The Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) for Honey Bee Products was established to add value to honey bee products and attract new beekeepers and businesses to the industry.

Problems addressed:

• Traceability of honey bee products from hive to packer
• Authentic labelling of a honey product – honey, raw, Australian, region (tierra), monofloral, bioactive (antibacterial or antioxidant)
• Developing new honey bee products – venom for cancer treatment and pollen as a whole health supplement
• Understanding and optimising the healing power of Australian Leptospermum
• Market intelligence of Australian honey products in international markets
• Real-time detection of the honey bee disease, American foulbrood
• Quantification of bee-feed performance against bee health decline
• Understanding approaches to maximise bee breeding efforts
• Melliferous flora availability and environmental factors affecting flowering performance
• Legislation impacts on the honey bee industry
• Decision support tools for movement between apiary sites
• Land rehabilitation for year-round bee health
• Leptospermum farming for medical grade honey
• Understanding the economic drivers for industry growth
• Real-time assessment of bee colony health and productivity

New challenges require new inter-disciplinary thinking and the CRC for Honey Bee Products enabled the attraction of fresh thinking which, mixed with industry experience, made for a new wave of discovery and innovative tools to meet emerging demands.

The smallest Cooperative Research Centre to exist, the centre attracted more than 20 participants and the focus of over 60 researchers.

Please connect with us for further information or problem-solving assistance.