11 Jul 2015

Niue bee bank

From This Way Up, 1:55 pm on 11 July 2015

Niue beekeeper Andy Cory crop

Andy Cory is a veteran beekeeper who has 1,000 hives on the Pacific island of Niue, where he's been beekeeping for nearly 20 years.

Niue's fairly remote and so far no varroa mite has been found there.

So Mr Cory is trying to establish a global bee sanctuary on the island to act as a "bee bank" for the rest of the world, so if other bee populations decline or die out they can be re-populated with healthy bees.