Experienced Minds Sceptical, but Realistic, About ApiNZ’s Direction

While seen as the likely outcome of Apiculture New Zealand’s (ApiNZ) June 5 AGM, transition to, the temporarily named, Honey and Bees NZ is seen by some of the longest serving members of the group as an outcome that will exclude too many otherwise interested parties.

Ricki Leahy, ApiNZ life member and past president of the National Beekeepers’ Association.

The membership is too narrow, and too poorly defined, but at least Honey and Bees NZ offers the potential to unify commercial beekeepers, say several practiced beekeepers with considerable governance experience in the industry.

“It is a good thing beekeepers are getting together and hoping to work off the same platform, to reduce the ‘us’ and ‘them’ type thinking,” ApiNZ life member Ricki Leahy says.

“I like the representative body having more emphasis about beekeeping. I have long advocated for the ApiNZ constitution being a good one, but that it just needed a few changes to better include the likes of pollination so that beekeepers felt they were more the main anchor of the representative body. I think that is where we are going to now.”

The AGM and passing of resolutions to adopt a new constitution and move towards an entire new board, if followed by a similar process by fellow industry group New Zealand Beekeeping Inc, would support establishment of an, effective, amalgamation. The new group would limit full membership, and thus voting rights, to ‘New Zealand beekeepers directly involved in commercial honey production, pollination services, and/or queen rearing’. An associate, non-member class would exist for ‘non commercial beekeepers, processors, packers, exporters, service providers, research and education bodies, clubs’.

That setup is going to leave the likes of former National Beekeepers’ Association (NBA) president Nick Wallingford, owner of one beehive in the Bay of Plenty, “disenfranchised”.

“To allow someone to pay money to become part of an organisation, and yet they have absolutely no control, no input to the direction of the organisation. Yeah, it makes it pretty challenging,” Wallingford says.

Nick Wallingford, past president of the NBA and a hobbyist beekeeper says the much-reduced role of non-commercial beekeepers in a proposed new group is concerning.

He served as president of ApiNZ’s forerunner, the NBA, from 1994-96, and before him fellow non-commercial beekeeper Frances Trewby was president in 1993. In 2000 Wellington part-time beekeeper Richard Hatfield took the top seat, making it three ‘hobbyists’ to hold the top role.

“I don’t know how you can ignore that group,” ApiNZ life member Allen McCaw and NBA president 1986-89 says of the hobbyist apiarists.

“They are not the lobby group or the takeover group some imagine them to be. How would they be? Imagine trying to organise 6000 individuals with a couple of beehives.”

The Ministry for Primary Industries’ latest apiculture data puts the count at 5725 beekeepers registering five or less hives, while 765 have more than 50. That leaves 1185 between 5 and 50 for a total of 7675 beekeepers in New Zealand.

“It’s been called commercial-beekeeper-centric, and it certainly is that, and that is the biggest draw back to the whole thing,” McCaw says of the potential Honey and Bees NZ.

“To me it excludes too many important people in the industry and you can’t talk about having an industry representative organisation unless you include everyone who is involved in the industry.”

For about 90 years, since Airborne Honey founder William ‘Billy’ Bray coined the phrase in the 1930s, the NBA operated by the mantra, “better beekeeping, better marketing” Wallingford says. ApiNZ, since its formation in 2016, has included full memberships, board roles and voting rights for the honey marketing sector and hobbyist beekeepers, alongside commercial beekeepers. All three will cast votes on the June 5 resolutions to drastically change that. 

“For the beekeeping industry to now say ‘better beekeeping and only those who are actually producing it to sell honey to other people’ seems a short-sighted view to me of an industry and particularly the bee industry,” Wallingford says.

Should the transition go ahead as expected, McCaw says the new board’s first point of business should be to objectively define a ‘commercial’ beekeeper, something the proposed constitution is silent on.

Allen McCaw ApiNZ life member, past president of the NBA, and sceptical about the proposed new direction of beekeeper representation.

“This will be governed by a constitution and by how you have to behave as an incorporated society, so a clear definition of what is and isn’t a commercial beekeeper is needed because that is the point which you include or exclude full membership and voting rights,” McCaw points out.

“It not only defines who can vote, it defines who is going to be on the executive and making the decisions. If you don’t have that down in clear terms there is going to be room for so much confusion that it is not going to be funny.”

Leahy, the president of the NBA for its final three years, 2013-15, before reshaping into ApiNZ where he took a board role, is hopeful that a potential new Honey and Bees NZ leadership and members would take a pragmatic approach to shaping the group.

“No constitution is ever set in concrete. They can go through a process of coming to agreement, which you have to do, to get a workable governance body in place,” the retired Murchison beekeeper says.

A long-time supporter of a commodity levy to fund industry-good work, Leahy is realistic about the realities of ApiNZ’s financial situation and many beekeepers’ reluctance to back an industry body, but still hopeful that the financial security provided by a levy could be in the not-too-distant future.

“I understand where we are at and that we need to start again with a clean sheet of paper. The main thing we are achieving right now is for beekeepers to work together. It might be small, it might be dreadfully underfunded, but if it looks like it is going to be positive, hopefully some of those who are doing well can drop in funding here and there to get us through to a point of getting a levy,” Leahy says.

“That is only going to happen if we are cohesive though.”