Beekeeping News

The country’s largest beekeeping business, Tweeddale’s Honey, with 19,000 hives to its name and having operated for 81 years through three generations, has become the latest in a long line of honey businesses to fold as the ramifications of years-long honey prices below cost of production continue t…

New Zealand retail pack monofloral mānuka honey exports to the United States climbed 54.1% to 2,862 tonnes in calendar year 2025, an increase of 1,004t over the year-before volume. The surge into the US lifted global exports in this category to an annual record 6,999t and contributed most to matchin…

With banks closing in Comvita needed to show profitability, and did, in their financial half year to December 31. A February 23 presentation to shareholders of New Zealand’s largest mānuka honey company also came with the tease of a potential international investor to help reduce debt levels.

As missiles fly back and forward, between Iran and the West, Ian Fletcher analyses both the likely immediate repercussions, and the potential flow-on-effects, including in Ukraine and New Zealand.

Beekeepers are wary and Biosecurity New Zealand (BNZ) has been out in force in certain Auckland suburbs over the past four months as the response to spring’s yellow-legged hornet incursion has wound on. So far hornets have only been found in Auckland and on February 4 BNZ presented a webinar to appr…

With the US market leaping into the lead as New Zealand’s largest consumer of mānuka honey, we ask some of the country’s largest honey exporters, along with the UMF Honey Association (UMFHA) who promotes Kiwi beekeepers’ most valuable product, what is driving the growth and if it is likely to contin…

A month after proposing to release a potential new beekeeping industry body constitution “in February and hopefully early February”, Apiculture New Zealand (ApiNZ) and New Zealand Beekeeping Inc have yet to do so and continue to fine tune.

Beekeepers? Technical experts? A mix of both? Just who should make up advisory groups to New Zealand Bee Health and Biosecurity (NZBB) is the topic of consultation between the American foulbrood (AFB) agency and the beekeepers who fund it – and if sufficient beekeepers don’t speak up the decision wi…

It was intentionally left uncredited. Last month’s Apiarist’s Advocate eMagazine cover photo of a fully-laden-with-beehives 10-tonne truck precariously balanced on its side above a pond. Reader questions rolled in… Who had the bad day? What damage was inflicted to man and machine? And, most commonly…

It's the old acronym of KISS to the fore as veteran beekeeper John Berry explains how sometimes the basics are all you need for successful beekeeping.

We might sometimes overlook it due to its abundance in the environment, but the role of water is essential to a healthy honeybee colony, both for nutritional and temperature-control purposes. Dr Mark Goodwin shares what he has learned about honeybees’ association with water, and how beekeepers can h…

Queen bees and drones exclusively mate in “drone congregation areas”, right? Although crucial to the survival of our livestock, as beekeepers we actually know very little about the mating locations of honey bees and, believe it or not, what we do know has been aided by research using radar technolog…

Like a “sleuthhound”, Aimz is on the case, searching for American foulbrood (AFB) as the last of the honey comes off…

In 2026 Apiarist’s Advocate has yet another way to consume our content – in your ears. Apiarist’s Advocate Pod launched in December, a podcast featuring AI readings of the monthly content.

As a years-long honey glut diminishes from storage around New Zealand, and beekeepers report a below average – or certainly no-better-than-average – national crop this summer, sentiment is strong that honey prices to its producers will be on the up. While it might be time for many beekeepers to fina…

While some still hold out hope for a late-summer honey flow, other beekeepers are already turning to autumn tasks in their hives as various reports of a “patchy”, “unique” and “on/off” honey season are emerging. We speak to beekeepers up and down the country to get their ‘take’ on what is shaping as…

Finding itself with money on both sides of a US trademark case (as detailed in Mānuka Charitable Trust Scores Own Goal in Trademark Attack on Comvita Mānuka Honey Cosmetics), Comvita Ltd. has formally requested that Mānuka Charitable Trust (MCT) withdraws their opposition to the Caravan Honey Co. ap…

Mānuka Charitable Trust (MCT) has upended a four-year Comvita marketing effort in the US by opposing “THE MĀNUKA EFFECT” trademark application. A suite of Comvita mānuka honey cosmetics is sold under that pending trademark. A joint venture between Comvita and Hollywood A-lister-linked Caravan Digita…

‘One vote, one member’, only commercial beekeepers have voting rights, and potential fees of approximately $400/year plus $1/hive – details of Apiculture New Zealand (ApiNZ) and New Zealand Beekeeping Inc’s (NZBI) proposed new industry group have been discussed at a January 28 ApiNZ Special General …

With yellow-legged hornet nests continuing to be found on Auckland’s North Shore, more than six months on from the first Vespa velutina finds in the city, some beekeepers are calling for a ‘bounty’ programme of financial incentives to be implemented to help encourage more finds. However, the Ministr…

On December 4 2025 John Rawcliffe passed away suddenly in Malaysia, age 64. He staunchly served New Zealand’s mānuka honey industry for more than two decades, including leading the UMF Honey Association (UMFHA) from 2000 to 2023. Those who worked alongside him pay tribute to a friend and colleague w…

After kicking the tires with beekeepers regarding the possibility of extending New Zealand Bee Health and Biosecurity’s (NZBB) work programme beyond American foulbrood (AFB) and to a role more fitting their new name, the former American foulbrood (AFB) Management Agency has handed the hot-potato to …

A Tasman‑based hobby beekeeper, Ilona Hart has worked in apiculture for many years and now leads delivery of the ministry for Primary Industries’ National Apiculture Surveillance Programme (NASP) through AsureQuality Limited. We sit down with Hart to find out how the programme is working to protect …

Anybody who has spent any length of time as a commercial beekeeper in New Zealand will know of back injury, either from first-hand experience or hearing the stories. Now, in a New Zealand first, Victoria University of Wellington PhD student Jane Pierce has researched the impact of musculoskeletal di…

It’s a big word, from an ancient language, but if you have ever traded honey, or any food, then you will have likely encountered Codex Alimentarius. The international food standards play an integral role in how honey is traded globally – and even what is deemed ‘honey’. What’s the point of it though…

If you are a beekeeper you will have invariably moved hives to a different location, and for most commercial beekeepers it is an essential part of the business. Dr Mark Goodwin has too, and made some astute observations about the resulting bee behaviour.

While the end of January might have brought Bay of Plenty beekeepers and their livestock a battering by the elements, Aimz kicked off the month and year with back-breaking work in the field, and frustrations in the extraction shed. A mix of joys and trials, here’s her look into a week in the life of…

The world’s rules-based order has been disrupted. Ian Fletcher surveys the new playing field of geopolitics and explores New Zealand’s, limited, options.

What do you consider the New Zealand apiculture industry’s greatest strength? How about its biggest weakness? What opportunities lay out in front of Kiwi beekeepers and honey sellers in 2026 and what are the threats that are likely to present? We put those questions – plus the opportunity to make a …

As a yellow-legged hornet (Vespa veluntina) biosecurity incursion response winds into month three, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) is simultaneously being praised by the beekeeping community for an expansion of their response funding and front-line efforts in Auckland and encouraged to pro…