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HISTORY
Arataki Honey Rotorua has been a market
leader and has innovatively and successfully exported
package bees and queens to Canada every year since 1985.
The first shipments were in conventional wooden containers,
but in 1987, Russell Berry saw the need for a better
system. He developed the innovative Arataki tube package,
which immediately proved to be successful. With some minor
evolutionary improvements, they have been used ever since.
Russell Berry with tube packages - 1987
Rotorua Daily Post 1987
The
principal aims of the package, and those which we
have achieved, are as follows:
Our packages give the bees a greater degree of control over their
environment inside the package, despite changes of
temperature outside, than is available in the traditional
package. Our design allows the bees to draw cool, fresh air
from low down and to discharge warm, aromatic air high up.
This prevents them breathing stale air discharged from other
packages while working natural air convection. We also
made the packages narrow enough for the bees to restrict the
airflow when it is cold outside the tube. This narrowness
has the added advantage of reducing the light entering the
tube, thus modifying the effect on the bees when the tubes
are moved from dark into light.
It is
important that we made the package with a large interior
surface and a strip of mesh stretching nearly the full
length of the tube. The bees can cling to this during
transportation so lessening the stress which occurs when
bees cling to each other as in a swarm. This is
particularly important on rough air flights or on rough
roads. This means that bees live longer after they have
been hived.
We ship
704 Arataki Tube Packages on one airline pallet. These
are made up of 4 bins of 176 tubes per bin which can be
moved by fork lift. Another very important feature of Arataki Tube Packages is the ease of feeding while they are
in the bin and the ease of hiving them. They are extremely
easy to shake out.
BEES IN NEW ZEALAND
The genetic material we use was imported into
NZ by David Yanke and comes from three Queen Breeding
institutes in Europe, namely Lunz, Austria; Kirchhain,
Germany; and Mayen, Germany. These Institutes concentrate on
varroa tolerance. The Institute in Kirchhain Germany, has
been trialling their Carnica against Primorsky Queens
brought straight from Baton Rouge and representing all the
lines they maintain there. Their data shows that their best
Carnica is as tolerant as the average Primorsky, and light
years ahead when it comes to temperament, productivity, and
swarming. (i.e. the Primorsky swarm much more readily then
do Carnica.)
Yanke’s evaluations have
shown that the Carnica hybrids are much more varroa tolerant
than his yellow bees. Feedback from other commercial
beekeepers and my own experience backs this up.
Winter conditions in the deep south
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WHAT WE OFFER
During our 22 years supplying Canadian
beekeepers, they have found that NZ Italian bees have
performed very successfully, but are now finding that our NZ
Carniolan
bees are even better. We can supply package bees with
either Italian or Carniolan queens.
Our innovative packaging system and our
long experience ensures that the bees arrive in the best
possible condition.
VIEW VIDEO
(8 MB approx.)
Packages in controlled storage ready for
export -2008.
1,408 1kg. packages en route to the airport
We are continuously striving to provide
the best bees for Northern Hemisphere conditions. Our
breeding programme is continually being modified to bring
you the best Carniolan queens and bees possible and to
further improve our stock. In 2008, we transported thousands
of our virgin queens in mating boxes 400km north to get
mated with predominantly Carniolan drones, working in with a
beekeeper who supplies a lot of bees for our packages.
Carniolan queen and bees in a breeder hive
We produce Carniolan queens in NZ, away
from Small Hive Beetles and EFB, which unfortunately is
present in Australia. We produce up to 25,000 queens a year,
mainly for sales overseas. Most of these queens are
Carniolan. We are working at developing bees that
are tolerant to varroa mites. Arataki farms 20,000 hives of
bees mainly for honey production and for pollination of pip and stone fruit,
kiwifruit, blueberries and many other crops. Over 10,000 hives of ours are annually used for
paid pollination of crops. This gives us a good base to
choose breeders from, but we are now moving into A.I. We
hope to make better use of our carniolan breeder queens
which we have purchased from David Yanke, a queen breeder in
NZ.
We have recently purchased Schley II A.I.
equipment. This will further improve our breeding lines to
produce quality, disease free honey bees, great for
pollination and honey production.
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