International Speaker – Samuel (Sammy) Ramsey 

Samuel Ramsey’s enduring interest in entomology started 22 years ago and shows no signs of waning. A recent Ph.D. from Dr. Dennis van Engelsdorp’s lab at the University of Maryland, College Park; Dr. Ramsey maintains a focus on how insect research can benefit the public through the development of IPM strategies and STEM-focused outreach initiatives. His award-winning research on Varroa biology has changed the standing paradigm on how this parasite feeds on and ultimately kills honey bees leading to the opportunity to share his work nationally and internationally.

Dr. Ramsey firmly believes that the ability to simply explain one’s findings to any and everyone is just as important as the ability to reach those findings in the lab; a conviction clearly borne out in his contagious excitement when giving scientific presentations. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Entomology from Cornell University in 2011 focusing his research on predatory/parasitic insect behavior.

His current work focuses on the involvement of the infamous parasitic Varroa mite in the ongoing issues with honey bee health decline and what can be done to reverse it. He’s further turned his sights on studying a lesser-known but apparently more destructive honey bee parasite, the closely related Southeast Asian Tropilaelaps mites before they arrive in the US.

 International Speaker –  Alisha Taff

Alisha Taff is the CFO (Chief Farming Officer) of Rock Front Ranch – a 320 acre diversified, organic sustainable ranch in the middle of the Las Padres National Forest in California. The ranch runs stocker cattle, has a horse training operation, an organic jujube orchard and of course, honey bees – which all work symbiotically with the limited resources of the land. Alisha studied animal science, ag business and ag journalism at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. She decided that she wasn’t going to be a seed salesman or a veterinarian, so she pursued a career in the medical field before returning to agriculture. The birth of her daughter Ky was the catalyst to implement an environment of sustainability and regeneration at the ranch. Alisha stays busy producing and marketing glyphosate free, single source varietal honey, as well as organic jujube fruit – both produced at the ranch. She is not scared to work in the dirt, using regenerative ag methods to improve the quality of the biome at the ranch. She is forever a student, cultivating curiosity and learning to do better.
– Eco Farm – 2017 Regenerative Agriculture and Agro-Forestry Speaker
– California Rare Fruit Growers –Co-Chair 2017, 2018 , 2019
– California Certified Organic Farmers – Vice President South Coast Chapter 2018, 2019
– Apimondia Istanbul 2017 – attendee
– California State Bee Keepers Convention Speaker – 2017
– California South Valley Bee Keepers Association Dinner Speaker 2018, 2019
www.justjujubes.com
www.rockfrontranch.com

Stephen Lee

Stephen Lee is the Chief Executive Officer of Mānuka Farming NZ Ltd. Stephen has been with Mānuka Farming NZ Ltd since August 2016. Since then, he and his team have grown the company into a one stop shop for landowners looking to assess, model, establish, and manage their land to optimise returns from manuka plantation. Mānuka Farming NZ Ltd. utilises the knowledge gained from the Primary Growth Partnership Programme (PGP) on High-performance Mānuka Plantations, and seeks to work collaboratively within the industry towards a sustainable and thriving Mānuka honey industry.

James Sainsbury

James Sainsbury is a Scientist in the Pollination and Apiculture Team at Plant and Food Research. He has an interest in molecular genetics, honey bee diseases and breeding for improvement in honey bees.

Damien O’Connor

Hon Damien O’Connor is the New Zealand Government’s Minister of Agriculture. He is also Minister for Biosecurity, Food Safety and Rural Communities and Minister of State for Trade and Export Growth.

First elected to Parliament in 1993 he has served as a Minister in both the fifth and sixth Labour Governments, and Spokesperson in Opposition for a variety of roles including Agriculture, Biosecurity, Food Safety, Tourism, Immigration and Health.

Minister O’Connor is a passionate advocate for thriving rural communities and believes New Zealand’s ability to sustainably produce high-quality, nutritious food for a growing global population is crucial to the country’s economic future.

His background in farming and adventure tourism drives his view that New Zealand needs well-paid, sustainable jobs and industry value growth for a better future for all.
An active sportsman he has represented Buller at athletics and enjoys skiing, white water rafting, jet boating, motorsports and playing rugby for the New Zealand Parliamentary Team. He has won West Coast Young Farmer of the Year and is also the MP for West Coast-Tasman.

Jacob Jaine

Jacob Jaine is a scientist at Analytica Laboratories, New Zealand’s most innovative and successful honey testing laboratory. He is a PhD-trained chemist and specialises in chemical characterisation of food products. He has been involved in several high-profile science programmes relating to the characterisation of native monofloral honey, and also has interests in the dairy sector. Jacob also oversees many of the routine honey tests conducted at Analytica, and has extensive knowledge relating to honey testing in the broader context of the industry.

Dr Ian Raine

Dr Ian Raine (i.raine@gns.cri.nz)
Ian is a contractor, formerly senior scientist, at GNS Science in Lower Hutt. Trained in identification and measurement of pollen transfer in the environment, his long career has spanned many aspects of palynology (study of pollen and other dispersed plant cells). For the past 10 years, he has managed GNS Science’s commercial pollen analysis service and conducted research into the pollen content of New Zealand honeys and bee pollen loads – much of it with Tree for Bees in MPI Sustainable Farming Fund projects.

Don MacLeod

Don MacLeod’s working background was in the chemical industry, with the old DuPont Company where he worked in Agrichemicals and then Specialty Chemicals throughout the Asia Pacific region.

I have had a lifelong interest and participation in New Zealand Agriculture.  I am an amateur beekeeper.

Since 2011 I have been an active member of the Apiculture NZ Science and Research Focus Group and before that the NBA Technical Committee.

My role has been writing and presenting submissions to the EPA and MPI on pesticides and how they can be used safely alongside responsible beekeeping.

Over the past 12 months I have been involved in a number of discussions on own use of organic acids and concerns about detection of pesticide residues in bee products.

Rene Gloor

Rene Gloor has been a Dog Trainer for over 30 years. Originally from Lucerne, Switzerland, he immigrated to New Zealand 1988 together with his sister and her family.

Rene was the Manager/ Trainer for Ministry of Agriculture Biosecurity Detector Dog Programme Beagle Brigade, (now MPI) for 10 years before he starting his own Dunedin based, Detector Dog Training Business, Rene Gloor Canine. Some of his previous clients were Government Agencies from around the world. (Taiwan, Korea, Hawaii, Canada)

Rene trained the first AFB Detector Dog in 2011 for Gowanlea Honey in Darfield to assist in their fight against AFB within their own operation. Since then 7 other operational AFB Detector Dogs have been trained and are based with Beekeepers and private operators nationwide.

Rene, not being a Beekeeper himself, but a strong supporter of “keeping New Zealand clean and green” has been directly involved in the use of the AFB Detector Dogs in inspecting Bee Hives and he has gained a very good understanding of the practical use of the detector dogs in the fight against AFB.

 Paul Dansted 

Paul Dansted is the Director Food Regulation in New Zealand Food Safety, a strategic business unit within the Ministry for Primary Industries.  The Food Regulation directorate is responsible for developing food production, processing, testing, and import and export standards.  Regular engagement with the industry is an essential part of this work.

Paul has worked in policy, operations, science, and regulatory roles in the public sector.  He has also contributed to and led development of international food standards.

Michelle Sheehan 

Michelle is the People and Culture Senior Business Partner working with Kiwi Bee, Comvita’s wholly owned apiary business.

Having experience in a variety of HR roles and industries, Michelle joined Kiwi Bee 18 months ago and loves working with a great team of beekeepers who are passionate about bees.

Seeing as we all spend a fair chunk of our time at work, Michelle believes in working together to create a fun and caring team environment which supports high performance. Within Kiwi Bee Michelle is passionate about providing opportunities for learning, developing great leaders and building talent within the apiculture industry.

Linda Newstrom-Lloyd 

Linda is the botanist for the Trees for Bees NZ program which is starting its 10th year of research funded by Ministry for Primary Industry Sustainable Farming Fund with support of the apiculture industry, farmers, landowners and council land managers.  Trees for Bees recently formed the New Zealand Trees for Bees Research Trust to facilitate our work.  Our new SFF project for 2019 to 2022 will scale up planting bee forage by building capacity through training and tech transfer of our data, tools and protocols.  Numerous scientific and popular articles have been produced by the Trees for Bees team and are available at www.treesforbeesnz.org/information

Nick Taylor

Nick Taylor is the General Manager of New Zealand Beeswax Ltd, a Beekeeping Equipment/Service Provider based in Orari and Hamilton.

One of Nick’s passions is providing world class bee health & nutrition products and advice. Nick travels extensively in his role, visiting apiculture tradeshows and commercial beekeeping operations around NZ and the world. Speaking with beekeepers on a daily basis, armed with the latest scientific research, has Nick well placed to comment on the health & nutrition issues/opportunities facing NZ beekeepers today.

Jo-Ann Pugh

Based in Wellington, Jo has worked in health-and-safety regulation for more than 16 years – as Health-and-Safety Inspector, Service Manager, and Chief Inspector for the Central Region. Nationally, she has focused on forestry and agriculture, as well as Occupational Health.

As Head of General Inspectorate in Operations, Jo is responsible for the workforce of about 180 people who perform proactive workplace assessments targeting our most vulnerable sectors, i.e. agriculture, construction, forestry, and manufacturing. General Inspectorate focuses on activities with the long-term impact, aiming at achieving 25% reduction in injuries and fatalities by 2020.

Ashley Mortensen

Ashley Mortensen is Senior Scientist at the New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research. Her research focuses on honey bee behaviour and biology. She strives to combine laboratory studies that investigate specific relationships between individual bees and their environment with field studies that investigate the broader relationship between the colony as a whole and the environment. Her overall goal is to better inform management practices and environmental protections to increase colony health and productivity.

Deanna Corbett 

Dee served for several years as hub/branch secretary, as well as a stint on the NBA’s national executive.  She also wrote/edited the popular Buzzsheet newsletter from 2009 to 2018.  She has always had a strong emphasis on bee health and bringing beekeepers together, organising a number of field days and events to facilitate this over the years, and still runs a spring beginners beekeeping course to make sure those entering the industry, whether an aspiring hobbyist or commercial, do so with a foundation of good knowledge and their eyes wide open.

Ron Vail 

I grew up in Southern California, obtained a BA in History at UC Santa Cruz, and worked as a Paramedic in Oakland, California before attending medical school in Richmond, Virginia. After graduating from the Family Medicine Residency Program in Klamath Falls, Oregon, I worked in Montana and Oregon as a rural Physician as well as the Medical Director for the local Emergency Medical Services and Hospice. In 2008 our family moved to Rotorua, New Zealand, and we are proud to now be New Zealand Citizens. Outside of enjoying the breadth of General Practice, I love spending time with my family, mountain biking, gardening and music.

Kate Kember 

Kate was appointed to the ApiNZ Board in 2018.

Kate is the General Manager Marketing for Manuka Health New Zealand. Kate’s role requires a strong understanding of the breadth of the apiculture industry; from beekeeping practices to processing and manufacturing, the global export, business-to-business and business-to-consumer facets. Kate’s regular contact with beekeepers and the wider industry has ensured she has a solid appreciation of the issues they face and how they can be supported through the national body, ApiNZ.

Clifton King

Clifton has recently been appointed as the National Compliance Manager at the Management Agency, American Foulbrood Pest Management Plan.

He is a veterinarian and senior biosecurity professional, specialising in surveillance and disease response. He worked for the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry in various roles for a 12-year period from 2000 to 2012. During this time he worked on the 2000 Varroa incursion response, the design of the South Island Varroa surveillance programme, the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the UK, and the foot and mouth disease hoax on Waiheke Island in 2005.

He is responsible for the development of FarmsOnline – a comprehensive register of all New Zealand’s farms to enable MAF to quickly identify and contact New Zealand’s farms in the event of an exotic disease outbreak.

He also led the transformation of MAF’s incursion response systems to more enable more effective management of outbreaks of exotic disease and pests.

He is enjoying the opportunity to work with the honey bee industry again, and is looking forward to working with beekeepers to make changes that will enable beekeepers to further reduce the incidence of AFB in New Zealand.

John Bassett

John has been a commercial beekeeper for over 40 years.  He and his wife Pauline commenced operating commercially in 1977 when they established Waitomo Honey Ltd in Te Kuiti.  At its height this business ran 2000 hives, employed 3 to 4 staff with income derived from local and export honey sales, kiwifruit pollination, and production of queens.

John has been actively involved in the national industry group ApicultureNZ (formerly the National Beekeepers’ Assn).   He was a founding director of the NZ Bee Genetic Improvement Group, was the foundation chairman of what is now called the UMF Honey Assn, and an instigator/member of a Hard Business Network for development of active Manuka honey products.

Since “retirement” from Te Kuiti, John has continued beekeeping and now runs about 300 hives on the Coromandel Peninsula and Hauraki Plains in conjunction with a business partner.  He maintains his interest in Manuka honey production, also a strong focus on bee genetics and bee health.

Brendon Gardner 

Brendon is the Bay of Plenty-based Relationship Manager for Immigration New Zealand. His role helps employers to attract and successful retain talent, and to develop strong inclusive workplaces: https://www.immigration.govt.nz/employ-migrants/settle-migrant-staff. Part of the Immigration NZ team since 2014, Brendon has previously worked in career development roles at Careers New Zealand & at the University of Waikato, and in regional labour market development with the Department of Labour.

Brendon is part of the organising team behind the annual Rotorua Careers Expo, and is always keen to receive employer and industry stories for their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/RotoruaCareersExpo/. Brendon lives in Mount Maunganui and is a proud Bay of Plenty Steamers fan.

Karin Kos

Karin has been Chief Executive of ApiNZ since November 2016.  She has a strong background in business communications going back 20 years, covering a variety of roles including senior communications and marketing positions for corporate, government and primary sector organisations. This includes significant primary sector experience, having worked at Seafood New Zealand as its communications manager, and at the New Zealand Wool Board, earlier in her career.

With this experience Karin brings strong advocacy and communication skills to her role as CE, enjoying the opportunity to support ApiNZ members in making sure they have what they need to do business better, and promoting a sustainable apiculture industry.

John Kippenberger 

John Kippenberger is Manuka Health’s Chief Executive Officer. John is an experienced CEO and MD specialising in company growth and turnarounds in fast moving consumer goods across a range of international markets.
Prior to joining Manuka Health in February 2016, John was the Managing Director and part owner of Premier Beehive NZ, the high growth NZ FMCG business specialising in quality food products (Beehive, Premier and Freedom Farm brands). At this time John was also a board member of the New Zealand Food and Grocery Council and continues to hold investments in other food companies. In Australia, John spent four years as CEO of the Australian meat and dairy business of George Weston Foods Ltd.
Since joining Manuka Health John has built a strong executive team and continues to drive strong sales growth through a strategy of investing in focused innovation, exciting brand execution and channel expansion in key markets. The company enjoys a pure focus on delivering quality end-to-end bee products expertise and in the past 2 years has made substantial progress in building out its own Apiculture operations. Together with the company’s long and deep beekeeper supplier partnerships this combined platform delivers quality honey to meet Manuka Health’s strong sales growth.
John is positive of the industry’s potential to meet the +$1 billion growth ambition and is motivated to play his part to bring the industry together under this shared vision.

Gerard Vaughan 

Farmstrong is a rural wellbeing programme that aims to help farmers and farming families live well to farm well. To find out more about Farmstrong and what could work for you to ‘lock in’, check out our farmer-to-farmer videos, stories and tips at Farmstrong.

Gerard has been project lead for Farmstrong since 2013. Previous roles he has held include National Manager for the “Like Minds” mental health campaign involving well-known NZer John Kirwan (five years) and CEO of the Alcohol Advisory Council (five years).

Dennis Crowley

Dennis Crowley has been a commercial beekeeper for over twenty years, managing 500 hives for kiwifruit and avocado pollination and wholesale honey production.

Dennis served four years on the NBA executive board and was strongly involved in the changeover to ApiNZ. He is the President of the Bay of Plenty ApiNZ hub. He has also spent a lot of his time in discussions with Zespri International and NZ Avocado advocating on behalf of pollinating beekeepers.

Dennis has a hands-on view of what is important for grass roots beekeeping, as well as an open view to the ever-changing growth of the beekeeping industry in NZ.

Tony Wright

Tony joined the ApiNZ Board in 2017 and currently chairs the ApiNZ Standards Focus Group. He is also on the Executive Team for the UMF Honey Association and on the Board of Manuka Research Partnership Limited.

Currently in the role of General Manager Technical, Tony has been an employee of Comvita for the past 11 years and in that time has had experience across all aspects of the global business. Tony is fortunate to be in a position where he can devote a considerable amount of time to industry and government relations.

Prior to Comvita Tony has held technical roles in dairy, brewing and pharmaceuticals.

Hollie Beau Yoga 

Hollie Beau is originally from the Lake District in England. With a history in adventure sports she completed a degree in Outdoor Studies and moved to New Zealand seven years ago. Now living in Rotorua she spends her days mountain biking, teaching Yoga and pottering in her garden.

Hollie has been professionally sharing Yoga for the last five years, and studying for fifteen. Her teaching is of alignment based vinyasa. Which means that she articulates the poses in depth (alignment), so you get to know how enter a position with ease and how to feel steady within it. Guided by the pulsation of breathing, consciousness in motion (vinyasa). Her teaching style is fun but thoughtful, slow and strong. And in turn, as an object of meditation, the mind reaches into the sensations experienced in the body. Sharpening the mind, stretching the body and opening hearts.

Tracey Scott 

Tracey was born breed and educated in Rotorua. Ever since she can remember she had a passion for art, which later led to her pursuing a Fine Arts Degree at Otago school of Fine Arts.

After graduating Tracey decided to travel to London and embarked on further Photographic qualifications with the NY Institute of Photography for two years.

Upon returning to NZ Tracey took up a role in Wellington as a cartoonist for TVNZ.

A few years later Tracey took on a position at the Daily Post as a Press Photographer which spanned into a twenty year career, achieving the position of Chief Photographer.

In 2007 Tracey decided to open her own studio and pursue her own style of photography in the commercial arena.

Since that move Tracey has been awarded a Fellowship of the NZ Photographic Society, five bars to her Masters of the NZ Institute of Professional Photographers and Associateship of The Federation of Fine Art Photographers, also NZIPP NZ Professional Photographer of the year 2015 and Documentary Photographer of the year 2017 & 2018.

In recent years she has been appointed as a listed Judge for the PSNZ and to the PSNZ Honours board for the past 4 years as well as NZIPP Honours Board 2018.

Russell Marsh

Russell is a third-generation commercial beekeeper based in Central Otago. His family’s honey brand was established in 1934 and is well known throughout New Zealand for its white clover honey along with pollination services provided to farms and orchards throughout the Otago region. Prior to returning home to the bees Russell had a long and varied background as a chartered accountant in the commercial food sector. He is married to Trudie and has two teenage children Charlie & Molly.

John Mackay 

John is the technical director of dnature diagnostics & research Ltd. The laboratory side of dnature (= DNA in a range of nature) develops molecular diagnostic assays mainly in the primary industry area.

He has developed a number of apiculture-related tests including ones for nosema species and a number of bee viruses. He developed a new assay to detect the presence of the new pathogen Lotmaria passim in bees as well as the Lake Sinai Virus group. More recently he has been working on refining a new qPCR test and methodologies around AFB testing.

He is a hobby beekeeper and is a currently a member of the Apiculture NZ Science & Research focus group as well as head of the industry advisory group for the Future Bees multi-year project.

Claire McDonald 

Claire has been researching insects and the factors that influence their distribution for over 15 years. She completed a PhD in plant insect interactions of southern beech tree forests in 2009. Claire then joined the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in the UK as a statistical ecologist. Claire led the statistical analyses on a range of projects involving understanding changes in natural environments in the UK and Europe.

Claire moved to New Zealand in 2013 and has worked at the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) since then. Claire worked on the MPI manuka honey science programme to develop the manuka honey definition. She continues to work on science and research activities involving honey and the apiculture industry. Claire also manages and provides technical advice for MPI’s Operational Research Programme which funds projects in biosecurity, food safety and animal welfare.

 Richard Hall

Dr Richard Hall is a Senior Scientist at the Ministry for Primary Industries, based at the MPI Animal Health Laboratory, Upper Hutt. He has been working on the Bee Pathogen Programme for the last three years (since 2016). Richard specialises in the detection and diagnosis of pathogens affecting humans and animals. He has over 30 publications in international peer-reviewed scientific journals across an array of disciplines, including genetics and infectious disease research. He previously led a research group who sought out ‘cold cases’ of unsolved disease or outbreaks and then used special DNA-sequencing methods to uncover what virus or bacteria might be responsible. He has a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Otago, and is a registered Medical Laboratory Scientist. Richard is passionate about doing science that will benefit New Zealand’s communities and its primary industries – and he is especially enjoying the opportunity to apply his scientific expertise for the betterment of honey bee health in New Zealand.

Ben Shaw

As the Chief Marketing Officer at Comvita since 2015, Ben oversees global marketing, innovation, digital and regulatory affairs functions. Ben is an experience consumer marketing specialist who has worked across a number of large international and domestic brands such at Heineken, Asahi, Tui and Les Mills. Ben lives in Mount Maunganui with his wife and 2 kids and in his spare times enjoys the outdoors whenever possible, trying to get out fishing, surfing or mountain biking whenever he can.

Hon Todd McClay 

Hon Todd McClay is the Member of Parliament for Rotorua.

He was first elected to Parliament in 2008 after winning the Rotorua seat from the Labour Government. Since then he has been re-elected in 2011, 2014 and 2017, where he increased his vote and majority each time.

Mr McClay has held the portfolios of Minister of Trade, of State Owned Enterprises, and of Revenue. He has also been the Associate Minister of Health, of Tourism, of Trade, and of Foreign Affairs.

Mr McClay is currently the Spokesperson for Foreign Affairs and Trade, and Tourism in the National Opposition.

John McLean 

John is an emeritus professor of forest entomology who has worked extensively with beekeepers in the Gisborne-East Coast region since returning to New Zealand in 2009.  Honey bee pheromones and their lipid precursors have been of special interest along with overwintering nutrition of hives.  John also maintains a watch on Giant Willow Aphid populations in his area and the impact of their honeydew on honeys.

He is currently a member of the Apiculture NZ Science and Research Focus Group.

 Ricki Leahy 

I have been beekeeping for about 45 years, and like many, started as a hobbyist, and often learned the hard way through my mistakes. One of the mistakes I didn’t make was to build-up our business slowly and ‘safely’. For some time now I have been operating a successful commercial beekeeping enterprise that now runs about 2500 plus hives in the Buller District of the South Island. We have always reared our own queens selecting breeders out of our best hives. We operate an RMP processing premises and have always tried to do the best for the bees and all that associates with them. There is always so much new stimulating stuff to learn in this ‘beekeeping game’ that always fascinates me and keeps holding my interest.

I am currently in the last year of a three-year term representing the Commercial Beekeeping sector on the ApiNZ Board.

 John Berry

My name is John Berry. I have been a full-time commercial beekeeper for 47 years. I am very experienced when it comes to detecting and eradicating AFB, I am a specialist comb honey producer and like to make all my own beekeeping equipment. I breed all my own queens and over the years there is not much I haven’t done with bees. When not beekeeping I am mostly involved in voluntary conservation work especially with native birds.

 John Rawcliffe 

John Rawcliffe works as part of a team focused on protecting the term ‘manuka honey’ primarily as a certification trademark, with the criteria that the product is manuka (honey from the nectar of leptospermum scoparium) and it’s from New Zealand. This project is for the entire NZ beekeeping industry and is part of the NZ Inc story. John’s role is coordinating a core team of individuals, bringing in additional experts as and when required, that are part of the governance and initial action of the project. The end vision is for the international consumer to see manuka in the same light as Champagne or Scotch Whisky, a badge of origin and quality.

Peter Dearden

Peter Dearden trained as an evolutionary developmental biologist focussing on the evolution of traits in insects. During his career he has worked on many species, but became fascinated by bees and their ability to produce different phenotypes in response to their environment.

Peter is a professor in the Biochemistry Department, University of Otago, and Director of Genomics Aotearoa, a national network that aims to improve the use and value of genomics in New Zealand. Peter also leads the Future Bees breeding programme.

Michelle Taylor

Michelle Taylor is a scientist in the Pollination and Apiculture team at Plant and Food Research, New Zealand. Over the past 20 years she has conducted honey bee research relating to pesticides, pollination, and pests and disease. With the detection of varroa in New Zealand, Michelle played a primary role in researching synthetic, organic, and bee-breeding varroa control programmes. This research formed the basis for the education programme that helped mitigate colony loss and limit disruption to both the beekeeping industry and the numerous bee-reliant horticultural and agricultural industries in NZ.

Michelle’s primary interest is colony health to maximise production and to further this she is currently conducting her PhD on the impact of environmental changes on bacteria within the honey bee gut with the aim of understanding the role of bacteria in bee health.

 Chris Yorke

Chris Yorke studied in Switzerland and UK and graduated in Business Administration, German and French 1st Class Honours at Aston University, UK.

Having worked in international marketing roles in Europe he moved to New Zealand 16 years ago. Two years later he joined New Zealand Winegrowers where he still is the Global Marketing Director.

New Zealand Winegrowers represents all 700 wineries and 850 grape growers in New Zealand and its key roles are advocacy, research, sustainability and marketing.

Chris is responsible for the global marketing of the New Zealand Wine brand. New Zealand exports $1.75 bil of wine to over 80 countries and is the third largest imported wine country by value into the USA, the largest wine market in the world. Around 300 wineries export actively.

 Hon Steve Chadwick JP, Mayor of Rotorua

The Honourable Steve (Stephanie) Chadwick has been Mayor of Rotorua since 2013. Previous to this role Mayor Chadwick was a Member of Parliament in the New Zealand Government (1999-2011).

During her time in central government, Mayor Chadwick held the portfolios of Associate Minister of Health, Minister of Conservation and Minister of Women’s Affairs. Her proudest achievements include sponsoring the Smoke free Environments Act and securing funding ($72 million) for the clean-up of Rotorua lakes.

Since becoming Mayor of Rotorua, Mayor Chadwick has been a strong influence on Rotorua Lakes Council’s new way of doing business through the Rotorua 2030 Vision. Under her leadership Council has  established a meaningful and ground breaking partnership with Te Arawa, significant partnership investment in the inner city and Rotorua becoming New Zealand’s first bi-lingual city with the adoption of the Reorua Rotorua programme.

Marco Gonzalez 

National Operations Manager
American Foulbrood National Pest Management Plan

Marco is an AP1 responsible for managing the National AFB surveillance and inspection function including the supervision of AP2s.
Marco has a strong background of AFB management and biosecurity, working as an Apiary Officer with AsureQuality from 2006 to 2017, and more recently as a Compliance Manager at Midlands Apiaries Ltd.

Sean Goodwin

Sean Goodwin is CEO of 100% Pure New Zealand Honey, a privately-owned company in Timaru, that has processed and exported quality NZ honey since 1996. Prior to joining 100% Pure New Zealand Honey, Sean held senior commercial roles within the food industry, most recently as Managing Director of Bluebird Foods and previously as General Manager Sales with Cadbury.

In addition to working with local independent beekeepers and global customers, Sean is also Deputy Chair of Apiculture NZ and Chair of GS1 New Zealand. He brings a strong commercial background in sales and marketing, as well as specific industry knowledge, and he is well placed to comment on the issues and opportunities facing the apiculture sector.