Tough 18 months for Whanganui beekeepers with oversupply of honey for market

Beekeeping is just a hobby for Neil Farrer now. Photo / NZME

The mānuka honey gold rush is well and truly over, with an oversupply of honey sitting in sheds and prices dropping, Whanganui beekeeper Neil Farrer says.

"Gone are the days when you race out and buy a new ute."

Farrer has dropped down to 60 hives and only sells honey from home, allowing him to pursue beekeeping as an enjoyable hobby without the angst of trying to make a living.

Times were especially tough for beekeepers with 100 to 500 hives because the big businesses that bought their honey to pack and export could dictate the prices, Farrer said.

Prices have dropped from $75-$100 for a kilogram of mānuka honey down to about $50, and $3-$5 for the clover and bush honey that costs beekeepers $6 to make.

"There's a lot of honey still sitting in sheds because beekeepers haven't been prepared to accept the very low prices," Farrer said.

He predicted some would be forced to, and that some would go out of business.

The supply of honey was now greater than the demand.

New Zealand hive numbers increased from about 500,000 in 2014 to about 900,000 in 2019. They had fallen by 100,000 since, and needed to drop another 100,000, Farrer said.

Adding to the changes, the Ministry for Primary Industries introduced a standard for mānuka honey in February 2018. Honey that didn't reach it was downgraded in price, and most producers now concentrate on harvesting high value mānuka honey.

Kai Iwi Honey co-owner Chris Valentine said he had mates with two years of honey they had not been able to sell.

Valentine has been in business for 20 years and has about 1600 hives and five staff.

He has many 300kg barrels of honey waiting for sale, but he does expect it to sell.

"It's who you know. We've got a honey guy that looks after us," he said.

He was bothered by "poaching" - hives placed on the boundaries of land his bees are working.

This season was looking better than the previous two, he said. It started two weeks early, with good flowering and hot weather.

Like Farrer, he predicted some beekeepers would have to shut down their businesses.

"It's going to be interesting to see how things pan out in the future," he said.

Big honey businesses such as Manuka Health and Comvita had been buying and storing honey in advance, Farrer said. They had also been increasing the number of their own hives and offering landowners higher rewards for good hive sites.

Smaller producers had to accept their wholesale prices.

Demand for New Zealand mānuka honey was good despite a world oversupply of honey, Apiculture New Zealand chief executive Karin Kos said.

"There's a lot of honey being stored around the world. Our honey stores well, luckily. It's also got a good reputation and a good name."

Honey export increased from 8702 tonnes in 2014 to a record 12,788 tonnes in 2021, bringing in more than $500 million. The Covid-19 pandemic increased demand and that is projected to continue.

The countries buying the most are China, the United Kingdom and Japan.

Conditions were "pretty tough" for beekeepers, but the long-term future of the honey industry was very good, Kos said.

The price drop is of little concern to beekeepers with fewer than five hives. Their numbers have increased to nearly 7000.