I remember talking to a beekeeper who kept such bees and he had 2nd 3rd and 4th generation NZ carnie cross queens which were as good as the first but probably had his own gene pool.
The first honey bees were brought to New Zealand by English missionaries. The earliest record of a successful shipment was of two basket hives of bees which arrived in Northland in 1839. Many other importations soon followed and beekeeping became a popular pastime with settlers. The first New Zealand beekeeping book was published in 1848.
The original stocks of bees brought to the country were the Northern European black strain. They were kept in traditional straw skeps or wooden boxes with frames. Around 1880, the first stocks of the yellow Italian strain were imported. They, along with movable frame "Langstroth" hives, provided the foundation for modern commercial beekeeping development.
