IBRA NEWS

Director

From January 1991 the new Director of IBRA is Andrew Matheson, previously an Apicultural Consultant with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries in New Zealand. He brings to IBRA experience and skills in areas directly related to the Association's work, especially in business management, staff development, all aspects of beekeeping, providing consultancy services in both tropical and temperate countries and technical writing and editing. Andrew Matheson started beekeeping while a student at the University of Waikato, where he completed BSc and MSc degrees in biological sciences. In 1978 he began a career with the New Zealand Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (MAF) as an apicultural adviser or consultant, and has worked at Hamilton, Nelson and Tauranga, in a wide range of activities. Andrew Matheson was responsible for managing all MAF's beekeeping services, consultancy and statutory, in a district containing 60,000 hives. His work included a role in management of MAF’s beekeeping unit, providing commercial consultancy services to the beekeeping and horticultural industries, helping to formulate government policy relating to the industry, training MAF staff, and strategic planning with beekeeping industry organisations. World beekeeping has been a particular interest for Andrew. Overseas consultancies have taken him to Asia, the Pacific and the + Caribbean, and he has studied beekeeping and attended conferences in Africa, Europe, Australia and North America. He has long been a regular contributor to beekeeping journals with over 140 publications to date. He is known for his comprehensive manual Practical beekeeping in New Zealand, and his joint authorship of the Bibliography of New Zealand apiculture 1842-1986. Andrew Matheson has been a member of IBRA since 1984, and a regional representative for all of that time. During his tenure as Director he plans to strengthen the Association's financial base in order to improve its functions, including journals, library, publications and advisory services. He also intends to develop further IBRA’s activities in beekeeping development, consultancies, organising conferences and symposia, and in many ways position IBRA as ’ the world’s premier beekeeping information centre.