, and followed declarations from insurers that 2022 had been the most costly on record for climate-related weather claims in New Zealand, a country that has 15,000km of coastline and is vulnerable to rising and heating seas. As the cyclone cleanup began, beekeepers said the disaster had underscored the need for more climate planning.
The sector has not “really had that sort of discussion”, Foster says, adding it would have to be facilitated across primary industries because beekeepers rely on farm and orchard land to host their hives. A honey bee collecting pollen from New Zealand mānuka flowers. The country is famous for its mānuka honey.The hives wrecked in the cyclone were a small number of the about 650,000 to 750,000 across New Zealand, andthat grew during the past two years of the pandemic prevented the cyclone from denting supply for now. But beekeepers say the full scale of the damage is not known yet and their fates are closely tied to those of orchardists who use their hives for pollination.