden unkempt, for these are the areas that birds seem most attracted to. Consider planting a small meadow or woodland corner, and don’t clip everything to within an inch of its life. Give nature its head, at least to some extent.

In terms of plants, small birds such as wrens and finches like building their nests in dense, prickly shrubs because these give them protection from predators. The wrens in my garden nest in an old may bush, but I’ve also seen them in a Viburnum tinus and one year there was a nest in a small rose bush. Perhaps the best bird attracting shrubs of all are the grevilleas, especially the pricklier types like ‘Canberra Gem’ and ‘Robyn Gordon’. Parrots generally prefer to nest in hollows, while swallows for example make mud nests under the eaves of sheds. Create a range of shelters and nesting sites, and you’ll get to enjoy a diverse range of birdlife.

First published in The Chronicle 7th November 2009. Photo by Julian Robinson via flickr.com