Despite being thrown some serious challenges in winter and spring 2025, beekeepers servicing New Zealand’s major kiwifruit growing areas appear to have – for the most part – filled their role adequately. It hasn’t been all smooth sailing though, with some disaster stories around hives failing their audits, meaning the proposition of securing enough quality beehives to pollinate the valuable crop in coming seasons should concern growers.

This story is available in audio form through Apiarist's Advocate Pod  on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, or here . What started as a find of two male yellow-legged hornets in Auckland over winter has morphed into more than 20 sightings of queen hornets and over a dozen nests in the city. If New Zealand is to have any chance of eradicating the bee-predators then the collective actions of Biosecurity New Zealand, beekeepers and the wider community over the next month is critical,

What to make of the hornet incursion response so far? Ian Fletcher has been among those advising the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) from the beekeeping industry’s perspective. He reports on a programme that has so far relied too much on hope, may be continuing to do so and that “the lack of a grip on this issue should concern us all”.

Industry groups Apiculture New Zealand (ApiNZ) and New Zealand Beekeeping Inc (NZBI) have found themselves distracted by the unwelcome yellow-legged hornet incursion response in the last month, but some small progress towards a more united industry body has been made they say.

In the film the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy walks a yellow brick road to the Emerald Castle in search of a wizard. In China, Comvita appears to have embarked upon a kindred quest to the cave of a dragon. Although both reach their destination, neither wizard nor dragon deliver on the hopes held for them, and Comvita learns that dragons do not live forever. Bruce Roscoe traces Comvita’s China sojourn, compiles a damage report, and asks, Where to now?

It’s looking more and more likely that the people of New Zealand and destined for co-habitation with yellow-legged hornets as more and more discoveries are announced around Auckland. What would we be in for should they become established – from their behaviours to how they might impact the country’s economy – and what control methods do we have at our disposal?

Spoiler alert: There is no Plan B. What shareholders saw was what they didn’t get. The chance to exit Comvita shares at NZc 80 per share courtesy of the Florenz takeover bid has flown. But if there was a Plan B, what would it look like? And what fate awaits shareholders now that Comvita’s future hangs in the balance? Bruce Roscoe comments.

John Bush was born into beekeeping in Marlborough and, for the recently deceased 94-year-old who pioneered beekeeping on New Zealand’s largest farm, it was his passion and a huge part of his identity right to the end. Murray Bush reflects on his father’s beekeeping life, from the supreme work-ethic of a boy raised in the depression, to building an iconic South Island honey-brand and mentoring the next generation of local beekeepers.

Building on from columns analysing the failings of existing beekeeping and honey industry governance (The Future of Beekeeping Representation: Let’s Talk About It) and what he sees as an ideal governance structure for the future (Let’s Move the Conversation Forward), Darren Bainbridge now addresses the term thrown forward by many as an essential building block: “unity”.