General manager of leading supply company to beekeepers, New Zealand Beeswax, Nick Taylor recently sat down with Apiarist’s Advocate editor Patrick Dawkins as the first-ever in-person guest on the Apiarist’s Advocate Pod podcast. Topics discussed were as diverse as bee gut health, varroa control methods, recycling of plastic frames, Australian beekeeping varroa problems and even the new industry body – here’s some of the highlights.

Soon the beekeeping truck will be clocking up scores of hours every week in the Bay of Plenty, in the meantime Aimz goes right back to the start, reflecting on a lifetime of adventure and misadventure of a family hitting (sometimes literally) the highways and by-ways of life and beekeeping.

Blanche Murray is the founder and director of Kai Ora Honey, a beekeeping and honey exporting business based in Awanui in the far North, and a director to Te Pitau Ltd, the operating arm of the Mānuka Charitable Trust. With a free trade agreement (FTA) with India signed and soon to be in force, she fields questions on a currently tiny, but potentially huge, market for mānuka honey.

Jason Price discusses his journey to register his home kitchen as well as the privacy aspect of this.

Who is on the ticket to earn a seat at the inaugural Honey and Bees New Zealand board table? We meet the contenders and explore their qualifications...

A new day for beekeeper representation in New Zealand has dawned with Honey and Bees NZ (H&BNZ) having called for both new members and nominations for directors of the successor organisation to Apiculture New Zealand (ApiNZ), as efforts to amalgamate New Zealand Beekeeping Inc (NZBI) continue.

Beekeepers are renowned for their gusto for a winter conference, and this off-season Mānuka Orchard’s Open Day on July 24 will again be their best bet, with the Bay of Plenty honey processing and storage facility inviting the beekeeping industry to the free event.

While still short on details publicly, the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) is continuing to work behind the scenes to bring about an apicultural roundtable tentatively titled ‘New Zealand Honey and Bee Alliance’, “to assist the sector in building resilience, profitability and success”.

Tribal Therapeuticals Ltd of Northland is preparing to launch a “tea tree” essential oil and honey venture that it believes can generate NZD270m in export revenues over a 10-year period. The US state of California is identified as the primary export market and the directors believe the venture can blossom into a billion-dollar industry. Financing via private placement and crowdfunding is envisaged. Australian interests appear to anchor the venture.