Food banks throughout the district will soon be substantially sweeter thanks to the busy bees of the central plateau.
Beehives on council’s commercial lands around Taupō township and Taupō Airport have produced a bumper harvest, and under council’s agreement with the hive operators a percentage of that has been gifted to council and will be distributed to local food banks. The scheme has been in operation for five years now and commercial manager Flash Sandham said it’s fantastic to see the honey going to a good home.
“We were originally approached by the Westervelt Honey company about having hives located on our commercial land,” Mr Sandham said, “and in return, have been gifted a proportion of the hives’ output, which we have always passed on to the food banks. The hives are now operated by Oha Owhaoko Honey Ltd Partnership and council is happy it can continue to share the honey we receive with the community.”
“This year we have about 800 jars of honey to distribute, and we’ll be sharing it between Taupō, Turangi and Mangakino foodbanks in the coming weeks.”