Honey and Bees NZ Announces Winter 2027 Conference
- Patrick Dawkins
- 23 hours ago
- 7 min read
Honey and Bees New Zealand’s (HBNZ) first five weeks of existence have proven active, with a new seven-person board room and chairperson now at the helm overseeing a back-to-basics management team. They have signalled an early win too, with the announcement of plans for a July 15-16 conference in Napier in 2027.
Chairperson Murray Bush made the announcement of a “July” conference in Napier to members via an email on August 27, and has since confirmed it is likely to be a two-day affair in the middle of the month.
Winter conferences were a staple of HBNZ’s predecessor Apiculture New Zealand (ApiNZ), and before that the National Beekeepers’ Association (NBA), wrapped around their annual general meetings. The Napier War Memorial Centre run by Napier Conference and Events is booked to play host to the inaugural AGM and conference of HBNZ, after ApiNZ members voted to adopt a new constitution to usher in the era of the new group on June 5.
HBNZ board members Barry Hantz and Cameron Martin will head up the organising committee for the conference, and have already been meeting with a group of Hawke’s Bay beekeepers, led by Arataki Honey Hawke’s Bay assistant general manager Andrew Smith. Bush says while the board had tentatively began discussing the potential for a conference to coincide with their inaugural AGM in a year’s time, it was an approach from the informal Hawke’s Bay cluster of beekeepers that spurred action and the landing spot of Napier. The city is renowned for a rebuild almost a century ago following a devastating 1931 earthquake, making it a poetically-fitting location for the reconstructed HBNZ.
The directors have already agreed that in 2028 a South Island location will host a similar event.
“It is an exciting thing,” Bush says of the announcement.
“We needed to put a stake in the ground that we were looking at the future and that is why we have also committed to the 2028 conference being in the South Island. That proves we are a national body and it gives those in the South Island a chance to think about how they wish to be involved.”
Other than date and location, details of the conference are few almost a year out, but Bush says his board has a vision for how the AGM at the event will be conducted.
“A balance between the old NBA, which took all day and was terrible, and ApiNZ which was one hour and terrible. A proper AGM,” the chairman says.
Rounding Out the Team
After conducting a run-off election to fill the final seat at the inaugural board table, due to an initial tie between Gisborne beekeeper Ben Stewart and Taranaki apiarist Julian McCurdy when voting closed June 24, it was the East Coast nominee who won out. Stewart joins the six fellow directors elected on the first go round – Bush, Hantz, Martin, Peter Bell, Matt Goldsworthy and Jaime McRae.
“It is always hard coming in a week after school starts, but he has slid in smoothly and will be an excellent part of the board,” Bush reports of Stewart’s addition to their regular online video-call meetings.
Since launch of the new group former New Zealand Beekeeping Inc (NZBI) advisor Ian Fletcher has been contracted to HBNZ for policy work on an ad-lib basis. They have a two-month agreement, which is set to lapse as the political cycle enters an election and then summer break, but Bush says they intend to use Fletcher’s services again in the new year.
“He will be retained long term, but our budget is pretty tight so there will be some months where we won’t use Ian very much,” the chair says.
Both Bush, Fletcher and McRae who is leading the biosecurity, science and research portfolio for HBNZ, made a trip to Wellington on July 20 to meet Biosecurity Minister Andrew Hoggard and members of the Ministry for Primary Industries, to make HBNZ known to the government.
“His political connections in Wellington are invaluable,” Bush says of Fletcher.
“We couldn’t have gone to Wellington on the 20th and did what we did without Ian’s input, knowledge and contacts. At the moment, while we try to build bridges as fast as we can, he is an incredibly valuable member of the HBNZ team.”
After 10 years of working with NZBI, Fletcher says it would have been “irresponsible” for him to walk away from some of that policy work. He was also instrumental in the consultation process with beekeepers leading to writing of the HBNZ constitution. Now based in the Wairarapa, and thus close to Wellington, Fletcher is at home in the high-level offices of the capital with his CV stacked with leading trade and biosecurity roles based in Europe and Australia plus a stint leading New Zealand’s ‘spy network’, the Government Communications Security Bureau, or ‘GCSB’.
“I’ve got to a point where I realise how important the beekeeping industry is, how misunderstood it is in government and elsewhere … commercial beekeeping always requires careful explanation and I have a continued contribution to make there,” Fletcher says.
HBNZ also employs a part-time administrator, Vida Rye, to round out the team alongside the seven board members and Fletcher’s contract work.
Further Support from NZBI
The overarching concept behind ApiNZ’s move to HBNZ was “unity” between they and fellow beekeeping group NZBI. While NZBI still has not set a date for an AGM which would give their members the opportunity to vote to disband and thus more completely deliver that unity, they continue to offer encouragement for the new group. NZBI president Jane Lorimer says such a meeting of their members is just a matter of time.
“Once we get feedback from Honey and Bees NZ we will have an executive meeting, put the steps in place to have an AGM, and it is highly likely the recommendation from the executive will be to wind it up. I can’t say more than that though, because it is up to our members to decide,” Lorimer says.
“A lot of our members have signed up with the new organisation, so everything is progressing towards it. We have supported it from day dot.”
As well as that transfer of membership – or at least dual membership holdings of some beekeepers between the two groups – Fletcher’s transfer of his contracting services to HBNZ and the move of NZBI executive members Martin and McRae to the new group’s board table is increasingly making the disbanding of NZBI look like a matter of when, not if.
Bush says he was heartened to head to Wellington on July 20 for his round of meetings with “a letter of support in my back pocket” from NZBI’s executive.
“I can’t go to Wellington and say I represent the industry if I don’t. We still have to go through NZBI’s AGM process. I have no problem with that, but having an indication from the executive that HBNZ is the voice of New Zealand beekeeping gives us some clarity and confidence to do what we need to do,” Bush says.
New Working Groups
Bush says the full work plan of the first five weeks of existence was hastened by the need to prepare for the Wellington meetings, as well as a fast-approaching inaugural “Bee Alliance” roundtable on September 10 (with that gathering detailed in MPI’s ‘Bee Alliance’ to Meet in September – Project Leader Explains Rationale). Focus is now turning to establishing portfolios for board members and under them “external speciality groups” to drive projects.
ApiNZ utilised experts from around the industry in a similar vein through “focus groups” in areas such as standards and compliance, education and science and research. HBNZ has set down five working “banners” thus far – the biosecurity, science and research led by McRae; American foulbrood headed by Bell; communications fronted by Goldsworthy; pollination led by Hantz; and Bush leading finance.
“They are nothing new though, they have been in existence in the past. We can’t do everything from the board table and some of these groups will just exist for when they are needed,” Bush says.
“In some cases they will get filled out very soon, others will take longer. Some are more urgent than others. But we will be going out to the greater community of the industry and saying ‘can you help out?’.”
That includes both members and non-members of HBNZ the chair explains.
“If people want to put their hand up and make themselves known to the board we can put it into consideration. We won’t be appointing everyone to a role, but it's likely there are people out there really keen to help and we don’t know them.”
Building Bridges and Maintaining Momentum
While communication channels have been opened in Wellington – where Bush believes HBNZ was well received – “building bridges” between the new group, which narrowed its voting membership away from honey packers and non-commercial beekeepers by tossing out the ApiNZ constitution for their new set of rules, and some of those former members is a pressing task.
“We are building a gameplan for hobbyists, packers and exporters. We have to focus on commercial beekeeping, but we cannot do it in isolation to hobbyists,” Bush says, pointing to MPI’s September 10 Alliance meeting as potentially very helpful in this regard.
The chair also points out that his board wants to encourage communication with the “grassroots” beekeepers of their membership and hopes to soon roll out a “suggestion box” type concept where seconded suggestions are sent to the directors.
“We want to create a pathway where information can come from the floor 52 weeks of the year, rather than just relying on conference. People have been able to do that forever, but many don’t know they can. We want to open that pathway as an official channel of information coming to the board,” Bush says.
The recently-retired, long-time Marlborough beekeeper has busied himself in his new, voluntary role and says he hopes the group is proving to beekeepers that are as yet unaffiliated the value in taking up a membership.
The group reports a “steady” increased in membership with now 176 backers, but of which only 98 are commercial beekeepers and thus full, voting, members.
“There is a lot of opportunity out there for the beekeeping industry to prove its worth and have a different narrative attached to it. It is exciting, it really is, it is up to us and industry to put our hand up and say ‘we are serious’,” Bush says, adding “after four weeks we can’t do everything, but the momentum is strong.”
Honey and Bees NZ can be contacted by email, info@honeyandbees.nz and more info on the organisation can be found at www.honeyandbees.nz
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