Lester says his conservation hero is the dearly departed countryman Steve Irwin, and has no problem bringing a similar level of enthusiasm.
Australia has a high prevalence of solitary bee species: that is, bees that don’t live in colonies or hives and potentially don’t even make honey. Nicknamed the “Bee Man,” his dream is to ensure no more go extinct.
23-year-old Clancy Lester’s interest in entomology was first ignited when he embedded himself with the Yolŋu (that’s pronounced YOL-gn-oo) Aboriginal people in Australia’s Northern Territory, and saw first-hand how their livelihoods were affected by declines in native bee species.
Annual harvests of honey from native bee species not only represent a joyous and nutritious part of their traditional diets but also a feature in traditional songs and fables.
Declines in the populations of honey-making bees, which Lester says is due to a combination of habitat loss and over-application of pesticides in agriculture, is slowly robbing this and future generations of Yolŋu people of their birthright.
Seeing empty hives, he told ABC News AU, lit a “fire in his belly”.
These days, Lester conducts school workshops and community-based conservation projects teaching how people can make simple changes to make room for bees, either planting native species and converting median strips and road verges into native floral beds, or building bee “hotels.”
Lester has put together a variety of resources that anyone can access on the internet about how to build one of these little structures, 800 of which he has overseen across Australia.
