Editors of the NZ Beekeeper Magazine
The New Zealand Beekeeper magazine has a long and illustrious history.
The current “New Zealand Beekeeper” magazine has a straight-line history going back to January 1939. A Taranaki-based beekeeper and member of the National Beekeeper Association (NBA) executive, Gilbert Kirker, began an NBA publication, calling it the “New Zealand Beekeeper” magazine. It was published quarterly, and with a varying number of pages. Contents were sometimes heavily editorial as Gilbert Kirker had some strong feelings relating to the need for organised marketing of honey.
Prior to this, besides a short publishing history in the 1914-1921 period, there was no official NBA magazine until the last year of the 1930s. Beekeeping was part of the New Zealand Fruitgrower and Apiarist magazine through the 1920s. Both Percy Hillary and W.B. “Billy” Bray published beekeeping magazines in the 1930s. It was in Bray’s The New Zealand Honey Producer that the phrase ‘Better Beekeeping, Better Marketing” was first used.
The 1930s were a pretty hard time on beekeeping in New Zealand, with two major marketing bodies failing quite dramatically. There were major changes coming for the industry, with government involvement in the marketing of honey being a hotly debated topic.
Kirker resigned as NBA general secretary and magazine editor, expecting to be called up to active military service in early 1943. Sadly, he died shortly after turning over his NBA roles in December 1942.
The roles of General Secretary and Editor were split at this time, and did not come together again until the early 1990s. The new editor was a commercial honey producer, W.J. “Wilf” Lennon, from Omakau, Central Otago. He served about six years as Editor. Lennon was also an active vice president of the NBA. during a number of years when he was also Editor. Lennon was a forthright character and produced some interesting issues of the magazine.
In late 1948, Lennon was replaced as editor by John McFadzien, yet another commercial beekeeper, from Outram, Otago. McFadzien, like his predecessor, was active on the . NBA Executive. He was the longest serving editor in the magazine’s history dedicating 15 years to the publication.
In August 1963 Leslie Goss, a full time publisher and part-time beekeeper from Christchurch, took up the editorial position. The change to this hobbyist editor who was not directly involved in industry affairs made quite a change to the magazine over time. But again, the magazine had a period of editorial and production stability, with Goss editing for nine years.
Throughout this period, the magazine covered: NBA industry matters, marketing information, hobbyist pages, branch activities, Department of Agriculture reports, research articles as well as precis of NBA Executive meetings and the annual conferences.
In November 1972 Norman Stanton came into the role with no beekeeping experience, but with a substantial history in editing. Stanton edited the magazine for only three years. While he increased the number of articles directed at novice beekeeping, he faced some criticism for his willingness to publish contentious letters to the editor.
For the 1938 to 1975 period, the magazine varied in page numbers, but remained small format (A5). Paper quality was generally poor, and photographic reproductions were low quality at best.
From the first issue until the late 1950s, the cover was a simple line drawing of a bee below the masthead of the magazine. The phrase “Better Beekeeping, Better Marketing” appeared on every cover for nearly 20 years. Inside the front cover was a listing of the NBA branches and their President and Secretary.
For many years, the Honey Marketing Authority annual report would be included as an insert, reflecting the close relationship and cross-over of personnel with the N.B.A. and the HMA.
Late 1975 saw some dramatic changes in the magazine, with the new editor Trevor Walton. Walton was an editor “on the way up” in the business of agricultural journalism and magazine production. The NBA. did very well to have him editing the magazine for the next eight years.
Walton introduced the current format magazine, and began to utilise more modern publishing techniques, improving layout and photographic quality images. While not a beekeeper himself, Walton hired writers who were able to source good agricultural and apicultural articles. But by the end of 1983, Walton and his agricultural publishing enterprise had outgrown the beekeeping industry, and he moved on.
The new editor, Michael Burgess again brought publishing experience and advertising and magazine management experience, but did not have the journalistic capabilities of Walton. Burgess alienated contributors with continuing errors in production, to the point that many would refuse to write for the magazine. Blatant sexism and patronising attitudes were rampant and remarked upon, even in those times nearly 40 years ago!
The 1993 NBA Executive elections were followed soon afterward by an announcement from the Pork Industry Board that it would not be continuing to provide administrative (and Executive Secretary) roles for the N.B.A. The Pork Industry Board had brought professionalism and stability to the supply of services for many years.
The new president Frances Trewby, ultimately led the new Executive through a year that ended with:
- combining all the service roles (administration, Executive Secretary and Editor)
- changing the magazine from quarterly to monthly
- eliminating the Buzzwords newsletter
The new executive secretary/editor, Ron Rowe, held this role for not quite two years, and did not seem to particularly enjoy the role of Editor. Issues during this time had a number of ‘filler articles’ of inspiring sayings, rather than information that beekeepers could find useful.
Rowe ultimately turned over the editor role to Harry Brown who remained editor until the end of 1999, a particularly turbulent time in the NBA’s history.
There were multiple instances when Brown, as editor, would be obliged to correct a correction, or apologise for a faulty apology. The lack of journalistic experience, combined with efforts by some to ‘weaponise’ the magazine ultimately led to changes, of sorts, but the magazine by then had been through a long time of ineffectiveness for too many purposes.
I’ll have to conclude by describing how my own interests in the magazine’s history ended about this time, but that would need to be another article. Better, if you’ll buy me a whiskey, I’ll be happy to talk about industry politics and attempts at controlled and/or regulated marketing of honey through the last century!