Gidgegannup Small Farm Field Day: Bee scientist Kit Prendergast among list of high-calibre speakers

Wild bee scientist Kit Prendergast will be among the speakers at this year’s Gidgegannup Small Farm Field Day, with plans to talk about her research on supporting native bees.

When you begin to grow a garden, an amazing thing happens.

As with any passion — stamps, cars, vintage war paraphernalia — our brains become so attuned to the objects of our fascination that we suddenly start seeing them everywhere.

You develop an obsession with old VWs and suddenly the roads are filled with them.

You get into native Australian banksias and all at once they line the streets.

Of course, they were there all along, hiding right under your nose, waiting for you to take an interest.

In the garden, this happens most often with the plants we learn to love and identify.

But there is another world existing amongst the things we grow that is equally invisible until we decide to take an interest: the world of the native bees that visit our plants.

Kit Prendergast — wild bee ecologist, author, and science communicator — knows this better than most.

She has spent years studying the little-known native bees of WA, advocating for their protection and for continued research into their lives, behaviours and the habitats that support them.

In the past few years, Kit’s work has led to the discovery of a native bee species that had not previously been identified (she named it Leioproctus Zephyr, in honour of her dog Zephyr).

But there are countless other native bee species flitting and flying among us that are yet to be identified, with some estimates suggesting less than half of WA’s native bees are known to researchers.

Without proper research and funding, we do not know whether these species are endangered, where they live, what they eat or what vital roles they may play in our ecosystem.

Kit, “The Bee Babette”, speaks for the bees and, closer to home, is now growing her own garden to support them.

“We only moved in to our place in the Perth Hills at the start of December and what I loved about it — and why I chose it — was that it’s got beautiful open garden spaces and is pretty much on a bush block,” Kit tells me from her sunny backyard.

Kit, her partner and baby daughter have moved into a pre-established garden that she is slowly but surely making her mark on.

“There’s a lot of exotics in this garden, which isn’t my preference,” she explains, “because native bees definitely prefer native flowers.”

Ms Prendergast will be among the list of high-calibre speakers at this year’s Gidgegannup Small Farm Field Day, with plans to discuss the best way to support native bees in a home garden environment — with bee hotels, appropriate flora and all the information one might need on native bees.

“The Field Day ties in with World Bee Day, which is May 20,” she said.

“I’ll be shining a light on the unsung heroes of Aussie bee biodiversity, our native bees.

“I’ll be celebrating their diversity, evolution, relationships with plants, and how we can all help conserve this precious component of biodiversity to ensure thriving gardens, farms and ecosystems.

“This includes through floral selection, well-designed bee hotels and other nesting substrates, and individual actions that lead to global benefits.”

Some native bees feed from only one specific plant, meaning many Perth gardens are essentially food deserts for these unique insects.

While the (non-native) honeybee has long claimed the spotlight, Kit is bringing attention to the many other bees that deserve our care and protection — and growing them a new home too.

The Gidgegannup Small Farm Field Day is on May 25.

To read the official program, pick up a copy of the May 15 edition of Countryman.