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NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPER, DECEMBER 2016
UK APPRENTICES IN NZ: PART ONE EDUCATION
Margaret Ginman
Waikato beekeepers John and Pauline Bassett are involved in organising a reciprocal arrangement between the UK and New Zealand for beekeeping apprentices. In the first of a series of articles, Margaret Ginman of the UK journal Bee Farmer reports on the experiences of Rowse/Bee Farmers’ Association apprentices in New Zealand.
Hives being placed into a manuka site. (This photo appeared on the front cover of the April 2016 edition of Bee Farmer .) Photo: Phoebe Lamb.
Training provided by the Bee Farmers’ Association (BFA) for young people entering bee farming is world class. To that end, five trainee bee farmers went to the southern hemisphere to learn about the beekeeping season there, which coincides with the winter months here in the United Kingdom (UK). Four of them are on the Rowse/BFA apprenticeship scheme. The fifth is training outside of the scheme with one of the UK’s top bee farmers. How one of the apprentices fared in New Zealand (NZ) is described in detail below. Organisation The trips were organised with the help of Robert Field, Field Honey Farms, Dorset, and Pauline Bassett who, with her husband, runs a few hundred hives on New Zealand’s North Island, just a couple of hours’ journey from Auckland. After much discussion with immigration officials it was decided that the young people could enter the country under the visa waiver system. Pauline and I reviewed the apprentices’ curriculum vitae, along with reports from their assessors relating to the progress and development of each individual, to decide where best to place each of them. Thirteen New Zealand beekeeping businesses had answered Pauline’s request for expressions of interest to act as hosts. We asked each of them to provide a brief profile so that we could best match them with the particular interests of each apprentice. The decision was made to place Phoebe Lamb at Kaimai Range Honey, Tauranga, near the Bay of Plenty, with hosts Ralph and Jody Mitchell; Sebastian (Seb) Leaver at Kintail Honey (Wairarapa branch), Carterton, near Wellington; and Tim Davis would stay with the Bassetts themselves.
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