Doug Purdie was so concerned by the decline in bee populations around the world that he left a career in IT to help save the species.
He co-founded The Urban Beehive which maintains dozens of hives across Sydney.
"Basically, I knew that bees were in trouble all around the world and we didn't really talk about it here in Australia at the time," Mr Purdie said.
"I wanted to educate people on why [bees] are important."
Fifteen years later, Mr Purdie can say he helps maintain the beehives for Sydney's most significant garden: The Royal Botanic Gardens.
Tucked away behind bushes on the roof of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music is a row of eight towers where bees zoom in and out from daily missions.
At the height of the season, there can be up to 100,000 bees in each of the beehives, Mr Purdie says.
The gardens are serviced by native bees and the European honey bees calling these beehives home. Their job is to pollinate the hundreds of flowers in the gardens to help the countless plants survive and thrive.
"All bees are great pollinators. The European honey bees in particular are very, very efficient pollinators because of their numbers," Mr Purdie says.
City no haven from varroa mites
Despite the location, there is no guarantee of safety from the varroa mite, which was first detected in Newcastle a month ago.
"All the European honey bees are at risk across the state," Mr Purdie says.
He says that unfortunately there is no way individual beekeepers can protect their beehives from varroa mites. Although keepers can check their bees for the mites using a technique involving alcohol.
"You can't actually protect the bees from varroa, all you can do is check and see if they're there," Mr Purdie says.
Native bees are local specialists
Varroa mites have little impact on native bees, which are also involved in the pollination of the gardens.
Mr Purdie says native bees are very important to local ecosystems but often overlooked because they do not live in big hives or produce large amounts of honey.
"Native bees are really important because often native bees are specialists. So a particular bee exists for a particular plant," he says.
"If one or the other disappears, that plant or that bee will also disappear."
Abbie Mitchell had a long career as a stylist for film and TV when she decided she wanted to make a positive impact for the environment through work.
Ms Mitchell is now an environmental educator with Kids Connecting Nature and will be holding workshops at the Royal Botanical Gardens during National Science Week to educate school children about native bees and their "hotels".
Of the 2,000 varieties of native bees, most of them are solitary creatures.
While some species live in colonies, many species prefer to live in homes made from nature. About 70 per cent of native bee species live in dirt, while the rest prefer dead, softwoods.
What can we do for the bees?
Removing dead wood from gardens effectively takes away potential homes for some species of native bees.
Ms Mitchell says the main thing native bees are missing out on is a healthy and productive habitats.
An effective habitat includes both a nesting ground, such as the dirt or a beehive and flowers for the bees to feed a short distance away.
"Some of our best pollinating species can only fly up to say 60 metres from their nest site to forage," Ms Mitchell says.
"What I'm finding more and more often is that people have these fabulous gardens and then they say, 'Well, why don't I have any bees?'
"It's because their garden is an island in a kind of urban oasis."
Mr Purdie also suggests that Sydneysiders should plan their gardens to provide year-round food for bees.
"What you want to try to have is three plants flowering all-year round, so even in winter have things that are flowering," he says.
He says another helpful habit is to stop spraying insecticides on gardens, as they not only kill bees but can also kill the larvae of native bees nesting in soil.
Ms Mitchell echoes this point.
"If there's no food you're not going to have bees," she says.
