I Wanna Rock!
- Aimz
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
When the kiwifruit vines begin to flower, beekeepers need to be ‘ready to rock-n-roll’ in the Bay of Plenty. Aimz sure is…
Life is a highway. Being on the road is a big part of keeping bees, and this last month of Rock-tober had its fair share of travel. At times like these, the sound of silence in the truck has given way to plenty of rock-n-roll – coz I like it.
Let the good times roll. We have been under pressure these last few weeks, but now our hives have been levelled up, strapped down, and are in the pipeline for kiwifruit pollination.
Late in the evening, bees are on the move all around the bay. To the orchardists, nothing else matters more.
From off the highway, to back roads where the streets have no name, the hives are in the gold. I’m walking on sunshine with morning feed runs, a peaceful easy feeling compared to the week that was. Really though, we’ve only just begun.
Dawn-time day tripper and clocking off after midnight. Beeing on call is hard work. Dazed and confused and comfortably numb, here I go again. But the memory remains from last year, and I feel I could do some of these orchards all by myself.
Pokey ag-beams, combination locks, and lookalike canopies are easier to navigate in the daylight. Mornings, I get around, in headlands or under cover, feeding watered down sugar-syrup to help convert nectar gathering bees into pollen gatherers.
Just yesterday, I watched with satisfaction, our bees taking care of business, flooding through their entrances loaded with pale yellow kiwifruit pollen. Under the vines the flowers were bouncing with bee traffic. Consistent commendatory feedback from the block managers has been a pat on the back for all our time and effort building hives to pollination standards.
Within the orchards I am aware and making mental notes. I have no fear of the dark, but things at night can mystify me. Our pink tape marks the best sunny, sheltered drop spots, like a rainbow in the dark, and I take account of higher ground, rows I tell myself I won’t back down, and obscured openings where we can break on through to the other side of tall shelterbelts. At the end of the day, I wouldn’t want to be down in a hole - I still gotta get out of this place.
The next phase will be a juggling of right moves and night moves, as hives are trucked out of the gold and into the green. A mid-season hiatus will give us time to check and work apiaries, and after, they will be on the road again, to honey sites further afield.
Just drive. Fortunately, all the orchards we pollinate are pretty much on our doorstep. We supply over one thousand pollination units to our local community. A small percentage of them go to service watermelons and avocados, and it’s not unusual to get an interesting small batch honey in the end.
Ch-ch-ch-changes are afoot, with real long-range plans to over-winter a percentage of our own queens for next spring. Having a strong queen bank is important when the local economy is struggling to keep up with demand. Sad but true – because of an ordering mix up, we struggled to find extra queens when we needed them most. We won’t get fooled again, next year we’ll be one step ahead. Everything will come together with a bit of faith. It’s going to be epic.
Don’t stop thinking about tomorrow. Good times, bad times, every mistake is an opportunity to learn something new.
All right now, for now, I’ve reached the end of the line. Rock steady readers. I am taking it easy for a day or so before we carry on the Helter skelter, all day, and all of the night. As the light fades to black, I’ll be out there, following those white stripes into the great wide open.
Pollination and Rock-tober 2025 – homage paid. For those about to rock, we salute you.
Aimz
Aimz is a second-generation commercial beekeeper in the Bay of Plenty who took up the hive tool fulltime at the end of the 2024 honey season. Formerly a stay-at-home mum to four kids, she has now found her footing in the family business.
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