THE 2022 AUSTRALIAN MINT HONEYBEE COIN

The coin was released to mark the bicentenary of Australia's honey bee industry. Honeybees were introduced to Australia by early European settlers and there are now about 530,000 managed honeybee colonies.

The commercial honeybee industry provides pollination services to a range of crops, as well as honey and beeswax products.

But the industry comes with costs as well as benefits. The introduced honeybee can escape managed hives to establish feral populations, which affect native species.

Honeybees can take over large tree hollows to build new colonies, potentially displacing native species. Tree hollows can take many decades to form and bee colonies occupy hollows for a long time – so this is a long-term problem for native bees.

Many other native species also rely on tree hollows for shelter and breeding, and are likely to be affected by competition from honeybees. They include at least 20% of birds including threatened species such as the superb parrot and glossy black cockatoo, as well as a range of native mammals and marsupials.

Honeybees, both feral and managed, also compete with native species for nectar and pollen in flowers. Research has shown honeybees often remove 80% or more of floral resources produced.

This is not the first time an Australian coin has commemorated an invasive species. This year, the Perth Mint released a collectable $100 coin to celebrate Australian brumbies – or feral horses – which it described as national icons seen by many as symbolic of our national character.

Brumbies have long been an object of affection in Australian culture, including romanticised depictions in movies and poems such as Banjo Patterson's The Man From Snowy River.

In recent years this has translated into a campaign to protect feral horse populations, which can wreak havoc in fragile ecosystems such as NSW's Kosciuszko National Park.

When species are featured on a coin, it elevates their profile, engenders public affection and, according to the Royal Australian Mint, helps tell the stories of Australia.

Australia's native species are tenacious – often the underdog fighting for a fair go in a harsh environment. Surely that's a story also worth telling.

In response to this article, chair of the Australian Honey Bee Industry Council, Trevor Weatherhead, said the Royal Australian Mint took the opportunity, after representation from our industry, to highlight a very important pollinator that makes an enormous contribution to the Australian economy […] If people want other pollinators to be on a coin then they can approach the mint to do so.

To read the complete article, see:
A new $2 coin features the introduced honeybee. Is this really the species we should celebrate? (https://theconversation.com/a-new-2-coin-features-the-introduced-honeybee-is-this-really-the-species-we-should-celebrate-181089)

	NBS (coinbooks.org) Web