A would-be market gardener planted a paddock with palms to sell to locals. Then she found out that men in some Arab countries thought the pollen would help them stay virile. So she started keeping bees to turn the pollen into honey, and became a successful exporter. But all along, she just wanted to keep the plants and bees happy. A story on sustainable beekeeping by Jeremy Torr.

Byron Bay, Australia, March 2021. Having retired several years previously, Gabrielle Morley wanted to keep herself busy, so decided to plant out her plot of land with ornamental trees to sell. She planted hundreds of Phoenix date palms (Phoenix canariensis) that would look nice in any garden.

Then a whisper came to her on a visit to the United Arab Emirates: the pollen of P. canariensis was a very popular substitute for Viagra across many Arab countries. She decided to harvest the pollen from her orchard to export, as well as selling whole trees. But it wasn’t easy to collect; she had to climb up a ladder at every tree.

“It's a bit risky to be up the tree, they're prickly," she said in one recent interview. "Most beekeepers are pretty old people anyway, so I thought how hard could it be?" But it was hard. And slow. So she decided to call in some contractors – bees. They started work at her new business, Phoenix Lifeforce Honey. The bees would collect the pollen, turn it into masculine-enhancing honey which she could collect from the hives and sell to insecure men in floppy pants. It would be much easier than spending hours up a ladder.

She scattered some newly-populated beehives about the plot. The bees thrived, produced highly sought after honey, and the business was soon thriving. But Gabrielle was worried.

“On our journey, becoming proficient keepers with an established apiary, we learned that commercial beekeeping and honey processing often … creates stressed-out bees, with poor immune systems, that produce low-grade honey,” she explains on her website. She saw also that many apiarists were being less than loving with their bees and subjecting them to “barbaric transportation in trucks, chemical herbicides, pesticides, fertilisers and sugar supplements.” She vowed never to do the same.

“It turns out, these are all … fundamental contributing causes to the mysterious colony collapse disorder and honeybee depopulation,” she says. “So we have gone against the commercial grain and studied what bees require to achieve peak nutrition, disease immunity, and prolific natural production.”

Gabrielle has discovered that what the bees do need is a plethora of plants to give them a nutritious diet, high in lipids and amino acids. She says that bees are vital for pollination and effective agriculture, so if people can learn not to rely on monoculture crops and plant other species too to keep bees fed, the insects will definitely be a lot healthier.

“This led us to establish the apicultural utopia we like to call our 'Bee Haven', where we have hand-raised a myriad of medicinal herbs, flowers, and trees for honeybees and native pollinators to forage and thrive on,” she smiles. “We have Leptospermum Polygalifolium (Manuka, Anise Hyssop, for its potent bronchial benefits, Mexican Heather, Lemon Balm, Sage, Alyssium, Lavender, Primula an many more,” she adds, noting that not only do they all give the bees a tastier diet – they also carry over “an exquisite and peerless flavour through our honeys.”

Plus Gabrielle never has to move the hives, they always have lovely flowers in bloom, the bees don’t need sugar supplements, and so far she has not had to use herbicides, pesticides or fertilisers. That all sounds like a win-win-win: happy bees, fecund flowers and honey-eaters who are convinced they are now more fertile.

“The Phoenix Palm has been revered for centuries by ayurvedic and middle eastern cultures,” says Gabrielle. “Its pollen is extolled in every ancient religious text for having exceptional fertility benefits, aiding the production of both male and female sex hormones.”

With that kind of benefit list, there’s no wonder Gabrielle looks after her bees as well as she does. Sustainability has always been a key principal. “They live in five-star accommodation, in ventilated, insulated, antimicrobial, antibacterial, state of the art, award-winning hives designed by universities,” she says. “And just like our product packaging, the hives are made from recyclable materials to keep our girls happy healthy, and stress-free.”

Now 80 years old, Gabrielle is still personally looking after her insect and plant wards. She is described by her team as the Queen Bee, the real brains of the sustainable beekeeping business. Today, working all days of the week, she puts her enormous energy into enlightening everyone about her approach to happy bees producing happy honey feeding into happy bedrooms.

"It is a bit different to Viagra, which gives people an inclination," laughs Gabrielle. "This actually gives (people) the ammunition as well, so for me this spelt hormone therapy equals anti-ageing equals I need this."