Alan Burnham has worked within the Australian honey and beekeeping industry for more than 30 years, developing extensive experience in food safety, training and industry practices.

Throughout his career, Alan has worked with beekeepers at every level, from people taking their first steps into beekeeping through to experienced commercial operators. His work has taken him into apiaries, honey extraction facilities and packing plants, giving him practical experience across the journey from hive to finished product.

With a professional background in food handling, food safety and auditing, Alan has provided training and conducted food safety audits within the honey industry, helping beekeepers develop safe and effective practices in their apiaries and processing facilities.

Together with his wife, Alan has also played an important role in beekeeping education and training. They were involved in delivering the first Certificate III in Beekeeping in Queensland and went on to provide training programs across Australia, from the eastern states through to Western Australia.

Now retired from full-time work, Alan remains involved in the industry on a part-time basis and continues to share the knowledge gained throughout his career.

For Alan, one of the great attractions of beekeeping is that the more you learn about bees, the more questions you discover. He finds working with bees both rewarding and satisfying and is passionate about encouraging community interest in beekeeping, the importance of keeping healthy bee populations, and the role bees can play in food production and food security for future generations.

For more than 30 years, Dan Dowsett has been quietly studying the world inside the hive.

A hobbyist beekeeper, teacher, honey judge and Life Member of the WA Apiarists’ Society (1956) Inc., Dan has spent decades learning not only how bees behave, but how to read them. He has served the Society as President, Secretary and Treasurer, while also helping generations of new beekeepers find their feet.

Much of Dan’s work has centred on keeping bees in suburbia, understanding how bees, people and neighbourhoods can successfully share the same landscape. Through teaching, mentoring and lectures to beekeeping groups across metropolitan Perth, he encourages new beekeepers to look beyond technique and pay closer attention to what is happening inside the colony.

Some call him a “bee whisperer”. It is a fitting description for someone who has spent thousands of hours watching, listening and learning from bees.

Dan’s working life has taken him through accounting, auditing, debt recovery and teaching, worlds that might seem far removed from a beehive, yet all demand careful observation and an eye for detail.

That same attentiveness carries into another part of his life: writing. Dan is a short-story and haiku writer with Perth’s Paperbark Haiku Group, finding meaning in small moments and close observation.

For Dan, beekeeping is not simply about managing a hive. It is about learning to notice, the behaviour of a colony, the changes in a landscape, and the extraordinary animal at the heart of it all.

Dwayne came to Australia by boat - luxury cruise liner - in the mid 1970's, a ten pound Pom of Portugese, Scottish and Indian ancestry; and now finds himself somewhat indigenous to the deep south coast of WA, where he has grown deep roots and raised a family in community.

Pursuing studies in education, his learning curve meandered passionately through philosophy, politics, sociology, history, environmental science,  arts and theatre...  All of which set him up to work for over twenty years in migratory apiarism, across the vast floral diversity of Noongar boodjar.
Stepping away from commercial beekeeping a couple of years ago, he now keeps a few hives close to home and seeks to grow abundant nutrition for pollinators domesticated and wild, as well as his friends and family.

Helen and her family run a farm in the Ferguson Valley, specialising in beef, bees and trees. As well as being a primary producer, Helen’s passion is delivering beekeeper education and mentorship programs structured around responsible beekeeping practices. Helen’s involvement in the family farming business, the WA Apiarists’ Society, and as a former Varroa Development Officer and Contract Trainer through the National Varroa Mite Management Program has armed her with a wealth of experience and plenty of stories to share. Delivering knowledgeable, informative, and often entertaining talks is high on the list of Helen’s favourite activities!

Dr Liz Barbour is a Botanist working in the world of beekeeping through leading the Cooperative Research Centre for Honey Bee Products at the University of Western Australia. A PhD student, Dr Khairul Islam, developed the honey nectar signature HPTLC technique and this was commercialised by Y-Trace, based in Yanchep. This test is now offered to our local industry to confirm the source of their honey nectar and provide a deeper understanding of their apiary sites.

A self-taught beekeeper who began with a few hives and a deep curiosity about bees, he has turned a personal passion into purposeful work. Today, he works as an apiarist alongside First Nations communities, helping establish bee farms designed to build skills, create opportunity and support greater self-sufficiency.