TRIGGER WARNING This story contains information about sexual assault and/or violence which may be triggering to survivors.
Tony – “ I moved up to Ballina 12 years ago from Sydney. I wanted a new life. I was overworked, suffering anxiety, depression and had a complete meltdown. I was stuck in a life that I didn’t want. I packed my bags, put my wife and four children ( now aged between 11 and 26) in the car. My family asked where we were going and I didn’t know. The whole way up I was saying I’m not sure where we are going but as long as it’s sunny and away from Sydney. We ended up in a tent and a van on the foreshore of Shaws Bay in Ballina for 2 1/2 months. I went back to Sydney, packed up our bags to live in Ballina.
I was a self employed Carpenter and got sick of chasing up money so I took an interest to bees. My bee interest started at 5 years old because I used to get stung a lot playing in the clover. I took to bees and started keeping bees 12 years ago when I moved here. I’m self taught and have grown with knowledge and wisdom about bees. The bee industry helped me sort out my anxiety. I work alone apart from the four people who have now joined the team. Working out in the bush I don’t have to deal with people, I just have to deal with the bees. I don’t have to answer to anyone. I look for pristine conditions for my bees in order to look after their welfare and their safety. I also want to make sure my honey is of a high standard. I’m running about 90 hives which is only a small number in comparison. By the end of Summer I should double that.
The only reason that bees are around right now is because we are breeding them and creating new hives. I’ve been in East Ballina for 2 1/2 years and I don’t see any bees on the clover or the dandelions yet 12 years ago there were lots of them. The problem is people buying pest and weed control to get rid of clover and dandelion. Bees land on it, take the poison back to the hive and that’s what we call colony collapse disorder. I’ve had a passion for bees for a long time. I can’t think of anything else I would rather be doing. Apart from trying to keep the bee numbers up, I’m passing on a lot of info to people about the bee industry. There’s so much involved. There’s a lot of pests, bugs, poisons, toxins so things can go wrong. This last flood I lost over 50% of my bees and all my honey. I made nothing for months with a family to feed. It’s not just the people that get affected. People who grow plants, crops, fruit and vegetables all affected. I just had to suck it up.
I also keep the Australian native bees, the stingless variety. They have a delicious honey. My main interest though is the honey bee as you have Propolis as well and I also deal with the Australian Manuka which we call Jellybush. Reason being NZ has a patent on the word Manuka. NZ has the one species that produces the active honey. We have about 87 species here and out of those about 8 are producing the same quality, if not stronger. I’m doing the active jellyfish honey, tea lights, wax melts, lip balms and glosses. We are about to start furniture and leather polish, surfboard wax and honeycomb. We have trademarks now. We are a small fish in a very large pond and I’m ok with that. Mine is all hand done. My honey is not filtered, not heat treated. It’s extracted by hand from the hive, I separate it and get clean, raw, unprocessed honey.
The four of us all have a different job and we always try and do the right thing by the bees, by ourselves and the community. It’s still early days but everything I do is self taught, self made. Sometimes I have 3am starts, always early and sometimes I don’t finish till 11pm. This time of year is super busy.
I get really inspired by the underdog, the one who has struggled. I struggled with a huge drug addiction in Sydney. I was in a job in Sydney that was paying me $4,500 a week after tax. My alarm went off, I smashed it to pieces, called my boss and resigned. I was a foreman running a huge amount of men for a building company. The money was great but the lifestyle was shit. I never saw my kids. My days were so long I never saw them. I had the boat, the nice house, the cars, everything but I was burnt out. I was leading a double life which no-one knew with the drugs. It was to numb it all. I hated my life. I had to leave Sydney to change my life and that is what I did. Part of my transformation was doing community services, working with aged care and people with disabilities.
My life as a child was awful. I was abused physically, mentally and emotionally by my own parents and the catholic school in Sydney. I don’t speak to my family at all. My mum and dad are really bad people, they are really nasty people. I was raped, beaten, tied up. My father would beat me if he had a shit day. My sister and I would come home with our school reports and of course they were really bad because I didn’t know how to speak English when I was younger. My parents were from a European background. They migrated here in 1968 and didn’t know the English language and were shunned as being the dirty wogs. It was pretty racist in Sydney. They couldn’t teach me and I started school at 4 1/2 not knowing a word of English.
My school life was horrifying, always in trouble because of the lack of English, being made fun of as the wog boy. I withdrew and became an introvert. I would go home with a bad report and my father would beat me to a pulp. I would be black and blue screaming and he would pause until I calmed down then he would say, Now I’m going to beat you until you stop crying so you will toughen up and become a man. My parents are the cruellest people I have ever met.
That’s where the drugs and alcohol started and I was living this life where I was chasing my tail. I woke up one morning and I was like, I want to change this, I want out and I’ve never looked back. Here I am self sufficient, living a good life and I’m with my family.
I’m still seeing a therapist which is helping. I’m also in the process of writing a book which is very graphic about my life and experiences. I’m not writing it to bag people but I want people to know, no matter how dark it is you can come out of it.
I love the North Coast and I’ve never looked back. I wake up every morning between 3 and 4 and when I walk outside I still have the excitement for the place. I love the people, the surfing, the sunshine and fresh produce, the culture and the multicultural side. I absolutely love it. I think we all need good food, good sleep and a good bed and you need to be happy in your choices. Breaking away from my past was really liberating for me. It’s a slow process but it set me free.
I’m 47 and I feel 21. I’ve built this business slowly so I don’t owe anybody money. I’ve made mistakes and I’ve made good choices. All in all I love who I am and I love where I live and I’m going to soldier forward, give 110% until I leave this beautiful planet and hopefully leave a legacy behind.”
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