Guest Speaker - Charlie Nancarrow from Dindi Bee Supplies at the Honey Bank, Yea.
Charlie has been operating his bee supplies shop in the old Westpac Bank building, hence the name, Honey Bank, for 9 months. He has been a bee keep-er for the past 8 years, having moved into the industry from his IT and filming career. Having completed a Cert 111 in Bee Keeping, Charlie is constantly updating his knowledge. It’s a hobby for many and an obsession for even more! It’s a very sensory experience to handle hives.Bees live in a “democracy”, with the colony working together. Each hive has a queen bee (female), drones (males) and workers (females). The queen has a life span of 6 years, while the workers live for 6 weeks. (So the little bees we see in our gardens are the hard working females who don’t make it back to the hive after 6 weeks). Hives house between 20,000 and 60,000 bees. Bees are valuable pollinators, vital to our food/fruit produc-tion.
We can all do our bit by encouraging bees into our gardens with suitable plantings, reducing the use of pesticides and herbicides and providing shallow water source for the busy worker bees.
Vote of thanks—Jill Heath.
Minute Speaker - Ian Lynch Ian’s theme was “The Man Behind the Badge”, where he recounted his early years. Growing up in suburbia Melbourne, with his brother and sister, Ian attended Armidale PS before moving to Moonee Ponds PS and South West Brunswick PS, then attending Moonee Ponds Central School and University High School for secondary education. University HS was an academic school, and Ian produced his old school tie, part of a very strict uniform policy, with students wearing blazers each day. It was a school with an enrolment of 1,200 students, undertaking Yrs 9—12 studies. Ian completed his Batchelor of Science and Diploma of Education at Melbourne University, on a studentship, taught at Donald HS for 3 years, before moving to Yea on the 4 February 1975, recently celebrating 50 years in Yea! (almost a local!)
Thank you to Sacred Heart Primary School (and little Ferg), for the lovely meal tonight.
The students made the dessert! Emma and her team did a fabulous job.