Frewoini Baume

2022

Agriculture - Apiary

As a teenager my room was spotted with magazine cut-outs of bees and beekeepers from around the world. A Global Footprints Scholarship was like a teleportation device that allowed me to exist in these images in real life. I had no idea just how my life would change. 

I began by spending a couple of months in Fiji working on Australian Center for International Agricultural Research project Bees for Sustainable Livelihoods. Here we facilitated the First Pacific Islands Beekeeping Congress. I lived in a remote mountainous village, attended the Pacific Update and visited communities which were being relocated due to rising sea levels. My itch to learn more about agricultural development programs through a more social lens led me to travel to the Solomon Islands with a project called Family Farm Teams (FFT). FFT works with rural farming families aiming to provide more equitable outcomes for all family members. My time in the Pacific opened my eyes to Pacificka culture, aid and development programs and the prevalence of climate adaptation and human migration as these communities bear the brunt of climate change.

My final funds allowed me to join the Ramsey Research Foundation on their Honey Bee Nome project. We travelled to Taiwan where I saw species of bees I'd only read about and ventured through the seemingly never ending Mongolian landscape. I then spend a few months working with beekeepers across Central Asia including Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

Ridiculously, Dr. Ramsey’s has invited me to join his team meaning that over the next couple of years we will continue to explore different bees in different parts of Asia. 

At the time of my travels, one of the most damaging mites to honey bees, varroa mite, was detected and we were working to eradicate it. While working to do that, my time overseas allowed me to gain firsthand experience of ways to manage varroa mite.

I’m fortunate that the beekeeping industry values the things I’ve learnt and has given me platforms to share this knowledge as we now learn to manage varroa. I’m currently a contract trainer for the National Varroa Mite Transition to Management, have written articles for the New South Wales Amateur Beekeepers Association, spoke at the Tocal Beekeepers Field Day and later this year I’m grateful to have been invited as a keynote speaker to the NSW Apiarists Association Conference.

I’m very grateful to the Australian beekeeping industry for welcoming me into the industry, valuing my contribution and supporting me on my learning adventures knowing that knowledge shared strengthens a collective. 

The world can seem like a big scary place. While you typically travel to experience differences, you, paradoxically, come to realise just how similar people and societies around the world are.

I write this from the Philippines as I admire an Apis Dorsata colony… the exact bee species depicted on my teenage room wall. 

“Frewoini meets the values of the Global Footprint Scholarship. She has a clear and compelling vision of a just society where people and animals can live their best life in harmony with the planet.”

- Lynne Strong, Global Footprints Assessor