There were more than 70,000 votes cast in this year's Panasonic People's Choice Award—the very last gong in the New Zealand Geographic Photographer of the Year season. The votes were spread across some 66 finalists, but the favourite image, as judged by 5271 of you, was Takashi Tsuneizumi's vision of Stirling Falls. Runners-up: Murray Mulloch's bumblebee and Chris Helliwell's kingfisher. See all the winners.


	Winners of the Panasonic People's Choice Award There were more than 70,000 votes cast in this year's Panasonic People's Choice Award—the very last gong in the New Zealand Geographic Photographer of the Year season. The votes were spread across some 66 finalists, but the favourite image, as judged by 5271 of you, was Takashi Tsuneizumi's vision of Stirling Falls. Runners-up: Murray Mulloch's bumblebee and Chris Helliwell's kingfisher. See all the winners.


	In search of a better bee Bumblebees offer new hope for New Zealand’s primary industries: they're unaffected by the varroa mite, tolerant of cold, and able to pollinate in enclosed spaces. If only we knew how to build a nest they wanted to live in…

Sniffer bees

Scientists at Plant & Food Research have trained honey bees to detect the scent of tuberculosis.

Good to bee back

Our colonisers sent us bumblebees. Now, thanks to the extinction of the short-haired bumblebee in Britain, they want them back again.


	The plight of humble bee In April 2000, New Zealand honeybees received a death threat in the form of the varroa mite, an insect parasite which, if left uncontrolled, is capable of destroying hives and wiping out bees from entire regions.