Next Generation Beekeepers Speak Up

Following Darren Bainbridge’s The Future of Beekeeping Representation: Let’s Talk About It column last month – where he called for fresh thinking and fresh leadership to help overcome the issues besieging beekeeper representation – Apiarist’s Advocate editor Patrick Dawkins has conversed with more than a dozen candid beekeepers to garner their thoughts on what would entice them to support a national-level group to represent their interests.

Nick Milne, owner of Blue Sky Beekeeping in Nelson, identifies “a willingness to learn from past mistakes and successes without falling into politics and harking back to previous or even current organisations” as crucial to moving beekeeper representation forward in New Zealand.

The old adage of ‘ask three beekeepers a question and you will get four different answers’ played out in discussions I held with beekeepers over the last month. Despite that though, some messages were made abundantly clear by the vast majority of respondents.

While the pool of commercial beekeepers willing to speak up on issues of industry representation covered much of New Zealand’s geographic spread, it should be made clear that it skewed younger than the average age of the New Zealand beekeeper (the “late-50s” as per 2023 Colony Loss Survey). In many cases this was deliberate, as I reached out to several in their 30s and 40s as it is they who have the most potential time in the apiculture industry ahead of them and thus the future an industry group will help shape should mean more.

Some of those conversed with were long-serving members of Apiculture New Zealand (ApiNZ), right up until their recent Special General Meeting which the board entered proposing to disestablish the group before members delayed that decision. Most were not members of any national group, some pointing out they had cancelled ApiNZ memberships in recent years, due in large part to its perceived failing to adequately represent beekeepers.

All up, five messages rung loudest when it came to what it would take to get them to back any new, or reshaped, national level industry group. They being, the need for many of the current industry leaders to recognise their failings and step aside; a desire for clear communication channels and transparency from the group, along with a ‘ground-up’ approach; separate beekeeper and packer representation; a structure that didn’t require large amounts of their time to be contributed; and prudent financial management.

New Blood Needed

While those who have resided in leadership roles within the industry in both recent and long-past years might take umbrage at calls to have them depart, their perceived mismanagement of industry stewardship is a clear barrier to many new members and potential leaders.

“I’m a bit over it,” Hantz Honey owner Barry Hantz says of squabbles between leadership, primarily ApiNZ and New Zealand Beekeeping Inc (NZBI).

“Now I just sit back and watch it play out, don’t get involved,” the Canterbury beekeeper laments.

Further north, at the top of the South Island, Kiwi Queens owner Matt Goldsworthy is frustrated at some of the recent actions of those representing the industry.

“There are some people that have done a lot for our industry and still will be needed in some capacity, but they are holding us back right now. If things don’t change we can’t move forward,” he says, pointing out “getting this industry back on track should be bigger than individuals’ pasts”.

In the same area of the country, Nick Milne, owner of Blue Sky Beekeeping, puts priority one as “a willingness to learn from past mistakes and successes without falling into politics and harking back to previous or even current organisations”.

In the deep south George Bell, owner of Southern Lakes Honey, says the issue of industry representation is one he feels strongly about.

“I'm very disappointed in the mess that the older generations have left my generation to sort out,” Bell says, and that he believed in the ApiNZ model of governance.

 “It's a shame that some have chosen to tear it down instead of being a positive part of it. I worry that this will happen again if a new body is created.”

Mason Brothers Honey owners Daniel and Matthew Mason, in Manawatu, share the opinion that it is time for more collaboration and maturity amongst industry leaders, pointing out it is “really inefficient, unproductive and immature having multiple groups”.

In Northland, Gavins Apiaries fourth generation beekeeper Liam Gavin feels strongly that more progressive thinking is needed in leadership positions, but also the wider industry.

“Too many beekeepers have negative attitudes and bang on about issues of the past. We need to get over it and look to the future,” Gavin says.

Can You Hear Me?

While the need for a sound structure and management practices to facilitate two-way communication did not raise the same amount of passion in respondents as the call for ‘new blood’, it rang out as a clear requirement to attract beekeepers to any future group.

A return to the National Beekeepers Association (NBA) model was sought by none, but the structure of regional hubs which sat below national leadership was echoed by several beekeepers as beneficial.

From Nelson, Milne stated “an undertaking to work towards a geographical spread of people involved through some kind of 'hub' system,” made sense, while Goldsworthy advised the industry “start locally and get representation happening there, because solutions are not going to happen overnight”.

Also at the top of the Mainland, Moutere Beekeeping owner Hector Urquhart reinforces that thinking.

“For an organisation to work effectively, good two-way communication is essential. Beekeepers require a structure to voice their ideas, research requirements or propose motions from a regional level to a national body. These need to be discussed and then voted on and responded to as to why or why not they are adopted, then communicated back to the grassroots level,” Urquhart says.

Liam Gavin and daughter Rory during a visit to Gavins Apiaries in Northland in 2021. With a young family plus a business to keep afloat during trying times in the honey industry, Gavin’s situation typifies common barriers to beekeepers contributing voluntary time to industry-good initiatives.

Mark Tweeddale of Tweeddale’s Honey, which has thousands of hives across several Central North Island regions, points out that effective communication is also key to building the value proposition of any group. Newsletters, social media, and direct outreach need to be used “to keep stakeholders informed, involved and make it easy for them to see the benefits of participation,” Tweeddale says.

One Roof, but Different Tables?

A key thought which the ‘The Future of Beekeeping Representation’ column from Bainbridge raised was his belief that separating out beekeeper and packer governance was an essential path forward, albeit with a strong mandate to work together on apiculture industry policy (he builds on this concept in a follow-up column this month, Let’s Move the Conversation Forward). This structure was largely supported by respondents, many (but not all) of who believed the ApiNZ model of both sides of the industry around the same table does not, and will not, offer adequate beekeeper representation.

“To me, the future lies in separating beekeepers from packers and exporters,” Johann Ander, owner of Yobees Honey in Whanganui says.

“History shows these groups often have fundamentally different – and sometimes conflicting – interests. Trying to force them under one umbrella creates ongoing friction and weakens representation for everyone.”

Two separate boards, each who commit a trustee to a “joint industry trust” with a wider mandate of representing the industry is what Ander, much like Bainbridge, sees as the logical way forward.

“Each group gets its own voice, and we still get cohesion where it counts. That kind of setup would motivate me – and, I believe, many others – to get involved and commit,” Ander says.

For Gavin, with honey supply and demand nearing a perceived equilibrium, the time is right for the two groups to work apart, but constructively.

“The ideal is a national beekeeper group and a separate group to represent packer interests, but both would work together as required and there would ideally be a conference once a year where both got together and open discussions were held,” Gavin says.

“If not, how do beekeepers find out things like, when a retailer creates a special on mānuka honey and reduces the price, it is the packer who pays the difference? Conversely, how else would a packer find out what our true costs are as beekeepers and why some of the prices they are offering are sending beekeepers broke?”

That last point continues to sit as a sore one for many beekeepers and a barrier to the current ‘all around one table’ model of ApiNZ.

“You’ve got packers, some of who are on the ApiNZ board, and they are wanting to buy honey for less than the cost of production,” Murchison beekeeper Sam Doran, of Trees and Bees, points out.

“Of course they lost beekeeper members. You can’t afford to join because you are selling honey to the board members for less than the cost of production.”

Time Poor

While most conversations didn’t lead with the beekeepers’ doubts about their ability to commit significant time to any collective organisation, it did frequently arise. Therefore, all were aware paid roles are required to undertake the day-to-day workload of industry representation.

“Times are tough. In the current climate those of us who are not in corporate structures need to have our heads in hives to survive,” Urquhart says.

“That means there are time constraints and lowered energy levels and we don't have thetime or energy to engage in petty squabbles and disharmony in the industry.”

Up in Northland Gavin has a young family and intergenerational knowledge of industry leadership, with grandfather Terry Gavin the sitting NBA president in 2000 when varroa was discovered in New Zealand.

“My grandfather spent 30 hours a week on the NBA when he was president. If I did that, I wouldn’t have a family, I’d be divorced,” Gavin states bluntly.

A Question of Money, Honey

Despite well documented struggles with honey pricing in recent years, there appears willingness to fund a ‘professional’ industry group. The younger beekeepers report as more time-poor than money-poor, at least when it comes to the perceived commitment required to maintain an industry group.

Several made it clear that a far greater level of fiscal constraint than ApiNZ has displayed will be required to keep them onside though.

“I lost confidence in ApiNZ and didn’t feel like, as a beekeeper, I was being adequately represented,” Goldsworthy says of his decision to cut ties with ApiNZ.

Milne suggests a group with a “low cost to join to prove the concept, with a likely end aim of working towards it being compulsory if possible, at least for commercial scale operators”.

Yobees Honey owner Johann Ander is strong in his conviction that beekeepers and honey packers need separate representation at a national, industry level.

Ultimately, paying some sort of membership fee was not seen as a barrier to joining a collective beekeeping entity, so long as significant improvements are made to existing groups’ status-quos.

Those changes are based on an understanding of the present realities facing beekeeping in New Zealand, divorcing leadership from backward looking thinking, and embracing cost-effective and modern approaches to governance and management of the industry.

“Future governance needs to embrace progressive thinking, including the use of tech, because the world our businesses operate in is fast paced,” Gavin says, with Gavins Apiaries having adapted for 113 years.

Milne says beekeeping representation needs “a realistic view of the industry as it is and can potentially be”.

“This includes the understanding that beekeeping is largely not viable without a secondary or tertiary source of income.”

Doran surveys the industry representation of the last 10 years and points out, “there was a lot of money when ApiNZ started but, when the industry changed, they never changed their business plan”.

“All of us beekeepers tightened our purse strings, whereas they didn’t. On the other hand, we don’t want it the opposite way and be a bunch of people sitting around the dining room table. That is not how you run a successful organisation either. It’s difficult.”

Difficult it has indeed proven and, regardless of the structure any successful industry representation takes, overcoming those difficulties will take not just a commitment of time and money, but a change in attitude and thinking from the positions of power, as well as those giving those positions a mandate to act for the industry.

“I encourage beekeepers to stand up and get behind the new body, whatever it may be. You don't have to agree all the time. That's the point of a democracy, positive disagreement makes positive change,” Bell says, adding “support and unity is what we need”.

---

SIDEBAR: Back to Fed Farmers?

Several beekeepers spoken to raised the possibility of resurrecting a beekeeping division of Federated Farmers, which there was prior to the formation of ApiNZ in 2016. The farmer advocacy group already has industry groups representing dairy, meat and wool, arable, South Island high country, goats and rural butchers.

Teaming up with ‘Feds’ could provide a cost-effective structure to base beekeeper advocacy, as well as tangible benefits in the way of business support, the beekeepers raising the idea believed.