C Results celebrates National Honey Month: An Interview with an Accidental Beekeeper
Every year in May, anaphylactics run for cover around Australia as the beekeeping community and honey connoisseurs come out in force for National Honey Month, celebrating all things bees, honey, and beekeeping. Unbeeknown to most, for one team member at C Results, Honey Month is actually every month, thanks to a thriving colony of bees in a quiet suburban backyard…
When he’s not shuffling paperwork or pacing the factory floor at C Results, business owner Matt Cahill moonlights around Malaga as the Accidental Beekeeper - a novice insect enthusiast, honey sommelier, and accidental advocate for suburban beekeeping. What was a chance discovery of a beehive several years ago is now a flourishing backyard colony, producing a stadelicious organic honey. The odd sting and pestering his neighbours with swarms of bees seems to have paid off, with a record year of organic honey production for the Accidental Beekeeper. He’s also managed to keep all the local dentists in business. As part of Honey Month, we interviewed Matt to hear more about his accidental beekeeping and his beekeeping bandana collection.
What’s the story behind the name The Accidental Beekeeper? We had an old chest of drawers in the backyard, and we noticed a few bees hanging around it. Maybe 4 months later my wife came in and said you should take a look at this, and there was a massive beehive in there! We weren’t sure what to do so we got a beekeeper out and he said we could keep the bees if we wanted to. When we got them out, they filled an entire hive, so fast forward to today and I’m well and truly an Accidental Beekeeper.
What did you think of beekeeping before you got into it? I didn’t really think anything of it, in that I never had a desire to keep bees. I did think maybe when I retire that beekeeping wouldn’t be a bad thing to do, but I didn’t think I’d have them now. Maybe that means I should retire early.
Are you known as a Queen Bee around the house? Haha, no but I am known as a grumpy bee though.
Are the bees attracted to your beard? I’ve had a bee fly into my beard once, it went berserk trying to get out. But when I’m out there I’ve got the suit on, so the beard is covered thankfully.
How many times do you get stung when you’re out at the hives? I’ve only been attacked once, when I didn’t have my smoker. They got stuck in my boots so they went for my ankles, they will sting straight through your socks if they’re thin, which mine were. After a while you get used to it. Unless you have anaphylaxis.
Can you tell us more about why bees are important in our ecosystem? Well quite simply, without them we’d be screwed. They pollinate everything… fruits and vegetables, the plants we eat, they all need it to produce food. They are hugely important.
Do you have a fun fact on beekeeping that people wouldn’t be aware of? Bees hold hands and legs when they sleep, they all link together. What else… when laying eggs, the Queen bee decides which eggs will become female workers and which eggs will become male drones by measuring the size of the cell in the honeycomb. And 90% of the bees are actually female, these are the worker bees and what a great job they do!! The only purpose of the drone is to mate, and once they’ve mated, they die (tough life guys). If they don’t mate and return to the hive, the girls will kick them out of the hive as all they will do is laze around and eat all the food.
How much honey does your colony produce? Maybe 3kg honey per frame, 8/10 frames per box so roughly about that. It’s a good amount at the moment. I’m thinking about using some of the honey for a cider I’m brewing so watch out for that.
How do you eat your honey? It’s all raw and organic, so there’s only one way… on crumpets.
Tell us about the packaging for your honey. Well, it needs to be sustainable, so we’ve got a 300ml glass jar and box made from recycled board. The branding and packaging was designed in-house at C Results and printed on our HP R1000 flatbed printer. It uses eco-friendly inks, we opted for a white ink on a black board and with with some clever ink layering we managed to achieve a spot varnish finish without the usual cost to do this effect. Once printed the boxes were custom cut out on our ZUND cutter.
What is the best way for someone to buy your honey? Good question! At the moment it’s pretty grass roots, friends and family… we might do a farmer’s market at some point. In the meantime place an order with C Results and we’ll make sure you get some!
Any tips for someone looking to get into Beekeeping? Just give it a go and be prepared to make a few mistakes. It does take time, it’s not just about the honey. You need to check for disease, make sure the hive is healthy, the queen is laying, that kind of stuff. There should be a constant turnover of bees. So it’s not all set and forget.
Hey Luigi, what’s the story with the bandana? It’s not fancy, but it’s cheap! It’s 100% functional - it keeps my hair out of my eyes while I’m on the job. All the hipsters will be wearing them soon.
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WA Honey Month continues until the end of May, for a full list of activities visit the Bee Industry Council of Western Australia Limited (BICWA) event calendar here.
If you’re interested in custom packaging designs, get in touch with our team!