Honey Season ‘25-26 – Early Potential Not Realised, Again

While some still hold out hope for a late-summer honey flow, other beekeepers are already turning to autumn tasks in their hives as various reports of a “patchy”, “unique” and “on/off” honey season are emerging. We speak to beekeepers up and down the country to get their ‘take’ on what is shaping as a below-average honey season which for the second year running promised much early before going cold.

As the calendar turns to February there is still honey to take off the hives and extract, but beekeepers have a general sense of the returns likely and the overriding mood is that a below average crop is likely for most, despite some hot weather pre-Christmas.

Cooler weather from late December into January, followed by disaster as a tropical storm ravaged areas in the top half of the North Island and brought days of rain further south, put a halt to nectar flows and has limited honey take.

The view through the windscreen of the Kaimai Range Honey Truck as they cart hives out of Northland, entering Kaeo and heading south on January 21 as the storm floods. Photo: Jody Mitchell.

In a land of microclimates and numerous honey varietals, from both native and introduced species, there have definitely been winners and losers among those surveyed. No one is shouting of a booming year for production though, while some are resigned to low quantities. Contributing to that was a difficult spring over much of the country, resulting in some beekeepers struggling to replace over-winter losses and bring hives up to strength in time for honey flows. 

The all-important mānuka crop seems to have feared better than most other varieties though, with some early flowering areas taking advantage of the early-summer heat before it dwindled. While little testing has been conducted at this stage, from the Wairarapa there are reports of low “quality”, i.e ‘activity’ or DHA (dihydroxyacetone) which typically converts to MGO (methylglyoxal) to provide the honey’s antibacterial ability.

The cooler, wetter summer has limited pasture honey production, with very few reports of even average production of clover honey, be they North or South Island.

The quantity of various “bush” honeys this summer is hard to gauge. In some areas rewarewa – which can produce abundant nectar – has flowered well, such as lower down the North Island, whereas around the Bay of Plenty it appears to have been less consistent. Towai flowering was strong, as was kamahi across both South and North Island. However, it seems very little kamahi honey will have been produced due to the flowering coinciding with cooler weather.

Rata honey on the West Coast followed last summer’s booming year with a fizzer and little to no flower seen, which, when combined with the struggle for pasture flows, has seen the South Island’s beekeepers limited in their honey crop.

Wet weather not only limited honey flows in January but saw this East Valley Honey truck stuck in the East Coast mud, a problem more suggestive of spring or winter conditions. Photo: Martin Crisp

The Big Guys

Some of the country’s biggest honey producers are putting their crops at “about average”.

Mānuka Health, owner of some 15,000 hives, national apiculture manager Brian McCall says despite an extremely challenging spring of cold and wet weather, “we will finish up about where we need to be, about average”.

“There have been no booming areas of production, but consistency has been there. Everything is producing about the same thus far,” McCall says.

Tweeddale’s Honey, based out of Taihape, has a similar level of hive holding, placed across the central North Island.

“It’s been generally an average year and certainly not good on the mānuka, average to below there, but bush honey seems to be average to good,” owner Don Tweeddale says.

“With that heat wave we had in December they were pulling in rewarewa so quickly we could hardly get the boxes on the hives in time. That all finished and the mānuka came on with a big rush, a huge flowering. I have never seen a flowering like it. Through Christmas we had about 10 days of iffy weather though and by the time that cleared the mānuka flowering had almost finished.

“We got about a box out of it, but nothing to write home about.”

Kintail Honey owner James Ward has hives spanning much of the North Island, with a focus on pasture honey, but some bush and mānuka also, and says they are expecting a down year – “if we get to average, I will be happy”.

At Mānuka Orchard in the Bay of Plenty owner Logan Bowyer gains a good feel for the honey season as a contract honey extractor, followed by storage and selling. He believes there will be “way less bush honey” this season and that before Christmas they only carried out around 10% of the amount of extraction as the previous year.

“I believe the total take will be down, that’s my gut feel. But there is no hard data for our industry from last year or this to base it on, and that’s a problem,” Bowyer says.

North Island

The honey season proper starts in Northland, when the country’s first mānuka flowers emerge and “those chasing early mānuka found it, but not in bounty,” says Richard Kidd, owner of Marshwood Apiaries, based in Mangawhai between Auckland and Whangarei, but who contract extracts honey for many Northland beekeepers.

It has been downhill since that early promise though.

“It started raining. The late-December bush and kānuka didn’t appear at all. It looked like the January pasture crop would turn on, but it started raining again and hasn’t really turned off,” Kidd says.

As stormy weather hits Kaimai Range Honey hives are loaded out of Northland, having gathered “a box and a half” of mānuka honey each. Liam Morragh, left, and Ralph Mitchell. Photo: Jody Mitchell.

As for mānuka “quality” in the region, that is down in many places according to fellow Northland beekeeper Liam Gavin, but there are still some pockets where “activity” in the early season crop is high.

The tropical storm hit Northland hard on January 18 and Gavin says he knows of one beekeeper who has had 150 nuc hives washed away. Kaimai Range Honey owners Jody and Ralph Mitchell had migrated hives from Bay of Plenty to Northland early in the summer and got “a box and a half of mānuka”, before racing the weather out with their bees.

“We decided to load hives early and it was a good thing we did because the weather was chasing us. We got through to Kaio and the road was down to one lane and there were a few diversions. We got through to Wellsford about 10.30, 11 at night and stayed at a motel, set off again at 5am,” Jody Mitchell says.

She says their bush crop has been good, with hives in Taranaki providing “not a lot, but some” rewarewa. In the Waikato, the clover has been “too lush” and the lack of heat stress has meant minimal nectar production for the beekeepers there, Mitchell says. “Good for cows, not good for bees.”

Heading to the East Cape of the North Island, Wild Cape Manuka Honey owner Bill Savage says before Christmas they experienced “a quick but intense flowering where they could put on about a box a week”. While mānuka flowering would typically last into January, this year it was over in late December, but by then two or three weeks of hot weather had been recorded.

“We will be above average, but not much above. Probably about 30kg a hive of mānuka, and then a bit of multi on top of that,” Savage reports.

In Taupo Smokin Joe’s Honey owner Wallace Steel says there was “zero” mānuka flowering on much of the Desert Road, but that improved by Waiouru.

“Through Whanganui looks like it has had a bunch of honey come in. Masterton had good flower and a good crop but no quality in it. It is a shame for those beekeepers because a lot of that is high cost, helicopter access,” Steel says.

In the Wairarapa beekeeper and contract honey extractor Stu Ferguson, of Hunter Reilly, corroborates that report.

“The first flow was ok but everything seems to be about 1000 to 1500 DHA lower than normal. That would be out to 50 to 100km around us. All really low on DHA,” Ferguson says.

“I wish I knew why, but it is possibly due to overzealous kānuka flowering and the weather that came through at the peak of mānuka flowering. Even traditionally UMF20+ sites are down to 15+. So we have seen a real dive in quality and we saw the same thing last year.”

Echoing much of the rest of the North Island, Ferguson says the amount of early mānuka was good, but from Christmas “our second flow on mānuka was a dead duck”.

South Island

In a year where pasture flows are hard to come by, and the rata doesn’t flower on the West Coast, honey quantity out of the Mainland is likely to be down. However, there is still the more reliable beech honey dew to be gathered in the higher altitudes in the top half of the island to cap the honey season, plus optimism that the pasture flow might have something left in it late in the summer.

On the plains of Canterbury more than one beekeeper has been heard to say “we have done better than last season, but that isn’t saying much at all,” making for two down seasons in succession.

East Valley honey beehives taking advantage of the pre-Christmas sun, before big yellow turned off and honey gathering slowed. Photo: Martin Crisp

“The clover flower is looking good, but it is not really in the boxes… yet,” says Whitestone Honey owner Shane Rawson from Oamaru.

Like in the North Island, some sites gathered a box of honey early, but “when that switch turned off, it turned off hard,” Rawson says.

“I have seen some places in Canterbury where they are eating into it.”

At Hantz Honey in Leeston, Canterbury, owner Barry Hantz is hopeful they might reach average for the honey take, while growing demand for small-seed pollination hives boosts his business.

Heading to North Canterbury, Natural NZ Honey owner James Malcolm says “it’s been painful since Christmas”, but like the rest of New Zealand they did get honey before the weather went cold.

“We haven’t had any failures yet, but there are some pockets which are 25kg/hive and some which are 45kg. It is more of the 25 than the 45 though unfortunately,” Malcolm says.

“It was an exceptional flowering, and the bees looked good. It appeared to be all lining up well and we got our hot week, around December 10, and so early blocks did good initially. Then later blocks from Christmas, I actually don’t know how they did it but some have done some honey anyway.”

At the top of the island Matt Goldsworthy of Goldsworthy Apiaries is also reporting a good flowering of mānuka, and kamahi, but limited crop, especially the latter.

“Most beekeepers I talk to are pretty miserable about it,” he says.

“Everything was looking good up until Christmas, and then it rained … we might average out a box, box and a half, which is below average. Then some dew on top of that.”

Interestingly, high-country areas of the South Island where clover, vipers bugloss (aka blue borage) and other wild flowers grow has seen striking blossom, but little honey as a result – yet. Goldsworthy is in his third season with hives at the country’s largest farm, Molesworth Station.

“It is blue and white up the Molesworth, so they could still do something up there. If we get the heat they will still crank up,” he says.

It’s a similar story in Otago, Rawson reports.

“Central Otago has been slow and another place where there is so much flower, but it just isn’t in the honey boxes yet. Borage, clover, you name it, it is there and flowering. It looks like a beekeeper’s heaven, but without it in the boxes yet everything is counting on the first three weeks of February, max. A couple of weeks of decent sunshine and we will see some honey I think. If the sun doesn’t shine now, it will probably be a miserable season,” the Oamaru beekeeper says.

At Alpine Honey Specialties in Wanaka owner Peter Ward says the hives in the high country have filled one box of borage honey and not moved any higher, due to a run of cold nights. As for his mānuka crop – “definitely below average, it wouldn’t have done 20kg a hive, but some areas maybe got to 25kg”.

His southern season recap could well stand for the whole of the country – “Somewhere between disappointing and average. It is definitely not going to be a blinder.”