Who We Are
An Australian charity building evidence for native pollination resilience.
Nomia Bee Australia Foundation Limited exists to test whether habitat restoration and selected Australian native ground-nesting pollinators can provide measurable environmental benefit and, where proven, complementary agricultural pollination resilience.
Our role is not to promise the answer. It is to build the capability required to find it.
Australia now needs more evidence, not more assumptions.
Varroa has permanently changed the management environment for European honey bees.
Managed honey bees remain essential to Australian agriculture. Nomia is investigating whether Australia can also strengthen complementary resilience through native pollinators whose biology, nesting requirements and environmental relationships are different.
The environmental purpose begins with habitat restoration. Agricultural performance is tested only where ecological establishment provides sufficient evidence to justify asking that next question.
Nomia's research program is centred on an approximately 104-hectare site near Coleambally in the NSW Riverina. The Foundation has secured long-term tenure over the site under an executed lease commencing 15 September 2026.
Building the organisation required to do the work.
Nomia combines executive leadership, practical land and habitat capability, agricultural field experience and developing external scientific engagement.
Brannan James Tempest
Brannan Tempest founded Nomia to build the organisational, physical and funding capability required to test the native-pollinator proposition at meaningful scale.
His role includes strategy, governance coordination, site development, infrastructure, procurement, funding, partnerships, stakeholder engagement, field implementation and program execution.
Executive leadership does not determine the scientific outcome. Methods, evidence and conclusions must remain open to qualified independent challenge.
Dianne Kelly
Dianne contributes practical capability relevant to revegetation, habitat establishment and field implementation.
Her experience supports the practical questions involved in establishing vegetation, native habitat and land-based research environments under Australian conditions.
This operational capability is important because suitable pollinator habitat depends on successful establishment and management in the field, not simply theoretical design.
Oliver James Tempest
Oliver brings practical farming and agricultural machinery experience gained across agricultural settings in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
His contribution supports site preparation, machinery operation, agricultural logistics and practical field implementation.
This provides Nomia with hands-on agricultural capability alongside the governance, research and infrastructure requirements of the program.
Founder and Board leadership can establish infrastructure, secure resources and execute the program. It does not replace scientific expertise, independent scrutiny, appropriate conflict management or the need for qualified specialists to challenge methods and interpretation.
Strengthening the questions before relying on the answers.
Nomia is engaging researchers whose expertise can strengthen the developing research program, challenge its assumptions and improve the quality of the evidence ultimately produced.
Dr Amy-Marie Gilpin
Nomia warmly welcomes Dr Amy-Marie Gilpin's scientific contribution and her interest in the developing native-pollinator research program.
Her expertise is relevant to native bees, pollination ecology and the ecological questions the program is being designed to investigate.
Meet Dr Amy-Marie Gilpin →Dr Ros Gloag
Nomia warmly welcomes Dr Ros Gloag's interest in the program and greatly appreciates her willingness to continue discussions as the research develops.
Dr Gloag has indicated that she may review proposed trial designs and may also involve colleagues with more specialised expertise in ground-nesting bees.
Meet Dr Ros Gloag →Scientific engagement described here is individual unless expressly stated otherwise. It should not be interpreted as formal university partnership, institutional endorsement, formal appointment, protocol validation or acceptance of any predetermined Nomia conclusion.
Evidence first.
Nomia's operating principle is simple: establish the question, measure what actually happens and allow the evidence to determine what happens next.
Control
Define treatments, baselines and comparisons before interpreting results.
Measure
Link biological observations to environmental and agricultural data.
Challenge
Invite appropriately qualified scrutiny of methods and material conclusions.
Decide
Proceed, revise, investigate further or stop according to the evidence.
No replacement promise. No guaranteed yield. No national result from one trial.
Nomia does not claim that native ground-nesting bees can replace managed European honey bees. It does not assume that habitat establishment will automatically produce agricultural value, and it will not treat results from one location as evidence of national applicability.
Nomia's credibility depends on keeping hypotheses, proposals, current facts and demonstrated results clearly separated.
Build the institution around the evidence.
Nomia is building a network of scientists, governance contributors, growers, funders, government, industry and technical partners capable of strengthening the work while preserving its scientific discipline.
Government Evidence: The Damage Is Already Being Felt
The consequences of Varroa destructor in Australia are no longer merely projections. Australian government agencies are documenting impacts on beekeepers, hive numbers, pollination services and the effectiveness of available Varroa treatments.
Read the Australian Government and state government evidence directly.
Individual reports of hive loss, treatment resistance, increased pollination cost or crop impact should not automatically be treated as national averages. Nomia distinguishes documented current impacts from credible future risks and relies wherever possible on primary government and scientific evidence.