In Hot Demand – A Cold Start to the Season has Beekeepers Clamouring for Queens

Queen breeders’ phones have been ringing off the hook this spring, with huge demand for mated queens, queen cells and nucs from – mainly – North Island beekeepers, while more than 700 beehives have crossed Cook Strait, destined for kiwifruit orchards in the Bay of Plenty. Increased orchard areas are undoubtably driving demand, but there is more at play too.

As the sun goes down on a mild day in Marlborough, heat remains in the air in one of those evenings that signal summer is not far away. They are conditions a beekeeper would usually relish, as gorse flowers remain on the riverbank nearby and bees continue to work a long shift. However, on this early-October evening Goldsworthy Apiaries owner Matt Goldsworthy looks to the setting sun, willing it to fall behind the hills so the bees return to their hives. The 380 double-brood-box colonies have an approximately 700km journey over land and sea to make this night.

Working till the last. Honey bees continue to fly as Goldsworthy Apiaries owner Matt Goldsworthy prepares to load 380 beehives for a Strait-crossing trip from the top of the South Island to kiwifruit orchards in Bay of Plenty.

“They go to the Bay of Plenty and these hives will do gold and green. An earlier load we sent did red, and then either gold or green,” Goldsworthy says as he now drives an Avant loader between the pallets of four hives and refrigerated truck and trailer unit which will keep the honey bees at home for the approximately 12-hour journey by road to Picton, across Cook Strait on the ferry, then the long roll north to kiwifruit country.

The colours he speaks of are, of course, kiwifruit varieties and the South Island beekeeper explains that multiple placements, in multiple varieties of the fruit through October and November, are required to make the numbers stack up on sending his hives so far away and likely diminishing colony strength before they return south for honey season.

Falling hive numbers in New Zealand, from close to a million registered hives in 2019 to now around half a million, off the back of a significant drop in mānuka honey demand, has seen the expanding kiwifruit sector looking further and further afield to find the pollinators crucial to setting their fruit.

Each truck and trailer load carries 380 “doubles”. Last year Goldsworthy Apiaries sent just one truck load north, this year it is two. On top of that, the owner says he has seen unprecedented demand for both their mated queen bees and smaller five-frame ‘nuc’ hives.

“I haven’t really been advertising but am getting a phone call a day, or every other day, from a potential new customer,” Goldsworthy says.

A mated and caged queen bee with escorts – harder to come by than usual this spring, for a range of reasons.

He is not alone either, queen breeders in both North and South Islands are reporting fellow beekeepers clamouring for stock.

At Kereru Queens in the Hawke’s Bay owner Amy Dunn says they have sold 1500 over-wintered queens this spring, “but could have sold 2500 more”. While back in the top of the South Island, Blue Sky Queen Bees owner Nick Milne is reporting “the toughest spring for weather I have had down here in 15 years … which has been frustrating because the demand has been so high”.

Driving Demand

The increase in kiwifruit orchard area – from a little over 13,600ha three years ago to 15,400 now, with more growth forecast – is undoubtably playing a leading role in the clamour for honeybees. Alongside that though a cocktail of factors appears to be contributing to a supply and demand imbalance this spring. The climatically harsh winter and spring in the North Island has, anecdotally, caused greater-than-normal hive losses over the coldest months and hampered spring build-up. Then there is the ever-present varroa mites which have taken their bite out of the bees too. That has limited supply of beehives, and driving demand is not just kiwifruit orchards, but also increased demand from other growers – such as apples – while growing optimism in honey pricing may also be causative.

A honeybee hard at work on a kiwifruit flower. Photo: Jody Mitchell.

Having helped lead a roadshow of meetings with beekeepers organised by kiwifruit cooperative Zespri in August, Bay of Plenty beekeeper Richard Klaus has his ear firmly to the ground this spring. He says winter hive-losses reported during those meetings ranged from 5% up to 80% in the worst case.

Colony Loss Survey author Pike Stahlmann-Brown encourages beekeepers to complete the survey to help shed light on what has been a difficult winter and spring for many.

“I know of an outfit that went from 750 down to 300 hives overwinter and there are beekeepers who don’t talk as much, but I know have had similar losses. Then we have had probably the worst spring for building bees up, splitting and queen rearing, for about 30 years. People are struggling to get queens going, we have them at an age that they should be laying but virgins are still running around,” Klaus says.

Each spring the Colony Loss Survey provides insight into loss rates across the recently-passed winter months. Survey author Pike Stahlmann-Brown, of Landcare Research, says it is too early to report any results from 2025.

“I don’t even peak at the results until it closes, which is at the end of November,” Stahlmann-Brown says.

“That date is purposely set to allow those beekeepers busied with pollination work time to complete the survey. With this winter, anecdotally, being challenging for bees and beekeepers, I encourage beekeepers to complete the survey so we can provide more insightful results for the industry.”

The Struggle to Find a Mate

The struggle to keep hives alive and get new queen bees mated is a double-edged sword, contributing to not just the increase in demand for queens and nucs to rebuild colony numbers, but also limiting that very supply from specialist queen breeders.

In the Waikato Eyers Apiaries moves the majority of their hives to Bay of Plenty kiwifruit orchards, plus facilitates placement of lease hives, dropping around 5000 hard-working stacks of bees into the region over several months. They have an order of 300 overwintered queens with one breeder each spring, but have only received 25 this year.

“Queen breeders have had a pretty bad season and over committed in the winter to what they can supply in the spring. Add to that a slight increase in demand,” owner Kowan Eyers says.

On they go. Four double-brood box hives to a pallet, 95 pallets to a truck and trailer unit, 380 beehives destined for kiwifruit country.

The Waikato beekeeper, having experienced the colder and wetter than normal conditions himself, understands the struggles of “a very tough spring”, but encourages queen breeders to put better contingency plans in place.

“There’s a lot of losses and a lot of people haven’t been able to get mated queens,” Kaimai Range Honey owner Jody Mitchell says succinctly.

“People have ordered mated queens but been let down … It has been cold, so things have been a bit behind the average and now everyone seems to be trying to play catch-up. They may have overcommitted to supplying orchards and now they are trying to find bees and hives where they can.”

Sweet Optimism

While the incessant need for hives to pollinate kiwifruit orchards in spring is, by all accounts, the main driver of demand, Klaus says during his roadshow with beekeepers he was “blown away” by the amount of new apple orchards which have been established between Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay, which require beehives in spring.

Add to that some beekeepers turning their focus from pollination service provision back to honey production – and it is not necessarily mānuka honey.

“There is actually a lot of guys heading back to honey,” Eyers reports.

“I am seeing beekeepers leave pollination to chase honey. They are weighing up the potential for a decent bush crop of honey with improving prices, against all the logistics of pollination.”

More Logistics than Most

Back in Marlborough, with the sun now well and truly set Goldsworthy loads the last of the 95 pallets of hives onto the Mainfreight truck, with red lights now providing illumination in the disestablished-quarry site where few hives will soon remain. The logistics of the night-load have been simple compared to the “jumping through hoops” necessary to return his hives back to the South Island post-kiwifruit-pollination he says.

Goldsworthy Apiaries owner Matt Goldsworthy says there some logistical challenges when it comes to shifting beehives between South and North Island and back again – particularly around preventing spread of Psa – but they are happy to do what is required to protect the kiwifruit industry.

That’s because the kiwifruit vine disease Psa (Pseudomonas syringae) is not yet present on the mainland of New Zealand.

“The main goal is keeping the South Island Psa-free,” explains Andrew McConnell, Kiwifruit Vine Health national operations and compliance manager.

“We know it can survive in beehives for up to 10 days. And bees can go up to five kilometres from the hives with Psa on them. Therefore, if hives are going to the North Island from the South, then back again, there is a standdown period of at least 10 days of at least five kilometres away from any kiwifruit orchard or nursery.”

As the only South Island beekeeper sending hives to the North Island to be returned, Goldsworthy has happily taken the necessary steps to avoid Psa transfer and made sure they have gone well “over and above” the requirements to protect kiwifruit growers in the Nelson region the owner says.

An abandoned quarry, a perfect Marlborough ‘dump site’ for beehives.

“We are placing the returned hives on sites more than 250 kilometres from any known kiwifruit plants and they stay there for months, not days,” Goldsworthy explains.

They will be back in mid-December, in time for a “late” honey crop. They wont produce as much honey as his hives which stay local all season, but he hopes to get “a box and a half” all the same.

It’s the ongoing balance between honey production and meeting the growing pollination needs of, primarily, the kiwifruit industry. The fact hives are travelling as far as they are to meet those needs speaks volumes, as does the likelihood the queen breeder’s phone will ring again tomorrow too.

Note – Kiwifruit Vine Health asks that any beekeepers planning to move hives across the Cook Strait into kiwifruit growing areas to please contact them at info@kvh.org.nz