A New Day – Honey and Bees NZ Calls for Members and Fresh Leadership
- Patrick Dawkins
- 9 hours ago
- 4 min read
A new day for beekeeper representation in New Zealand has dawned with Honey and Bees NZ (H&BNZ) having called for both new members and nominations for directors of the successor organisation to Apiculture New Zealand (ApiNZ), as efforts to amalgamate New Zealand Beekeeping Inc (NZBI) continue.
Much is still unknown about the final shape of H&BNZ, but in the weeks following ApiNZ members’ near-unanimous decision to throw out the old constitution and bring in the new the foundation has been laid to reattract members, appeal to NZBI followers to sign on to complete the merger, and bring in those not previously members of either beekeeping entity.
“I am pleased with where we are at,” departing ApiNZ chief executive Karin Kos says, having helped a transitionary group advance H&BNZ to a point of being able to call for new members to sign up as of June 24.
“It’s off to a positive start. We got people signing up straight away and even a few new ones.”
Kos anticipates finishing her role on the week of July 20, just shy of 10 years as ApiNZ’s one and only chief executive after coming on board at its formation when the National Beekeepers’ Association merged with Federated Farmers Bee Industry Group in 2016.
The move to H&BNZ began following ApiNZ members’ June 5 AGM vote to adopt the new constitution. Since then the transitionary group of Bill Savage, Jaime McRae, Cameron Martin and Barry Hantz, supported by Ian Fletcher and Tony Wright, have guided establishment of H&BNZ.
Behind the scenes Kos has continued to do much of the work required to get the group up and running, and will do so for a few weeks yet.
“We are ticking through that process now and hopefully by the week of July 20 I can say, ‘my job is done’,” she says.
Nominations for the five to seven elected board directors, as set out in the constitution, close July 6 and voting will take place between July 21 and 24. That will provide a group to take control of governance, concluding the transitionary group’s role.
Calling New Leaders
Some nominations for those board roles have already come in, the transitionary group reports. Assembling a strong leadership core from the outset will be critical if the new commercial-beekeeper led group is to appeal to a wide membership base. Hobbyist beekeepers, and those from the honey market sector, who previously carried voting clout and thus control of ApiNZ, are invited to ‘associate’ membership, but under the new constitution are not eligible to stand for board positions, or cast votes.
A board of between five and seven needs to be installed and once set has the potential to co-opt two further directors to fill seats. An information prospectus detailing the process states H&BNZ is seeking full members – and thus commercial beekeepers – representing a range of regions and businesses sizes, who have “a willingness to think beyond individual businesses and focus on the long-term health and integrity of the industry”.
Calling New Members
The new board will need a group to elect them, whom they can then represent, and attempt to make collective progress for. To achieve the latter, a significant base of members to fund the group will be required and, given the nature of the voting structure, that is surely going to have to come from commercial beekeepers.
“We have given beekeepers a really good offer and I hope they take it up and run with it,” Kos says.
How to Find Out More and Join Honey and Bees NZ
View the new website and constitution here
Commercial beekeeper membership form available here
Associate membership form available here
Director (board) info and nomination forms available via the main H&BNZ site here
The “offer” has been built following extensive consultation over the past year, individually by ApiNZ and NZBI, and collectively, spanning in-person and online meetings up and down the country, and public circulation of a draft constitution before the final new set of rules was adopted.
To jump aboard H&BNZ ‘commercial beekeepers’ – which is as-yet undefined in the constitution – are to pay a $450 membership fee in year one (a pro-rata total reduced from $600) to secure full membership until March 31 2027. In addition to that, those beekeepers owning more than 500 hives are required to contribute an additional $1 for every hive more than 500 they declare, capped at 4000 hives.
NZBI Dotting and Crossing Ahead of Amalgamation
Uniting ApiNZ and NZBI was a key consideration of forming the group with commercial beekeepers at its heart, and work is continuing to complete the amalgamation.
“We wrote much of this new constitution and we want it to work, but the executive has made it clear they want to do it in an orderly way and not just walk away from 10 years of work,” NZBI advisor Ian Fletcher explains.
For that reason, the transitionary group of H&BNZ are to be presented with an NZBI policy document, outlining key areas of importance to them if the groups are to be brought onto the same page. The alternative, of walking away from that work without an “orderly transition” to the new group, is not viable Fletcher says.
“We are the guardian of our members’ interests and they chose and agreed at the last general meeting to transition. What they haven’t asked us to do is abandon all work. We are not in the business of being demonised, we are in the business of being responsible.”
NZBI members have also been raising the issue of how their existing paid-up memberships with NZBI might transfer to H&BNZ, and this is still a “work-on” Fletcher says.
So, when it comes time to cast votes for the new board of directors, July 21, where does Fletcher anticipate the two groups will be on the task of ensuring a full and final amalgamation?
“I think we will be at a point where there is an irrevocable process of transition underway,” he says.
Comments