Beekeepers feel the sting of inflation

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33878, 25 June 1975, Page 17

Beekeepers feel the sting of inflation

. .... h e National Beekeepers’ Association conference opens ' ’n I imaru tomorrow at a time when beekeepers, along with the j rest of the rural community, are perturbed bv continued cost rises.

The rises in the price of petrol and sugar alone this year have put a burden on beekeepers which may rebound on to the farmers and in turn on to the New Zealand economy. Although it is not generally realised, not even among all farmers, bees are playing an increasingly vital role in crop returns in New Zealand. POLLINATION Once, we took pollination of crops for granted. However, in the last 50 years, under the pressures of growing population and the need for increased returns, more and more land has been put into cultivation. This is the paradox of progress: the more crops that have been planted in New Zealand, the faster we destroyed the basic means for a full crop return.

Trees were cut down, paddocks were made larger, and burning off destroyed the: homes and food of natural pollinators. Concentrated plantings over large acreages have left bees no wild plants to live on when the main crop, clover, is not flowering, and get the pollen so necessary for their survival. The replacement of the oldfashioned overgrown gorse fences with wire fences and close clean cultivation looks very well, some say, but it has left fees with a great gap in their food supply. For example parts of Canterbury, especially MidCanterbury, are so bereft of natural vegetation that bees will starve and disappear practically overnight unless they are fed supplementary pollen. BEES SCARCE Heavy grazing by sheep has further contributed to the decline of natural bee fodder, along with the indiscriminate spraying of powerful insecticides and herbicides. As a consequence of r.ll this, the place of the honey bee in our agriculture is becoming more and more important. We do not have enough bees to pollinate crops adequately; some areas need two or three times the hives they have now.

Beekeepers, though, need a return in honey from their hives and this is hard to get from a big concentration of hives in one area. One solution, as is now happening in the United States and Canada, is a pollination fee from farmers. A few of the more progressive farmers in Canterbury are paying this now — at the rate of about $lO a hive — in the face of “If I had to do that I would get out of farming” fromsome of their older col-: leagues. Such is the price of progress. PETROL DEAR A lot of publicity was; given this year to a record! honey crop, after years of! little return. This is a bit of a bitter pill for the people in the business, for just when people were remarking on the news, the cold rain came and the bees effectively closed down for the year. And that is not their only worry. The rise in the price of petrol hits beekeepers especially hard. They are en-

i tirely dependent on road ■ transport, usually heavy — t six miles to the gallon — f trucks to attend to and shift ■ their hives and bring in the i honey. This involves a big • mileage: one calculation is j that every hive — there : might be 2000 — takes 12 i miles of running a year. ’ An idea of the weights int volved can be got when it is f considered that one of the 1 boxes (supers) that makes: i up a hive can weigh over 90 ■ lb when full of honey — bad fj backs from lifting these are : common among beekeepers: I often they just keep on > I going, for "it is pretty hard li to find someone to work the f!bees, the main qualification f being a few thousand stings. • The conference in Timaru t will talk of seeking some ; form of petrol subsidy. Howt ever, beekeepers are a lonely - little lobby among all the . others seeking Government ' aid, and it will take some real foresight on the part of t the Ministry of Agriculture - to see that their case gets ■ the sympathy it deserves.