Arataki Honey visitor centre buzzing about Bee Aware month

Nat Berry, great-granddaughter of Percy Berry, one of Arataki's founders, is carrying on the tradition of teaching the next generation all about bees. Photo / Paul Taylor

Arataki Honey is getting ready for a busy September as Apiculture New Zealand's annual education campaign Bee Aware kicks off.

The Hastings honey company's visitor centre is free to visit and has a wealth of information about the honeybee's life and honey production, and offers free honey tasting.

While the centre has a focus on bee education all year round, over the next four weeks there will be a bigger push to teach people that there is even more to bees than honey.

This month the Arataki visitor centre will have schools taking part in its education sessions as they add Bee Aware to their curriculum, giving students the knowledge that bees are good because they do so much more for the environment than produce honey.

Arataki Honey visitor centre manager Gayle Hutcheson said, "Bee Aware month is important to us because it produces greater awareness of our honeybees right across the country and seeks to involve schools and thereby catch our children's imagination."

Visitor centre assistant manager Nat Berry said, "If we teach kids to be nice to bees then we have a better future for us all."

As part of the education programme, the centre provides resources to help Kiwis do their part in looking after bees.

To make your garden more bee-friendly, Nat suggests plants and trees that feed bees.

"The best flowers to plant are old-fashion varieties of wildflowers as it is easier for bees to get to the pollen," she said.

Another addition readers could make to their gardens is a safe water source for the bees; this would be a shallow dish of water with rocks and sticks for bees to rest on.

Nat explained that in the hot summer months, bees gather water to take back to the hive and use as airconditioning.

Bee Awareness month is an annual initiative run by Apiculture New Zealand to help promote bees and educate the public so they can help support and care for honeybees.

Visitor Centre assistant manager Nat Berry sets up and looks after Bee Aware month every year. Photo / Paul Taylor

Every year Arataki Honey gets behind the campaign and dedicates an area of the visitor centre to the initiative.

Apiculture New Zealand chooses a new topic each year - this year's topic is Bee Curious and Arataki Honey is running a competition to find the best bee-related questions.

Answers to questions asked by visitors or on social media will be posted on the business' Facebook page: AratakiHoneyVC