The Native Bee Expo and Sugarbag Festival was organised by The Australian Native Bee Association and held at the Bulimba Community Center and adjacent parkland. It was hard to count but there could have been up to 1000 people attend. This was a lot more than the organising coimmittee was expecting and shows the great and increasing interest in native bees.

Video: Start – Welcome dance. 1:22 – Audience dance lesson.

The day kicked off with a welcome, smoking ceremony and dancing with Nunukul Yuggera, which was an awesome experience as we rarely would get to see such a spectacle. There were other indigenous aspects throughout the day with the weaving workshop running all day, as well as Kupae teaching Didgeridoo to kids.

The original event that led to the Expo was the hive competition that has been held for a few years now. This was inside the Bulimba Community Center and had great crowds checking out all the unique boxes throughout the day. Plenty of familiar faces and some new ones.

There was a good amount of stallholders set up in the park selling everything like books, signs, soaps and boxes. Some stall holders drove from Sydney for the occasion.

A few demonstrations of hive splitting and honey extraction were held throughout the day with large crowds gathering around and with the amount of people it was probably difficult for everyone to get a good view. This is something that the organising committee will work on for the next one.

Doug Irvine ran workshops all day doing demos of how he makes his spring clips and boxes, also running a raffle and received a couple of hundred entries for a little money box version of his finger joint boxes which I drew at the end of the day.

The Log Cabin was pretty popular in the voting and received Judges Choice and also People Choice. The “Sign Post” and Hivecraft business cards made from wood were pretty popular as well.

For more information about The Australian Native Bee Association and Expo visit: www.anba.org.au