HBNZ Puts Out a “Call to Arms”

Just over two months from its launch, Honey and Bees New Zealand (HBNZ) is calling on beekeepers, whether they are members or not, to let their opinions be heard and help shape the new commercial-beekeeper-centric group.

Honey and Bees NZ have a board of seven, led by chair Murray Bush, but are striving to draw more support from the beekeeping community to both set direction and help drive progress. 

Around a year of consultation with industry went into shaping the HBNZ constitution which replaced Apiculture New Zealand, which had operated since 2016. There is plenty more work to be done to more fully develop the new organisation though, and the wider beekeeping community will need to step up to help set direction and drive progress, chairperson Murray Bush believes.

HBNZ chairperson Murray Bush.

“The thing that has been missing in the last eight weeks has been involvement from beekeepers,” Bush says.

The group sent out an email to several industry mailing lists on September 25 that outlined the goal of the group – ‘To create a single unified beekeeping organisation that highlights and supports the strategic, economic, and social importance of Honey, Bees, and Beekeepers within Aotearoa/New Zealand’ – as well as its purpose and how it plans to get there. It also stated ‘If we want to achieve our “How” list stated above, the time has arrived where we need to generate action from all beekeepers across NZ.’

"It’s a call to arms. We now need to do something constructive and active. The sooner we get things in place the better and it is time for beekeepers to drive where they want HBNZ to go, not the board,” Bush explains.

“It’s one thing to say ‘we want an organisation’, but now we need to start putting names down for sub-groups or sub-committees to be created. Now is the time to build what we think our future should look like and a board of seven is not going to run HBNZ, it is the beekeepers who are going to drive it.”

The email also appeals to those beekeepers who are not members to let them know what must be done to build their confidence.

‘Our stated purpose is healthy bees and healthy Beekeepers. What does that mean or look like from your perspective?’ the email asks, calling on email responses to info@honeyandbees.nz