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Ready to start harvesting your honey? Ecrotek can help, with our step-by-step honey extraction guide.

New Zealand is home to 28 species of native bee, but most people wouldn’t recognise one buzzing past in the garden. Unlike their brightly coloured, social, honey-making cousins, native bees are mostly black, they lead solitary lives, and honey-making is not on their agenda.

Moving a beehive isn’t the easiest task, but sometimes it’s necessary. If you’re introducing new hives, changing the layout of your garden, moving house, selling a hive, or you simply feel that your bees would be better in a new position, you may need to make a move.

The first honey harvest is a milestone for any new beekeeper. But honey isn’t the only useful substance made by bees. Beeswax, which is used to store and cover honey in the hive, is a valuable beekeeping by-product. Even if you’re not interested in using the wax yourself, it’s worth collecting and clarifying your wax for resale, or to give to friends. After all, your bees expend so much energy making and using wax, it seems wasteful to simply throw it away.

Many Kiwi beekeepers start out as hobbyists, with one or two hives in a back garden or on a rural property, then make the jump to selling honey and beekeeping full time.

The Ecrotek team talks you through everything you need to know on moving or transporting hives easily and safely.

For beginner beekeepers, beehive positioning may not seem that important. Many newbies simply pop their brand new hive in a flat spot, without considering how temperature, wind exposure, damp, and even direction might affect their bees.​​

Organic food is made without using chemical pesticides, herbicides, antibiotics or other artificial chemicals during production. Organic fruit growers don’t spray their trees or vines, using natural methods to control insects on their produce. Organic meat and dairy farmers don’t use antibiotics or artificial hormones to speed up animal growth. For many proponents, the organic concept extends into the overall management of the farm or orchard as well – they tend to take a slower, natural approach to crop or animal management, with a focus on caring for their charges rather than profit.

Beekeeping involves working with a large number of unpredictable living things. So of course, there are risks and dangers. But if you follow safe beekeeping guidelines, you should be able to minimise the risk to you, your family, your neighbours, and your bees. It’s about being well-prepared, thinking about the placement of your hives, and – most importantly – being calm and patient when you work with bees.