Well Winter is well and truly upon us now. We have all the bees tucked in ready for the colder months.
Our efforts are concentrated on other tasks such as maintenance of beekeeping equipment, vehicles, buildings, site accesses, building new hive ware and some feeding of lighter colony's.
Planning ahead for next season is well under way and we have already started preparing for this.
We recently held our East Cape landowners meeting at Waihau Bay. Each year We look forward to this as it is an opportunity to get together socially and to give our landowners a forum to have open discussion with other landowners, our guest speakers and ourselves.
This year much of the discussion was centered around the resource. Over the past few years the attitude toward Manuka has drastically changed as it was once regarded as a pest weed. It is now regarded as a valuable resource that must me well managed, maintained and developed.
It is always great to hear how the income generated form Manuka Honey is benefiting our landowners and the local community as a whole, and with this season being as good as it was and returns at a all time high the benefits will be so much greater. We feel so privileged to be able to make a difference.
We were able to take time to visit the Taitua Whanau Urapa (Cemetery) at Whangaparaoa where they have located a shipping container that we donated. After hearing of their need we were pleased to be able to show our appreciation of our long standing relationship. They will be using this as secure storage for equipment used for maintaining their urapa. We were humbled by the gratitude that they expressed.
Later this month the National Beekeepers Association holds its annual conference. This year it is to be held in Taupo (not too far from home). We have some of our staff attending this year. This is a great opportunity for us to expand our knowledge and to keep ourselves informed. It sounds like the Waikato branch organising committee have done a great job and we are looking forward to an informative conference.
Got to buzz off now as I have some fishing to catch up on.
See you on the next blog.
Some of the Taitua Whanau with Lorraine and their new storage container.