New Zealand Beekeeping HistoryMarketing, people and beekeeping politics…
As servicemen returned from overseas and existing beekeepers began to increase hive numbers again, interest turned to the cost of establishing hives. Mr CR Paterson, Apiary Instructor at Hamilton, provided figures to set up 100 colonies of bees. Including the costs of the nucleus units to stock them with bees and 10 pounds of sugar […]
A competition was announced for the next issue of the magazine. It called for suggestions for a plan for the NZ honey industry for the post war period, given that the current regulations would lapse six months after the war. While no prize was to be provided, the “honour and glory of contributing something constructive” […]
The first issue of the 1943 NZ Beekeeper announced the new Honey Marketing Regulations and the Government’s policy on stabilisation of prices, costs, salaries and wages. Beekeepers were keenly aware of increased costs and frozen returns, pinning hope on the “illusory bigger honey crop”. The price of farm products, including honey, were to be held, […]
The general trends in beekeeping were summarised by the Horticulture Division of the Department of Agriculture in early 1942. Season Beekeepers Hives 1919-20 6,392 69,877 1929-30 6,925 104,239 1940-41 5,248 136,362 Of the total, 1,299 were considered to be commercial beekeepers (having more than 10 hives). The total honey production (commercial and domestic) was estimated […]
Producer/packers were urged by the IMD to reconsider their packing operations in light of the new premises the IMD was soon to open in Auckland. The up-to-date equipment for handling and packing honey would mean packers should review their operations and give consideration to reducing their packing to local supply and sending the bulk of […]
The editorial for the first issue of the 1940 NZ Beekeeper marked the centennial year of “organised settlement and colonisation of the Dominion”. The editorial was positive in tone, indicating that “prospects for both local and export markets are at the present time really good” notwithstanding “the state of war in which the Dominion finds […]