The honey industry has voted a new representative body into place after a quarter-century of fractured industry structures, alongside a separate MPI-led alliance bringing beekeepers, exporters and pollination users to the same table.

Honey and Bees New Zealand replaces the old ApiNZ and New Zealand Bee Inc structures, and its new leadership, including chair Murray Bush, was elected eight weeks ago. Both it and the wider supply-chain alliance are voluntary, unpaid roles, Bush says.

He says hive numbers have stabilised at about 480,000 after falling from close to a million between 2019 and 2025, and beekeepers are starting to pay their bills again.

“Collectively we can do it better,” he says.

“But the real benefit, the strategic benefit of bees in New Zealand is pollination.”

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