Niue - global bee sanctuary?

Transcript

Niue could become a global bee sanctuary if the plans of two businessmen succeed.

Organiser Richard Duncan has embarked upon a fundraising campaign with Niue Honey Company's Andy Cory with proceeds going towards bottling their product.

Mr Duncan says the retail sales will be used to underwrite the creation of a sanctuary.

The initiative comes as the United States reported a 42 per cent mortality rate amongst its bee colonies.

He told Koro Vaka'uta how the idea was born.

RICHARD DUNCAN: It's been 15 years really in one sense when Andy first went up and bought the beehives and got the bees going and then about three years I was doing some work for World Vision and we were looking at potential of a social enterprise in the Pacific. I contacted Andy again and said how's the bees going and in the background of all of that we were aware of what was happening on the global scene with the severe problems with bee stock in the northern hemisphere.

KORO VAKA'UTA: What makes Niue a good spot for such a sanctuary?

RD: Historically the bees were taken up there in the 60s and so they've had this relative isolation. It's sufficiently isolated. It's the right size island. It has got the right topography, it's easy to manage the bees and it's got a small population. So with all those things if you are going to pick a place, Niue would be the ideal place to pick. It is bigger enough that you can circulate the bees around the island so you don't get the inbreeding going but it is small enough that you can manage them all, you can get around, you can check them all and make sure you keep on top of inspections and all that sort of thing. All these things are important to make sure the bees are kept in the best health.

KV: How many bees are we talking about that are currently there and that you might want to grow to or develop to?

RD: There are 1,000 hives now and you take about 30,000 bees a hive. Sustainably the island can carry about 4,000 hives. There is some risk of cyclone like anything in the Pacific, there's a cyclone risk and we had that in about 2004 and we survived through it.      

KV:  What sort of infrastructure would you need?

RD: Infrastructure is very minimal. It's sufficient. It's sufficient technology for what has been a small scale Pacific wholesale business but what really needs to happen to upgrade the honey house facility and move from a traditional bulk wholesale business to a retail business. From that from the extra revenue that is gained from that process we're hoping to reinvest back into Niue, back into helping out, upgrade biosecurity measures and helping the government with that.

KV: Does there need to be buy-in from landowners in Niue? Is there buy-in? Does there need to be? What happens there?

RD: Already under the model that is there, landowners get a payment for hive rental type arrangement. Partly on the number of hives on their land, a fixed payment, and then a variable one depending on the productivity of the particular hive. That has created a sense of revenue sharing through this endeavour with the people of Niue.  People of Niue have been, they're custodians of these bees as well in that sense and that's why we are shifting to this social enterprise model because we want to bring them more into this whole operation and make sure they're benefiting as well. The business grows, they get a return and therefore they take pride in protecting these bees and being custodians for these bees.