The Biggest Buzz in the Southern Hemisphere
How AIR CTI helps Warral Maldon move 7,000 hives for the Southern Hemisphere’s largest single movement of livestock
From the air, the scale and isolation of Warral Maldon’s Big Desert hive-collection operation become clear.
Moving more than 70,000 frames of bees from overwintering sites across Victoria to more than 200 bee-drop sites spread across four separate almond orchards demands careful planning, a dedicated team and trucks capable of reaching places they probably shouldn’t. For fifth-generation beekeeper Lindsay Callaway, AIR CTI helps Warral Maldon’s precious cargo arrive calmer, safer and ready to work.
Bees are, by almost every measurable standard, a ridiculous thing to transport.
They don’t queue. They don’t understand fatigue laws. There are millions of them, every one of them armed with a venomous sting and quite capable of using it. And they unapologetically insist on being moved at night. Worse still, the cargo is alive, temperature-sensitive yet responsible for helping produce billions of dollars’ worth of food.
The previous evening, we had followed Warral Maldon’s crew deep into Victoria’s Big Desert, near Nhill, to collect hives that had spent winter working the native flora. The tracks were sandy, the corrugations relentless and the country was precisely the sort of place where a heavily laden truck could quickly develop an unhealthy interest in becoming part of the landscape.
Even so, with AIR CTI fitted, Warral Maldon’s Isuzus simply lowered their tyre pressures, lengthened their footprints and rolled on.
By daylight, those same bees were being unloaded at an almond orchard some 400 kilometres to the northeast, near Robinvale on the Murray River, joining the final wave of Warral Maldon hives delivered for the 2026 pollination season. For the Warral Maldon team, it marked the end of a mammoth logistical exercise. For the bees, the real work was only just beginning.
Lindsay Callaway is not a man who needs to manufacture enthusiasm for what he does. Spend a few minutes talking to him and it becomes obvious that bees are far more than a business. He knows his industry inside out, speaks with the quiet confidence of someone who has spent a lifetime learning it, and there is an unmistakable passion behind almost every answer.
But it is when he talks about the bees themselves that you begin to understand the man. The business may be large and sophisticated, but beneath it all Lindsay is still, quite simply, a bloke who genuinely loves bees.
There is obvious pride when Lindsay talks about the scale of the operation, but no swagger. He delivers the numbers almost matter-of-factly, with the quiet satisfaction of someone who knows exactly what it took to get there.
“We operate more than 7,000 hives, and this almond season we’ve delivered what is probably the largest number of bees ever supplied by a Victorian apiary,” Lindsay said.
“It’s more than 70,000 frames delivered to over 200 sites. It has taken a big team effort involving about 20 staff, including our apiarists, quality managers, administration team and everyone back at home.”
That is a sizeable freight task by any measure. The only difference is that most loads don’t contain millions of passengers capable of flying away or stinging the driver.
Fifth-generation beekeeper Lindsay Callaway, Managing Director of Warral Maldon.
Five generations of bees
Lindsay is the fifth generation of his family to keep bees commercially. The story began in the early 1890s when his great-great-grandfather, Edward Teague Penglase, sent to America for a book on beekeeping. A surviving business letter dates the enterprise to 1896, giving the family more than 130 years of apicultural history.
Lindsay joined the family operation in 1992 and has now spent more than 30 years working with bees. Today, he describes Warral Maldon as a vertically integrated business comprising three interconnected operational arms.
There is Pollinator, which manages large-scale crop pollination; Bees and Honey, the production and packing operation that remains the backbone of the company; and Syzygy, its research and development arm.
Binding them all together is SWARM. Rather than referring only to the apiary team, every Warral Maldon staff member belongs to SWARM. It represents the company’s shared culture of teamwork, supporting staff training and maintaining Warral Maldon’s quality standards across the entire operation.
The business has continuously packed its own honey, and honey produced by other beekeepers, for more than 50 years. Its purpose-built Maldon facility is B-QUAL and BRCGS certified, with Lindsay particularly proud of the company’s long-held BRCGS AA rating and the “plus” earned when that result is achieved through an unannounced audit.
Syzygy reflects another longstanding trait among practical operators: the conviction that, no matter how well something works, it can probably be made better. The team’s projects include selective bee breeding to improve stock in the fight against Varroa, along with safer and more effective ways to transport hives.
In fact, Lindsay was ahead of the game in 2004 when he developed what Warral Maldon says was Australia’s first fully insulated, air-conditioned curtainsider designed specifically for shifting bees.
“We like to be inventors, as most beekeepers do,” Lindsay said with a wry smile. “We like to reinvent the wheel.”
As it turns out, the wheel, or more accurately the air inside the tyre, has become an important part of the company’s success.
Smoke helps settle the bees as the Warral Maldon crew prepares the hives for their overnight journey.
From desert banksia to almond blossom
Warral Maldon’s bees work across a radius of roughly 400 kilometres from home. At various times they can be found in mountain country, the foothills, coastal areas and the desert.
The hives we watched being collected had spent the winter among native wildflowers, particularly desert banksia. Flowering through winter, the banksia supplies nectar and high-quality pollen at a time when both can be difficult to find.
For the bees, this is much more than a pleasant meal before the main event. Pollen supplies the protein needed to raise brood, helping colonies build strength ahead of the short and critical almond-flowering window.
Lindsay’s enthusiasm lifts noticeably when the conversation turns from logistics to the bees themselves.
“The desert banksia gets the bees fired up and ready for pollination,” he explained. “It produces excellent nectar and pollen, which helps the bees make more bees. For a job like this, we need them in the best possible shape very early in the year.”
Almond trees are highly dependent on insect pollination, and the flowering period waits for neither mechanical trouble nor a truck bogged on a sandy track. The hives must be strong, positioned correctly and delivered on time across hundreds of individual drops.
It is one of the largest coordinated movements of livestock in the Southern Hemisphere. Unlike cattle or sheep, however, this livestock travels in timber boxes and goes to work the moment the blossom opens.
“The apiary industry punches more than tenfold above its weight,” Lindsay said with quiet conviction. “We pollinate billions of dollars’ worth of crops that are completely dependent on bees. Apiculture and agriculture are two sides of the same coin, and I’m very proud to be part of that.”
Warral Maldon Isuzu “Bullant” carrying a compact loader through deeply rutted Big Desert sand.
The trucks are part of the family
Transport has been part of the family story for generations. Lindsay’s great-grandfather was among the early Australian apiarists to move hives by rail, while later generations followed the honey flows by road, moving their bees from one flowering area to the next.
The current Warral Maldon fleet includes four Isuzu trucks, an Isuzu D-MAX and another twin-steer truck on order. There is also an older single-steer, bogie-drive Giga that Lindsay describes as an exceptional servant to the business, along with an N-Series that handles the smaller work.
Warral Maldon does not turn its trucks over simply because a spreadsheet suggests it might be fashionable. The team becomes attached to them. More tellingly, they give them names.
Alongside The Sting are Honeyjoy, Beeliner II and The Bull Ant. Honeyjoy is approaching 600,000 kilometres, and Lindsay hopes to see it reach one million.
“We treat the trucks as part of our team,” he said, with the sort of affection normally reserved for a faithful old working dog. “We get pretty attached to them.”
That attachment is understandable. A truck carrying bees is more than a vehicle; it is mobile life-support equipment. Ride quality, ventilation, reliability and the ability to reach remote apiary sites can directly affect the condition of the hives and the success of the job.
With tyre pressures lowered through AIR CTI, the Warral Maldon bee truck works through deep sand in Victoria’s Big Desert.
The camel-pad effect
AIR CTI central tyre inflation systems are fitted across Warral Maldon’s truck fleet, right down to its little three-tonner. From the driver’s seat, tyre pressures can be altered to suit the load, speed and surface without stopping beside the track to wrestle with an air chuck and Schrader valve.
On the highway, the tyres can run at the higher pressure required for the load and speed. When the bitumen ends and the sand begins, the driver selects P3, the lowest of the presets programmed into Warral Maldon’s AIR CTI controller.
Reducing pressure allows the tyre casing to flex and the contact patch to lengthen, spreading the truck’s weight across a much larger area of ground. Instead of a hard, highly inflated tyre concentrating the load into a relatively small footprint and digging down into the sand, the softer tyre effectively floats across the surface.
Lindsay calls it the camel-pad effect, and it is a particularly good description of what is happening beneath the truck.
And that is because a camel can move across soft desert sand partly because its broad, padded feet spread its weight over a large surface area. Rather than punching deeply into the sand with every step, the pad expands under load and reduces the pressure being applied to the ground.
Lowering a truck tyre’s inflation pressure achieves much the same thing. The tyre’s contact patch becomes longer and more compliant, distributing the load across more ground and reducing its tendency to sink.
At the same time, that larger footprint places more tread in contact with the surface, improving traction, while the softer, more compliant tyre can flex over corrugations, stones and irregularities rather than transmitting every sharp impact directly through the suspension and chassis.
AIR CTI is fitted across the entire Warral Maldon combination, including the prime mover and bee transport trailer. The initial investment pays dividends through improved traction, a gentler ride for sensitive live freight and better tyre-wear management.
“AIR CTI enables us to go places where we probably shouldn’t be going,” Lindsay laughed. “We let the tyres down to P3 in the desert, and it turns our bogie-drive trucks into eight-wheel drives. It opens up country we had previously tried, and failed, to get into.”
Of course, the system does not magically add driven axles. What Lindsay is describing is the dramatic improvement in grip when all eight drive-tyre footprints are working properly, rather than four highly inflated dual assemblies concentrating their weight into the sand and attempting to excavate their way to China.
More importantly for Warral Maldon, the benefit is felt well beyond the tyres.
“It smooths out the corrugations and lets us roll through the sand dunes,” he said. “That softer ride flows through the whole truck, the chassis, the equipment, the hives and the precious cargo we’re carrying. The bees arrive calmer and safer, and it reduces wear and tear on the truck.”
For a normal freight load, that improvement in ride quality is useful. When the load consists of thousands of living insects packed into timber hives, it becomes considerably more important. Every impact that can be absorbed at the tyre is an impact that does not have to travel through the chassis, into the hive bodies and ultimately into the bees themselves.
The system also allows Warral Maldon to match pressure to the truck’s changing load. Once the hives have been unloaded, the rear tyres no longer need the same pressure they carried when fully laden. Lindsay can select P2, set at about 60 psi for that application, providing a better ride and reducing unnecessary tyre wear on the empty return journey.
Then Lindsay delivers perhaps the strongest endorsement of the system. There is no sales pitch or theatrics. He simply says it as though the conclusion was reached years ago.
“Pound for pound, AIR CTI is the best asset I’ve ever bought.” | Lindsay Callaway
That is a strong endorsement from an operator who owns thousands of hives, a honey-packing plant, specialist curtainsiders and enough bees to make even the bravest truckie wind up the windows.
AIR CTI central tyre inflation controller fitted above the truck’s UHF radio.
A little kiss from a stump
But the strongest endorsements are seldom delivered in a boardroom. They usually arrive in the dark, miles from anywhere, immediately after something has gone wrong.
During the previous night’s collection, one of the truck’s tyres “kissed” a sharp stump hidden in the sand, causing a slow sidewall leak. Without the AIR CTI central tyre inflation system, the crew would have faced an unpleasant choice: stop and deal with a large truck tyre beside a remote track, or risk destroying it and becoming stranded with a live load of bees.
Instead, AIR CTI continued supplying air to the leaking tyre, allowing the truck to return safely and the crew to complete the job before arranging a proper repair.
“We all make mistakes, and that slow leak could have made a big difference to the night,” Lindsay said. “AIR CTI allowed us to get home safely, get the bees delivered and then let the tyre shop do the hard work.”
There is a serious occupational health and safety benefit in that. Every roadside or trackside tyre change exposes a driver to traffic, heavy components, unstable ground and manual-handling risks. Add darkness, desert country and several million restless bees, and suddenly limping home does not sound like an inconvenience. It sounds like an excellent idea.
Lindsay is equally enthusiastic about the support behind the system, from the availability of parts to the team that fits and services the equipment.
“The fact that the product is Australian made is important to us, and the backup service and parts support are second to none,” he added. “The AIR CTI team supports Warral Maldon, but they are also strong supporters of the wider apiary industry. That matters to us.”
Lowered truck tyre spreading its contact patch across soft sand using AIR CTI.
Waiting for the blossom
Back at the almond orchard, the last hives were being placed and the trucks were nearing the end of their delivery run. Warral Maldon’s transport task was almost complete, but the bees’ work had yet to begin.
Soon, the bare almond branches would erupt into blossom. Millions of bees would leave their hives, moving pollen from flower to flower and setting in motion a crop worth vastly more than the apiary industry’s physical size might suggest.
Most people spreading honey on their morning toast, or eating a handful of almonds, will never think about the night shift behind it: the desert tracks, the sand dunes, the corrugations, the apiarists, the trucks named The Sting, Honeyjoy, Beeliner II and The Bull Ant, or the tyre pressures selected from the driver’s seat.
But without the trucks, the bees do not reach the blossom. Without healthy bees, there is no almond crop.
That is the remarkable thing about Warral Maldon. It may be a honey company with 7,000 hives, but for several frantic weeks at the end of each winter, it also becomes a precision transport operation carrying Australia’s smallest and arguably most important livestock.
And when the road gives way to desert sand, thanks to AIR CTI, Lindsay Callaway simply presses P3 and keeps his trucks moving.
Early morning hive delivery at the almond orchards near Robinvale.
