A group of us were heading to the museum cafe for lunch but we paused to see a large group of people attending Adam Shipp's Tasting Australia tour. This garden is a living museum of Indigenous food and medicine plants from across Australia.

Adam Shipp, a Wiradjuri man, was introducing the group to the sights and scents of the season but, in particular, was referring to seeds of a plant which were the size of quinoa. That was appropriate as Adam runs Yurbay Consultancies - "yurbay" meaning "seed" in his Indigenous language. I could not see the plant but it was probably mat rush (Lomandra longifolia) which Adam says has a seed like a grain of rice and these can be made into damper. The plant is used for food, fibre and medicine. He twists it into rope which becomes tougher as it dries.

There were four tours on November 4 and 6, and these are to be followed by more tours on February 3 and 5. Visitors have to book on the museum's website (head pieces for hearing are provided) and morning tea is included. Adam brings in samples of native pepper, saltbush, wattle seed and kurrajong seed (which he says is like popcorn) for tasting with a cup of bush tea. At home he cooks with wattle seed collected from Cootamundra and Blackwood wattles.

In home gardens the museum's edible plants grow well. I have had kangaroo grass (Themeda triandra) in a pair of tall narrow pots for 20 years. Their edible seeds can be ground into flour.

Adam says kangaroo grass is also used in land management and native grazing animals use it for their food. The native blue flax lily (Dianella revoluta) has attractive blue berries which are said to be edible fresh or cooked. In my garden it needs to be watched as it spreads.

Native indigo (Indigofera australis) is a source of nectar for butterflies. Adam calls it a fishing plant as the leaves can be crushed and thrown into a waterhole which starves the water of oxygen causing fish to float and be caught easily.

At ACT for bees, Julie Armstrong and her team have emailed to say it is Australian Pollinator Week from November 13-22 and among details for the event, ACT for Bees has included a list of groundcovers to attract bees and pollinators in the ACT.

Two low-growing grevilleas provide high nectar to attract bees, the fan flower (Scavola humilis) which lures bees, butterflies and birds, salvia species (the sage family). Prostrate false sarsaparilla (Hardenbergia violacea) is also recommended as a bee attractant and Adam Shipp says its leaves or flowers can be used to make tea.

Drewe Just of Campbell collects the finest honey from the bees in his hives. He said originally he only wanted to have three hives but the bees kept swarming so, in October, he increased it to five hives. Swarming on three occasions has been spectacular.

My neighbours and I would have to agree. A hive of bees has been resident in a large hole in the trunk of a more than 300-year-old eucalyptus blakelyi near our townhouses. The bees have been swarming for two weeks. It is at once awe-inspiring and something of which to be aware as they visit both exotic and native flowers in the vicinity.

Julie Armstrong includes in the newsletter an extract from a report by Hall Rotarian Jonathan Palmer announcing Hall as the first bee-friendly village in Australia. From 2018, a group of local beekeepers, environmentalists and concerned citizens became the Hall Honeys. The Hall Men's Shed members constructed 100 bee hotels and local residents all joined in.

They know about the bee waggle dance when a bee walks in a circle, turns around, often with a little waggle, then walks the same circle in the opposite direction. This is thought to indicate to hive mates the quality of the flower patch she has found. On World Bee Day in May, humans were invited to join a global challenge to do the waggle dance. At Hive Mind at the Museum of Australian Democracy in June, environmental scientist Cormac Farrell said bees dance in the dark when they are voting to move to a new home to replace the queen bee. Time to waggle dance before dinner tonight.