Deborah McLaughlin has started feeding her bees a mixture of caster sugar and water to keep them alive.
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In April the beekeeper donned her white protective suit and went to check on her award-winning hive.
To her surprise she found the bees struggling.
Mrs McLaughlin and her husband have successfully run Bulwarra Bees in Bowral for the past seven years.
"Every six weeks we were getting this incredible harvest and then one day we checked the hives and they were empty," Mrs McLaughlin said.
The Brown Barrel gumtrees, which help produce her signature dark honey, hadn't flowered due to the lack of rain.
The drought has forced the apiarist to take a more hands-on approach.
"We used to just let them go - we found the less interaction the better," she said.
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Now the bees are checked on a weekly basis for signs of Colony Collapse Disorder - where worker bees disappear from the hive.
Mrs McLaughlin said the disorder was caused by several factors including climate change, the use of pesticides, American Foulbrood disease and the hive beetle.
Half of Mrs McLaughlin's bees are healthy, half aren't - she is in the process of transferring honey between the hives to build strength.
The business used to yield between 20kg and 40kg of honey annually, this year the yield has gone down 70 per cent.
"With the drought we've realised no rain equals no honey," Mrs McLaughlin said.
"We've had to relocate the bees from Bowral to other places in the Highlands as they were struggling."
"The situation in Australia with the drought and the fires is not good."
As a result the entrepreneur has diversified the business with a range of honey skincare products and fresh eggs and vegetables from the farm.
Mrs McLaughlin said bees were like a canary in a coalmine.
"They are a sign of what's going on in our environment," she said.
"When we are losing mass numbers of bees in a short time frame we need to ask 'why?'
The drought isn't the only threat to Australia's bee population.
The Varroa Mite has decimated the bee population overseas with Australia one of the only countries free of the pest.
"Without bees we'd be in a lot of strife," Mrs McLaughlin said.
"Bees are vitally important in our ecosystem and responsible for pollination of a third of our food.
"Honeybees are the most prolific pollinators and it's really important to keep them going."
There are simple steps people can take to ensure the future of the species.
Mrs McLaughlin said the best way to help was to take up bee-keeping or plant bee-friendly plants in your garden. She said they loved purple flowering species especially lavender, rosemary, lamb's ears and cat mint.