Love our Bees

Not only do our bees produce a wonderful food source, they also play critical roles in our food chain, biodiversity and economy. The world needs bees! Bee Aware Month, run by Apiculture New Zealand and supported by Mitre 10, is the month when we ask New Zealanders to celebrate our hard-working bees. New Zealand has a healthy bee population with nearly 925,000 hives, but bees still need our care and protection. Bees continue to face a number of threats including: biosecurity, disease, bugs and pesticides. Fortunately there are some simple, easy things that everyone can do to help our bees.

How you can help: Feed our bees – Bees need food and water. Planting bee-friendly wildflowers and providing a saucer of pesticide-free water for bees to drink, are simple, but very effective ways you can help improve bee health. Well-nourished bees are more capable of fending off disease and parasites. Eat New Zealand honey – Our bees create a wide range of delicious, high quality honeys. By eating these honeys you are supporting our beekeepers who work hard to care for our bees and their environment. Spray safely – Choose bee-safe pesticides if you are spraying your garden or consider whether spraying is necessary at all. Remember to spray when bees are away: early in the morning or at sunset.

Throughout September, Apiculture New Zealand will be sharing facts about bees on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and their website, along with practical tips for how to help bees, bee quizzes, honey recipes and the oppor tunity for giveaways.