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NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPER, JUNE 2017
IN THE NEWS
WANGANUI BEEKEEPERS’ CLUB SUCCESSFULLY APPEALS ABATEMENT NOTICE
Neil Farrer, Life Member
The Wanganui Beekeepers’ Club has successfully appealed an abatement notice from the Whanganui District Council in a dispute about the placement of club hives. This report, written shortly before the abatement notice was cancelled, outlines the dispute. This problemmay extend beyondWhanganui.
Wanganui Beekeepers’ Club members inspecting hives at a field day several years ago. Photo supplied by Neil Farrer.
The Wanganui Beekeepers’ Club has had an apiary site at a five-acre organic experimental orchard and vegetable garden for over 15 years. Originally the site was on the outskirts of the city, but in the intervening years housing has been built to the east and west of the property. The south side borders a road and the north side is the city boundary and opens onto rural pasture. The club has worked closely with the Wanganui Regional Heritage Trust, which operates the orchard, to ensure that the hives are well kept, that the ground around the hives is tidy and that the hives are especially strong during the long flowering period of the various fruit and vegetable varieties.
The site is also the club’s teaching site for new beekeepers, giving them confidence to work hives throughout the year. Last year, numerous residents on the western side complained to the Whanganui District Council about bee traffic and bee spotting on their house walls and on their washing. Discussions were held between the club and the council and as an interimmeasure, the club hives were moved off site fromMarch to August. The club investigated and found that there were over 100 hives within the one-kilometre circle of the orchard. After the club hives had been moved the spotting problem continued, but was reported to be not as bad as previously. The site of the club’s hives
is well known but the presence of the other commercial and hobbyist apiaries is not known to the complainants, who attributed the reduction in spotting to the hive movement and not to the fact that there are fewer bees around in winter. The hives were moved back onto the property in late August 2016 for their pollination task and were sited differently—no longer visible from the western side, and facing towards the northern, rural boundary. The complainants on the western side seemed satisfied. In January 2017, the Whanganui District Council received complaints from a group of homeowners on the eastern side of the
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