Meet A Beekeeper

Meet Terry Bone, one of PRI’s beekeepers! Terry has been keeping bees for so long, his friends refer to him as “Honeyman”.

Terry is a competitive ocean swimmer, winning gold in his age group nationally (and silver the year before – his first full year of national competition). Terry also has Crohn’s disease, this and intensive swim training are hard on his body.

He is really interested in food and natural health so Terry landscaped the backyard of their cottage building terraced vegetable gardens, planting fruit trees he could in the small space and sourcing reclaimed landscaping items.

He is currently developing a section of regenerating native trees at Lake Rotoiti. He is planting additional natives on the land and will build a simple two-bedroom cabin there. The plan is to have the shell built and to complete a lot of the internal design and fitout using recycled and handmade materials. 

Swimming and bees take most of his time, but he unwinds in the kitchen. Terry loves preparing food from scratch. He also built his own outdoor pizza oven. People who come to their house will receive a meal whether they want one or not and will probably leave with a jar of something homemade. 

Terry truly believes in supporting the holistic guardianship of the bees. The underlying ethos is that humans and bees are now interdependent for survival. This is a complex issue but we believe it is vital that we pay and empower those who raise and care for bees. Read more about what it means to be a Sustainable Beekeeper in our recent blog post. 🐝