Novel tale of NZ’s first beekeeper

Miss Bumby’s Mission 
by J M Laird

A steep learning curve for Mary Bumby, beekeeper and missionary wife.
    It is 1838 and, in Birmingham, 27-year-old Mary Bumby is both beekeeper and housekeeper to her Wesleyan (Methodist) minister brother, John Bumby. When John announces his intention to apply to do missionary work in New Zealand, Mary volunteers to go with him. She will take two hives of honeybees. 
    John’s religious conviction allows him to disregard any suggestions of the dangers and hardships that they may face: “the Lord’s work is his life”. He has heard that New Zealand is a land “beset with whalers, sealers and merchantmen” and it is his duty to go there and introduce the ‘natives’ to the Lord.
    Mary shares her brother’s faith but she wonders about the voyage, rumours of cannibalism, exaggerated surely, and where will they get their tea? Will it come directly from China? Or from India where tea is just beginning to be cultivated. What flowers will the bees find in New Zealand, and will there be badgers there to overturn and rob the hives? So many questions and worries and no-one to answer and reassure her. It’s less than 70 years since James Cook returned from his first voyage to the Pacific. The European population of New Zealand is around 1,000 and the country is not yet an official colony.
    And so Mary Bumby and her bees, safely sealed in their skep hives (a sort of upturned woven basket) are plunged into an almost unknown world. The miseries of the voyage give way to settling at the Wesleyan Mangungu mission station, near Horeke on the upper reaches of the Hokianga Harbour.
    In Miss Bumby’s Mission, Laird tells the story of the following years in Mary’s own words, based on Mary’s letters and diaries. A deceptively simple voice describes everyday life among the missionaries as well as some truly momentous events such as the second major signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in front of the mission house with 70 rangatira and Governor Hobson surrounded by a crowd of around 3,000. The Bumbys entertain Colonel William Wakefield and his nephew Jerningham on their first voyage to seek a site for a new colony. John and Mary both learn te reo Māori and John thrives in his missionary work. They are surprised to learn that the place they thought of as ‘Man-gun-gu’ is actually pronounced ‘Mah-nu-nu’. Mary delights in the local flora and the bees thrive: she is remembered as New Zealand’s first beekeeper and her honey is appreciated by the entire community while her beeswax candles burn pleasantly in church.
    Laird has struck just the right balance here of missionary zeal, everyday pioneer life, historic events and of course the techniques of bee keeping. Friction among the missionaries adds a threat of danger while tragedy and a surprise romance round out Mary Bumby’s story.
    Regardless of what our thoughts on the role of missionaries may be, Miss Bumby’s Mission is an informative and thought provoking read, set in a very isolated part of the Far North during a key period in our country’s history. I was interested to learn that the Mangungu Mission House still stands under the protection of Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga.

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Review by Carolyn McKenzie

Title: Miss Bumby’s Mission 
Author: J M Laird
Publisher: Northern Bee Books
ISBN: 978-1-914934-91-9
RRP: $35.00
Available: bookshops
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