Local product helps hard-hit beekeepers

Beekeeper Stu Ferguson from Hunter Reilly Limited gets good results feeding his bees AgriSea Apifeed+.

Cold, wet, windy weather across the country has cost beekeepers millions of dollars as the unseasonable conditions affects honey harvest.

With close to a million hives now in New Zealand, the poor summer has hit the apiculture industry hard when they were already struggling with failing bee treatments and diminished feed stocks.

Comvita chief executive Scott Coulter said it appeared the whole industry is experiencing one of the most difficult honey production seasons for many years.

But a locally-made product from naturally-occurring seaweed is helping.

Beekeepers have found AgriSea Bee Nutrition to assist in brood development and produce more robust bees.

Three years ago AgriSea noticed beekeepers were purchasing supplementary feed products.

Discussions were held to determine how this was adding value to their operations and trial work was commenced to develop a local product.

The New Zealand native seaweed species Ecklonia radiata is batch-brewed with specifically selected essential herbs for up to 90-days to make Bee Nutrition Tonic.

As a result of listening to their customers and learning about their methods of bee feeding, AgriSea partnered with MSugar and created a unique pollen substitute - Apifeed+.

Stu Ferguson from Hunter Reilly Limited was finding it "ridiculously expensive" importing American product when he came across AgriSea and he has been impressed with his trial results.

"I achieved low losses in 2016 and it just makes sense that the nutrients, amino acids and vitamins in AgriSea must be assisting the health of the hives when compared to using straight sugar syrup."

De Graaf Apiaries are conducting a study to assess the optimum concentration for bees and initial results are promising and point to 30mls per litre of sugar syrup being the optimum concentration for increasing brood during the spring feeding rounds of 2016.

"We are aware of the decrease in pollen sources around New Zealand, so supplying the bees with additional nutrition is common practice," said Bennie De Graaf from De Graaf Apiaries.

"Using locally made seaweed makes sense - we add AgriSea Bee Nutrition whenever we feed our hives all year round to keep the hives healthy and strong."

Early in 2016 AgriSea met with Plant and Food Research.

General manager Tane Bradley said the aim was simple - to scientifically assess what their beekeepers had been noticing in their hives - fat bees, healthy hives, increased production, increased brood and reduced Nosema incidence.

"We have now come up with some really good methodology and this research will begin in autumn 2017 with the support of Auckland University."