Usually the stories I write about New Zealand beekeeping focus on a particular event(s), or some especially interesting beekeeper, or an aspect of industry management. This one is different – I’m mostly writing it because of the proximity to me…
I’ve lived down Watling Street, in Gate Pa, Tauranga, for nearly 40 years now. After moving I learned that Don Barrow and his brother Charlie had a honey house down near the dead end of the street. By that time, it had been somewhat abandoned and vandalised, but you could for sure see what it might have been like. At the end of the dead end street, it was surrounded by reserves and waste land, and it might just as well have been out in the country.
When I was learning about Ray Godddard (who was the Tauranga Apiary Instructor in the early 1950’s), I came across articles he had written about a motorised barrow and a hive lifter, both built by a Tauranga beekeeper named Graham Corlett.
That post-war and early 1950’s period saw a lot of growth in beekeeping in the Bay of Plenty. Roy Patterson, another Dept of Agric instructor, had made the connection between the tutu plant (and its honeydew) to the poisonings from honey that had happened over the years. The Bay of Plenty had plenty of tutu, and only after understanding what areas and times of the year to avoid did commercial beekeeping start to take off. But on the other hand, this was the time when the German wasp was spreading from the Waikato where it had first been found, creating ongoing problems for beekeepers.
Graham Corbett started beekeeping quite young. He won an “under 15” award for his honey in 1940 (he would have been about 13 at the time).
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19400215.2.41
When I came to Tauranga in 1983, many of that set of beekeepers were either still around, or not all that long gone. Ron Mossop, Ron Parks, Don and Charlie Barrow, Ken Harrison, Howard Lowe. But I don’t think I ever heard the name Graham Corlett.
So when I started looking to see what sort of beekeeper he was, I found out he lived at 31 Rimu Street. That is about a 5 minute walk from where I live, in the house next to the park.
Corlett first appears in the beekeeping archive when he and some others were concerned that the payment for dark, but still mild-flavoured honey was not high enough. He and several others (including Howard Lowe) were hoping to start their own NBA branch in the BOP.
https://archive.org/details/1949_nba_exec_minutes/page/64
Graham Corlett spoke at a number of beekeeping meetings and field days in the early 1950’s. He was well-respected as an innovative beekeeper.
https://archive.org/details/1955_05_nzbkpr/page/18/mode/1up?q=corlett
https://archive.org/details/1961_02_nzbkpr/page/18/mode/1up?q=corlett
Several years later, Corlett and the Tauranga beekeepers were still wanting to split from the South Auckland branch of the NBA due to the travel involved. The NBA Executive approved it, creating what was called the Taneatua branch of the NBA. Graham Corlett was elected as Chairman of the new branch.
https://archive.org/details/1955_nba_exec_minutes/page/195
https://archive.org/details/1956_02_nzbkpr/page/22
It was about that same time in 1955 that Graham Corlett put his business up for sale, and I made the connection between Corlett and that old honey house that I assumed had been built later by the Barrow brothers.
https://archive.org/details/1955_08_nzbkpr/page/n45
The description of the “new honey house”, built on two 1/5 acre sections, and Corletts living literally a 5 minute walk away from it… I realised that it may not have been the Barrow brothers who built the original honey house, but Graham Corlett…
Aerial imagery shows the building, the last one down Watling Street on the left (just before the Gate Pa Historical Reserve starts), as being built between 1947 and 1953.
Don and Charlie Barrow bought the honey house from Graham Corlett, getting a title on 26 April 1956. Don continued to live in Te Puke for about four years, before moving to Tauranga on Baycroft Avenue. I’m not sure that Charlie ever moved from Te Puke, but the brothers continued to use the honey house until 1977 when they retired. They sold hives and the honey house to Robert Hale, living at nearby Church Street. By 1987 the honey house seemed to have been abandoned. In the early 1990’s it was torn down and two town houses put in its place.
So why my interest in that honey house? Well, proximity is a lot of it. But also, I speculate that the last legally imported queen from overseas may well have been housed there!
Don Barrow was the last person to get a legal permit to import a queen from overseas, an Italian queen from New South Wales. The package arrived on 13 December 1956. At that time both Don and Charlie Barrow were still living in Te Puke. So the brothers got their new honey house in April 1956, and in December 1956 the new queen was delivered. It may very well have been that the Barrows hived the queen in a colony by their Gate Pa honey house, handy to graft larvae and raise new queens! Literally a rock’s throw from where I’ve lived for nearly 40 years…
Don Barrow’s introduction paperwork
In one last bit of speculation, I had to wonder if a 1996 story from Ron Mossop might have been describing Graham Corlett. The idea of concrete floors (and lids!) would not sit well with the narrative of someone interested in mechanical lifters, but it does refer to the Barrow brothers buying out this unnamed beekeeper’s hives. Who knows?
https://archive.org/details/1998_07_nzbkpr/page/16
Sadly, Graham Corlett died young, at the age of 44.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/20919825/lancelot-graham-corlett