CLAIRE Moore's efforts to breed a genetically diverse breed of queen bees has earned her second place in a national Agrifutures Rural Womens Award.
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The Kyneton woman breeds queen bees adaptable to different climates to help stem declining numbers of the insects' colony numbers.
Creating a resilient, diverse and adaptable strain of bees would help stop high colony declines could potentially lay waste to a range of human food sources including almonds, watermelons and cherries.
They and many broad acre crops rely on bees to pollinate plants.
"If there'd been losses like that sustained in an economy, then we would have done something in Australia about it. There would have been a change made in Australia," Ms Moore told the Bendigo Advertiser earlier this year.
"In beekeeping we've been watching the decline in the northern hemisphere, but we hadn't actually been making any changes."
Ms Moore applied to the AgriBusiness awards in a bid to raise enough money to complete training on bee breeding so that she could set up a hive-share where community members could sponsor a colony, experience bee-keeping and learn how to extract honey.
She began training in March after winning the Victorian round of the award, which came with a cash prize.
Ms Moore received an additional $5000 Westpac Bursary when she came runner up in the national round.
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