Bee Line

One of my earliest meetings with an Eastern Highland's National was with Ian Mopafli who was an apiarist who had studied honey production in New Zealand.  He spent time in my home country, under an aid scheme, and returned to the Eastern Highlands to establish a viable honey industry.

I visited his home village and saw at first hand how hives were dispersed. My interested in this form of agriculture had been pricked a few years previously when I had an idea to quit teaching and become and apiarist. I even went as far as joining a Rotorua bee keeping club but nothing more came of it.

Prior to leaving for PNG I paid a deposit on a large section of bush covered land near Kennedys Bay, on the Coromandel Peninsula. It was subdivided by Jim Rabarts at Tuateawa and was part of my self sufficiency master-plan; painting and bee-keeping. In hindsight totally impractical but such is the fervour of youth!

Once in Goroka I decided not pursue the Coromandel purchase but did discover where most of the rich Papua New Guinea honey ended up - in Rothmans cigarettes.

Rothmans had a large tobacco factory outside Goroka as they grew their tobacco in its rich soils.  The EHP honey was one of the several additives that were used.

The other thing I remember was that there was also a thin cigarette produced for local consumption which used recycled paper sheets from old texts as its outer sheath.  It was not uncommon to come across one that had a copy of the Psalms printed on the outside, such was the proliferation of bibles and religious texts in the Highlands.

Related articles

• Big interest in beekeeping in Goroka
• The success story of Goroka’s very own wine, jam and honey