The Manuka Honey Story

To get you the purest Manuka Honey we go to extraordinary lengths. Here’s what happened last season…

For winter the beehives are kept near our base in the Bay of Plenty. This means the weather is mild and we can check on them without getting stuck on muddy tracks.

In spring we started new beehives for our clients. In this photo we’re checking on a hive after a couple of weeks. They’re doing well and there is a nice hum of activity.

At the start of summer we load up the beehives early in the morning for the trip to the first Manuka forest.

The trip is along 300 kilometres of gorgeous coastal scenery.

Views across the Bay of Plenty.

A bay we pass on the trip east.

As we get near to our private apiary we have to ford this stream.

After we drove up our secret track we unloaded the beehives. They’re surrounded by Manuka forest at the point near the most Eastern coast in the world. The beehives stayed here for six weeks in December and January collecting the early Manuka flow.

After their time at the first Manuka Honey site, we moved the bees far across the country to an inland site where the Manuka trees flower at the end of summer.

We loaded the hives onto the trailer after dusk so that the bees were all back in their homes. As you can see all the hives have an extra box (or ‘super’ as beekeepers call them) on, this is for the honey the bees have been gathering. Then we drove through the night across the country.

The Forgotten Highway is an old route through the highlands. It’s sparsely populated and seldom travelled. It’s the perfect place to find untouched Manuka Forest.

This tunnel is 160 metres long and just carved out of the bare dirt.

The treacherous route we take to get into the wild.

The track narrows and we have to put the hives onto little trailers behind the quad bikes.

This narrow swing bridge is the only way into our track.

After traveling down the dirt track we arrive at what we think is one of the most remote apiaries in the world. There is valley after valley of Manuka trees.

After the bees had spent a couple of months working, we came back to collect the honey. We camped by the swing bridge the night before, so we could get an early start.

Darcy taking a full frame of honey out of a beehive.

More honey from another hive. We carefully mark each box and keep the honey separate, so we can produce the world’s only unblended Manuka Honey.

That’s the story of how we gather Your Pure Honey. Order a jar or sign up for your very own beehive…