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Executive Profiles

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AHBIC Chair

Jon Lockwood

Jon is a commercial beekeeper, Managing Director and co owner of Goldfields Honey Australia P/L with his mother Vicki. Jon manages 11000 hives and several thousand nucleus colonies. Goldfields produce premium bulk honey, beeswax, honey comb, queen bees, nucleus colonies and pollinate almonds with all of their hives. Read More

Jon’s three siblings are also involved in the beekeeping industry. Undertaking tourism, honey packing, bee equipment manufacturing, marketing and administration.

Jon developed a love and passion for the industry working along side his father Grant from a young age. Assisting his father with honey production, pollination and package bee exports. Jon has worked on and visited bees in several countries around the world.

Jon has become involved in the industry body to assist fellow beekeepers in industry challenges and to promote the beekeeping industry as a whole.

AHBIC Deputy Chair

Lindsay Callaway

Lindsay Callaway is the current owner and managing director of Warral Maldon, based in central Victoria with over 5,000 hives.

Warral Maldon found its beginning with an Edward Teague Penglase in 1896 – Lindsay’s great-great grandfather, making him the fifth generation owner. Read More
Growing up in the industry, Lindsay inherited his love of bees from his dad, Roger and has continued his legacy of innovation and excellence in the beekeeping profession.

He is constantly on the hunt for the best when it comes to his business, from hive production and transportation, equipment standards and biosecurity, to honey and beeswax processing, queen bee breeding, research and quality standards.

Lindsay is happiest when out on the road with his bees chasing honey flows and is passionate about sharing what he’s learned to benefit the wider industry, and tackling its biggest challenges together as a community.

“For generations, most people had little knowledge or even cared about where honey came from, how it was collected, processed and packaged. Most people had a distant view of beekeeping generally. But in the last ten years, the awareness and role of bees have heightened enormously.

So now there’s a lot of interest in bees, saving bees, how we need bees for one third of our crops, need bees to pollinate. And, of course, for yummy honey.”

AHBIC Chief Executive Officer

Danny Le Feuvre

Danny has been a commercial beekeeper for 15 years with Australian Bee Services (ABS) and is experienced in providing pollination services and honey production in South Australia. Read More

Danny has been involved in the primary industries his whole career with a strong background in agricultural science, RD&E and agribusiness consultancy.

Throughout his career, Danny has successfully led and contributed to many research projects and has published scientific peer-reviewed papers.

He currently is a non-executive director of AgriFutures Australia (formally RIRDC). He has previously volunteered in many industry roles over the years. Previously an executive member of Australian Honey Bee Industry Council (AHBIC) and a member of the Hort Innovation Expert Advisory Panel. Danny is also currently acting as AHBIC’s Chief Executive Officer.

Danny’s holds a Bachelor of Applied Science from Melbourne University, Masters of Agribuisness from the University of Adelaide and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors (GAICD).

He is passionate about rural industries and in particular the honey bee industry.

Executive Member

Dr Ben McKee

For more than 18 years, Dr Ben McKee has been employed by Hive & Wellness Australia (HWA), previously known as Capilano Honey Limited, the largest packer of honey in Australia. Read More

Since October 2019, he has held the position of Chief Operating Officer (COO).

He has previously served as both Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director for Capilano Honey Ltd.

Dr McKee has a Bachelor of Agricultural Science Degree (Honours), a PhD in a field of study related to the honey industry and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Previously, Dr McKee worked with the University of Melbourne and within the Victorian Department of Primary Industries, as well as managing his own commercial beekeeping enterprise.

Executive Member

Dr Cooper Schouten

Dr Cooper Schouten is a Senior Research Fellow and Director of Southern Cross Universities Bee Research and Extension Lab. Coopers research focuses on strategic beekeeping industry development with an engaged and applied focus which seeks to provide direct benefits to beekeeping businesses.

Read More

Cooper has international beekeeping research, capacity building, training and extension experience working in several countries in the Indo-Pacific region. He is a keen beekeeper with experience working with commercial beekeeping operations.

Positions and key achievements:

  • Lecturer, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Southern Cross University
  • Project leader Bees for Sustainable Livelihoods Research Group

Executive Member

Diana Leemon

Diana started in honeybees as a hobbyist in 1997. She has a strong background in agriculture R&D with 21 years as a research scientist in the Qld Department of Primary Industries specialising in the biological control of livestock pests and parasites. During this time, Diana successfully led 11 projects across the cattle, wool, chicken meat and honeybee industries. Including three projects that investigated the non-chemical control of small hive beetle. Diana has published scientific peer-reviewed papers and reports and a book chapter.  Read More

Diana is currently the principal at Myco-vation, offering scientific advisory and review services. She holds a Bachelor of Science, Diploma of Education and Doctorate from the University of Queensland, as well as a Graduate Diploma in Biotechnology and a Master of Applied Science from Queensland University of Technology. 

Positions and Key Achievements 

  • Adjunct Associate Professor Southern Cross University Bees for Sustainable Living research group 2024 – present
  • Wheen Bee Foundation non-executive director 2023-present 
  • National Varroa Mite Management Program contract trainer 2024-2025
  • Queensland Beekeepers Association management team 2020-2024
  • AgriFutures Honeybee and Pollination industry advisory panel 2017-2020, 2020 – 2023
  • European Union Food Safety Authority hearing expert for working group on small hive beetle 2015 

Executive Member

Ben Hooper
After kicking off his beekeeping career as a young fella in the 90’s, standing on railway sleeper blocks to reach the hot knife in the old tin mobile plant. It’s remarkable Ben returned home to commence his commercial career with his father Robert in 2002. They currently operate 1800 hives for both honey and pollination purposes.

Read More
Home base is Tintinara in the Upper South East region of South Australia, where the area is formally referred to as the ‘Heart of the Parks’ but locally known as the ‘90 mile desert’. Sadly, the desert part is very apparent in 2025 as the state has widely struggled with drought.

In 2010 Ben was very fortunate to be awarded a Nuffield Farming Scholarship. Over the course of 18 months Ben was able to study and work bees across Europe, North America and Asia with a research focus on the application of cold storage of beehives for Australian use. After culminating the learnings Ben commenced transitioning their business from a mobile production system (it’s an SA thing) to a central production system. Completing their new honey house with an eye to energy efficiency and neutral heating of the honey production system.
Ben was on the then Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation (RIRDC) Honey and Pollination panel, later rebranded to AgriFutures Australia.  In SA, Ben served 10 years on the South Australian Apiarists Association (SAAA) executive and was also SAAA Chair for 4 years.
Ben was Chair of the 2018 Bee Congress Committee, successfully reinvigorating the national bee conference sentiment across industry. Since then, Ben has shifted focus to raising his four young boys with wife, Joanna and growth and development of his business in South Australia.

Varroa Coordinator

Bianca Giggins

Bianca is incredibly passionate about agriculture, environment and furthering the Australian honey bee industry. She is competent and self-motivated with extensive experience in business administration, operations coordination, and the provision of strategic support to senior stakeholders, peers and broader teams. Read More

An agricultural upbringing, beekeeper since 2014, previoucly employed by NSW DPI in two roles, as Honey Bee Training Coordinator the other in Biosecurity as Surveillance Coordinator, Varroa Program.

Bianca is a passionate and accomplished professional and beekeeper, committed to effective and productive relationship building for positive industry outcomes.

Bianca believes the Varroa incursion is a big challenge and a complex problem which requires professional, determined and courageous leadership to overcome. As Varroa Coordinator Bianca will play an important role to support the team at AHBIC in protecting and leading the future of the Australian honey bee industry.