Honey bees

NZ has native species of bees which pollinate flowers but do not produce honey or live in hives

They are mainly black; live in small holes in the ground; & feed larvae with pollen & nectar from surrounding flowers

NZ's first honey bees were thought to have arrived on 19 March 1839 at Māngungu Mission, Hokianga with Mary Bumby

With her brother Rev. John Bumby, Mary sailed from England via Hobart & had 2 straw baskets of bees for their garden

During 1840s & 1850s, more honey bees were brought to NZ by colonists, including Governor Hobson & James Busby

(Image: Proposed shipping container in 'My bee book' (1839) by Rev Cotton who later arrived with Bishop Selwyn in 1842)

Bees were kept in skeps (straw baskets) & wooden boxes with frames fixed inside to replicate the honey comb's wax cells

The fixed frames meant bees couldn't be readily inspected for American foulbrood disease which began to arrive in NZ

Wild colonies of bee nests began to spread in bush areas by 1860s & the honey began to be gathered & sold by Māori

The selling of increasingly larger quantities by Māori led to them being considered our first commercial beekeepers

From 1870s, commercial production of honey increased when Langstroth hive with vertical removable frames became popular

(Image: Transferring bees from the old design of hive to the new Langstroth hive on the right)

The removable frames, which enabled easier inspection of bees, was patented by American Rev. Lorenzo Langstroth in 1852

Langstroth had also found that bees wouldn't build a honeycomb in a space less than 6.3 mm or greater than 9.5 mm

By the mid-1880s, bees were being imported from Australia, Italy & USA to improve NZ's stock

The value of honeybees was recognised for pollinating the white clover being sown in pastures with seed from England

Initially, the Northern European black strain of bees arrived in NZ, followed by the yellow Italian strain around 1880

Nowadays, NZ has 3 subspecies of the Western honey bee: Italian, Carniolan (southern Central Europe), & British

In summer, a beehive will have one queen bee (female), c.250 drones (male), & 60,000 worker bees (female)

On average there are also 7,000 eggs, 10,000 larvae & 20,000 pupae

Queen bee's role is to lay eggs

Drone bee's role is to mate with the queen bee (yellow ring) who then lays eggs

In summer, the queen bee can lay as many as 1,500 eggs daily

Pollinate flowers by transferring pollen grains from the male anther of a flower to female stigma on another flower

Collect nectar for food & pollen for larvae food

Collect water for rehydration

Build a comb inside the frames of a beehive to hold the nectar, pollen & water; & the eggs to be laid by the queen

A comb may also be built in the wild

Build the comb's cells by secreting wax from its abdomen

Take care of larvae which then develop into pupae before merging as bees

Guard the entrance to check each new arrival is a member of the hive & can sting with the stinger on their abdomen

Egg: The queen bee will lay one egg in each cell throughout the brood nest, with drones laid in the larger cells

(Image: A single frame of the beehive box showing the shape of the brood nest)

Brood nest: Each beehive's box has 10 frames inserted which are used for a brood nest & the storage of pollen & honey

The brood nest is a three-dimensional shape spread throughout the frames in the middle of the box

Larva: After 3 days, the eggs, which are small & look like rice, hatch into larvae (also known as brood)

Worker bees tend to the larvae as they grow; then cover each lava's cell with a wax covering

Drone cells are capped with a larger, dome-shaped cap than worker cells, & the queen cells are a peanut-like shape

Pupa: The larva spins a cocoon around itself & develops into a pupa where it develops eyes, wings & other body parts

Image: Wild nest in a kanuka tree

Young adult: When grown, the bee will begin to chew through the cocoon & wax capping of its cell & emerge into the hive

On its head, the honey bee has 5 eyes

It has a pair of antennae

It uses its antennae to smell & can detect nectar 2 km away

It also has a tongue for sucking syrups or nectars

The honey bee has three pairs of legs

They have two pairs of wings - the fore wings are larger than the hind wings

They beat their wings 11,400 times per minute, which makes their buzzing sound

They can fly at c.24kph

Honey bees have 2 stomachs: one is an ordinary stomach & the other is called a honey sac which stores the nectar

Nectar from flowers sucked up by honey bees passes into an expandable pouch called 'honey sac' which can store c.40mg

It's abdomen produces beeswax from the nectar which is secreted by 8 glands & deposited as flakes at or near the hive

The flakes are collected by worker bees to form the walls & cells in a comb for the storage of honey, eggs & larvae

At the end of its abdomen, the honey bee has a short, barbed stinger which is only protracted when it needs to use it

Most honey bees die after using their stinger as the barb gets lodged causing bowel disrupture when the bee pulls away

When bees sense danger, they release an alarm pheromone called isopentyl acetate from a gland near their stingers

This chemical wafts through the air and alerts other bees to be ready to attack

Smoking a beehive masks this pheromone, allowing the beekeeper to safely perform a hive inspection

Corbiculae (pollen baskets) are located on the bee's back legs for carrying pollen back to the hive

The corbiculae are made of tightly-woven leg hairs. The colour of the pollen varies from flower to flower.

Honey bees have an extoskeleton (on the outside) whereas humans have the skeleton on the inside

The nectar is collected during the warmer months to make enough food stores for the winter when it is too cold to forage

In winter, wet & cold weather, beekeepers supply sugar to hives to keep the bees fed and healthy

A worker bee will visit 50-100 flowers during one flight to gather nectar

Back at the beehive, the honey is secreted & other bees digest it for 30 mins to add a special enzyme called invertase

Invertase converts the sucrose in honey into 2 simpler sugars: glucose (blood sugar) & fructose (fruit sugar)

The honey is passed from one bee to another until its moisture is reduced from c.70-20%; & placed in a honeycomb cell

After the bees flap their wings to dry & ripen the honey, the cell is capped

They produce about 1/12th of a teaspoon of honey in their lifetime of 4-8 weeks

The pollen is carried in corbiculae, or pollen baskets, located on their back legs

When the bee visits the next flower, some of the pollen rubs off onto that new flower, which will fertilize the seed

As the bees go into the hive, pollen scrapes off the back of their legs into trays – which is collected by the beekeeper

New colonies can be tree or rock cavities, and hollow walls or ceilings of buildings

A swarm of bees on apiarist at New Plymouth apiary, 1935

After collecting and removing a swarm of bees from a neighbour's wheat field at Grovetown, Marlborough, 1937

A swarm of bees clustering on a man's leg, 909

Honey is harvested from hives in late spring or summer, & the hives are relocated to new sites

(Image: Beekeepers have uncapped hives to remove the boxes at Mossops Honey near Tauranga & used smoke to calm bees)

A forklift carrying beehives is covered in bees when the honey comes into the shed

Above is a window & its light attracts the bees to fly to it & they are recaptured

The frames are spun inside a centrifuge so that the honey is thrown out & collects at the base; then drained & filtered

Honey jars on a shelf in a shop, 2010

Comb honey contains about 12% less water than liquid honey that's been exposed to air, making it more concentrated

(Image: Honey combs in hive frames are about to be made into comb honey for packaging by Arataki Honey)

Machine used to seal “raw” honey in the wax cells of the honeycomb along with vitamins, enzymes, pollen, & antioxidants

Packaging comb honey into 70 gram pots which are then packed into boxes

Beeswax

Can be used in candles, metal castings & modelling, cosmetics, food processing, textiles, varnishes, polishes etc

Sheet of beeswax being imprinted with honeycomb pattern, before cut into smaller sheets as a base for beehive trays

Tins being filled with beeswax for the local & export market

In 1845, Rev William Cotton began teaching beekeeping to settlers & Māori at Tāmaki

Cotton (b.1813) had founded Oxford Apiarian Society & written bee books; then resided in NZ from 1842-1847

Rev Cotton wrote "A Few Simple Rules for New Zealand Beekeepers"(1844) & a series of articles during 1847

After returning to England, published "A Manual for New Zealand Beekeepers" (1848), & "Ko Nga Pi" (1849) in te reo Māori

By 1860s, wild bee nests had spread in the bush & honey was being gathered & sold in increasing quantities by Māori

They called the bees “the white man's fly”

The book "How to manage the honey bee in New Zealand" by Old Bee-keeper was published in 1867

Commercial production of honey increased from the late 1870s when the Langstrom hives became popular

American Lorenzo Langstrom had patented the box-shaped hive's vertically removable frames in 1852

An account of NZ beekeeping from 1874-1916 by Isaac Hopkins described Māori as NZ's 1st commercial beekeepers

Hopkins (1836-1925) became a beekeeper from 1874 & Govt apiarist & inspector of apiaries from 1905-1909

Bee culture was promoted as a suitable occupation for women and girls, 1883

An account of the success of the Firth Estate apiary managed by Isaac Hopkins was given in the Colonist, 17 March 1886

Hopkins published "The illustrated bee manual and complete guide to modern bee culture in the southern hemisphere", 1886

The book was based on his experiences since undertaking beekeeping as a hobby in 1874 & his conducting of research

From 1900s, bee farms began to be established in various parts of NZ

(Image: Beehives at a bee farm near Masterton, 1901)

(Image: A bee farm at Hikurangi, Northland, 1902)

(Image: Beekeeper Mrs Young transferring swarming bees to a hive at Normanby in South Taranaki, 1903)

Wild honey continued to be gathered from the bush

(Article: Māori labourers gathering wild honey in the Maropiu Bush, Northern Wairoa, Auckland, 17 Dec 1903)

(Image: Woman holding three honeycombs covered in bees possibly in Christchurch, c.1905-1925)

In 1905, Isaac Hopkins was appointed as the 'Bee expert' (Government Apiarist) in the Dept of Agriculture

In June 1905, a model bee farm was set up at the Ruakura Farm of Instruction, near Hamilton, by Hopkins

There had been some hives at Ruakura in 1904 & 1905, but in both instances they had been destroyed by foulbrood

A model of the Ruakura apiary was demonstrated at the Christchurch International Exhibition, 1906-7

Isaac Hopkins resigned from Dpt of Agriculture as Bee expert in July 1909 but stayed on at Ruakura until 1913

Apiaries Act 1906 made the keeping of fixed frame hives illegal & introduced measures to control American foulbrood

Colonies found to have the American foulbrood (disease caused bacterium Paenibacillus larvae) were to be destroyed

In 1907, Beekeepers' Association was formed at Hastings

Annual Beekeepers' Association Field Day, 1908

Taking off the comb prior to the extraction of honey in the Waikato, 1911

Hive containing c.270lb of honey at Hundred-Hive Apiary at Lakeside, near Doyleston, 1913

In June 1913, the National Beekeepers' Association (NBA) was formed

A wagon loaded with boxes of clover honey in the Kairanga district, 1914

Beeswax extractors & presses at the Alliance Box Company Ltd, 1914

By 1918, there were c.12,000- 13,000 beekeepers producing between 1200-1500 tons of honey worth c.£100,000

The estimates were provided by Isaac Hopkins during an interview in Feb 1918

Following WWI, beekeeping increased rapidly as more land was developed & returned servicemen were trained as beekeepers

Beehives in a field at Mangapehi, 1920

Bee-keepers' day at the state apiary at the Ruakura Agricultural Research Centre, 1921

Apiary cadets at Ruakura, 1921

Rows of bee boxes at the Hillary Family Aviary, 1920s

Percy Hillary (father of Edmund Hillary) holding a beehive frame over a bee box, 1920s

Following Isaac Hopkins death in 1925, his contributions to commercial beekeeping in NZ were heralded

Beekeepers' Field Day at Tuakau, 1929

Hive numbers doubled to nearly 100,000 by the end of the 1920s

(Image: Beekeepers at work, 1929)

Auckland beekeepers hold their annual field day at Tuakau, 1931

By 1938 most of the honey produced was sold to the Govt agency, the Internal Marketing Division, to stablise prices

Boxes of comb honey produced in Nelson, 1946

Book: "Beekeeping in New Zealand" by T.S. Winter, 1946

Beekeeping increased after WWII & by 1950 c.7,000 beekeepers were keeping over 150,000 hives

(Image: Beekeeper, 1947)

Sir Edmund Hillary with a bee box and jars of honey, 1953

Exports of queen bees began in late 1960s to Canada, followed by queens, drones & workers around the world

(Image: Each tube contains about 9,000 ibees, including a queen)

Beeswax storage area at Field's Apiaries, Norbiton Road, Foxton, 1968

At Field's Apiaries, beekeeper is extracting frames of honey from the hive for processing, 1967-68 season

Using a wood burning steam boiler at Field's Apiaries wax shed

Inside Field's Apiaries new honey shed

Honey passes through two 8 frame extractors & drains to a lower storage tank after passing through a mesh filter

The filtered honey is stored in kerosine tins

Sealing and packaging of comb honey at Arataki Honey

Under the Apiaries Act 1969, apiaries were required to be registered if bees kept for more than 14 days

The Act also regulated disease control, feeding of drugs, & restricted zones if honey found to contain poison

The Honey Marketing Authority Regulations 1975 led to a 'hive numbers' based levying system

On 1 Oct 1978, the Hive Levy Act introduced a compulsory annual levy if 50 or more hives held by beekeepers

The levy was used to fund the National Bee Association (NBA) for promotion, development, & improvement of the industry

Processing beeswax at A. Ecroyd and Son Ltd, 1978

Taupō Honey Centre Shop, 1979

From 1980s, increasing number of private individuals & companies began exporting NZ honey products

(RNZ article (3 Nov 2009): A Dunedin honey marketer 'New Zealand Honey Co' has grown 900% since its inception in 2006)

Wax sliced from a frame of honey at Greta Valley in North Canterbury, 1983

If a hive's larvae or pupa become infected with American foulbrood, it is burnt

This is a bacterial disease of honey bee brood caused by the spore forming bacterium Paenibacillus larvae

The Hive Levy was replaced by the Commodity Levies (Bee Products) Order 1996

The Order was introduced following the Commodity Levies Act 1990

The avarroa mite which attacks & feeds on honey bees was first detected in 2000

Image: The worker bee has a small, dark, oval avarroa bee mite on its back

Manaaki Whenua – Landcare Research (Video: c.2013) Plants and trees to help the bees (31 secs)

Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research (Video: c.2013) Trees for Bees programme (5:38 mins)