Melbourne Food & Wine Festival: Homage to the High Country honeybees

Birds do it, bees do it, even butterflies and bats do it: transferring tiny pollen grains from the male part of a flower to the female, kick-starting the process of turning those blossoms into fruits, nuts and vegetables, and ensuring seed production for future crops.

Mostly bees do it. In Australia, more than two-thirds of crops rely on European honeybees for pollination. At this year's Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, chefs, restaurateurs and beekeepers are coming together to celebrate the bee at two separate events in Victoria's high country.

Jodie and Steven Goldsworthy are fourth-generation beekeepers and the owners of Beechworth Honey, which is hosting this year's Beechworth World's Longest Lunch. The Goldsworthys are working with local luminary Michael Ryan of the two-hatted Provenance restaurant – and four more top regional chefs – to present a meal that highlights the importance of the honeybee in growing food.

Does this mean honey in every dish? Not at all, says Jodie Goldsworthy. "Quite the contrary, really. The hero is the honeybee and the role it plays in helping nature to deliver our fresh food supply." Each course will be "bee-rated" by the Goldsworthys according to its ingredients' dependence on honeybees for pollination.

The federal government's Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation has estimated that 65 per cent of Australian agricultural crops need European bees, with 35 industries relying on bees for most of their pollination.

Those needing bees most include apples, cherries, avocados and almonds. Commercial growers of pumpkins, cucumbers and squash also rely on help from bees; onions, broccoli and cabbage need bees to ensure seed production. Even in self-pollinating species - for example, some citrus - visits from bees can boost quality by improving fruit size and shape. Bees aid dairy and meat production, by pollinating pasture plants such as clover.

Yet honeybees are under threat, with the tiny, parasitic varroa mite laying waste to global populations. Australia is the only bee-keeping country in the world that remains varroa-free but most observers believe it is only a matter of time; as long ago as 2007, a CSIRO paper warned that biosecurity breaches could lead to this country's wild honeybees being virtually wiped out. Bees are also vulnerable to agricultural chemicals such as pesticides, and may die en masse if they come into contact with sprays, or recently sprayed flowers and foliage.

"The importance of bees to our food supply through their pollination of our fresh produce and ingredients is something that chefs and foodies alike should be more aware of," says Goldsworthy. "What better way to learn the lessons of the honeybee?"

Dessert at the Beechworth lunch will definitely be honey-based – Beechworth Honey Discovery chef Shauna Stockwell is working up a "honey plate" including Beechworth Honey caramel and buttermilk panna cotta, mead jelly, baked stone fruit, meringue with salted honey buttercream and honey macadamia-nut ice-cream. Other dishes will pay tribute to the bee in different ways, by using ingredients pollinated by bees.

Hamish Nugent is one of the chefs cooking for the lunch, along with Patrizia Simone of Simone's restaurant in Bright and Doug Elder from Brown Brothers. Nugent is also holding a smaller event at his one-hat Bright restaurant, Tani Eat & Drink, working with his partner, fellow chef and co-owner Rachel Reed, and with Provenance's Michael Ryan, to stage a bee-based dinner. It will be an intimate affair for just 16 guests in a room decorated with artworks by Alicia Marshall, whose work emphasises flora.

Bees, says Reed, are "a great example of collaborative working". "We thought we would have a little fun by collaborating with our friends to showcase 'Bees & Chemical Weapons' (the plants) in one evening."

Reed says she and Nugent have always taken time and effort to gather ingredients straight from the source, which has heightened their awareness of the natural world. Living in Victoria's high country brought this into sharper focus. "We are lucky to be living close to nature, so perhaps the passion has strengthened."

Although honey is a familiar bee product, Reed says bee pollen is another ingredient people "are probably becoming more aware of as it is rich in proteins and high in amino acids. Bee pollen has many culinary uses; we currently use it as a texture on our goat's curd dish."

Reed says mead – an alcoholic drink made by fermenting honey and water – is making a comeback. "Locally we have a few different varieties of mead available. You can use it in sauces, dressing, desserts and cocktails … Without giving too much away, we will use many different botanicals that the bees pollinate in our cocktails. Honey will be used to ferment elements on dishes. There will be house-made cheese with mead and bee pollen."

Mead will also feature at the Longest Lunch: Beechworth Honey makes four different meads and Jodie Goldsworthy expects to pour at least one of them on the day.

Bees & Chemical Weapons dinner, Tani Eat & Drink, March 2, Bright, $180; Regional World's Longest Lunch, Beechworth, March 13, $145. See melbournefoodandwine.com.au