Honey Wars starts
Eight-part TV series Honey Wars, filmed and directed by Kerikeri wildlife cameraman Adam Jones, will start screening at 8pm on Prime TV on Sunday. The show follows the Murray whānau, of Kaitaia, as they build up a business based on mānuka honey. Jones said he met the Murrays, a "hard-case, hard-working whānau of beekeepers", shortly after he moved to Northland four years ago. Their Tai Tokerau Honey was a Māori business success story, with no outside corporate investment to sour relations. "As soon as I walked in the door of their honey plant I knew there was a story waiting to be told. It had all the right elements for television, including the husband and wife team in Rob and Lonnie Murray," Jones said. "As mānuka honey has become big business there is also hive theft, as well as competition from beekeepers and bees alike, hence the name Honey Wars."
50 drugs charges
A Northland mother facing 50 drugs charges involving methamphetamine and ecstasy has been released from jail on electronic bail. Fiona Nivika McFarland, 28, of Onerahi, appeared via a video link in the Whangārei District Court on Thursday before Judge Duncan Harvey. The string of charges cover a period between November 2018 to June 2019. The charges include 18 charges of offering meth, eight charges of supplying meth, seven charges of manufacturing meth, seven charges of offering GBL - also known as fantasy or liquid ecstasy - and one of supplying GBL, three charges of supplying ephedrine, two charges of conspiring to manufacture meth, one charge of possessing a precursor, one charge of producing ephedrine and two charges of unlawful possession of a firearm. The charges are a result of police searching two rural properties in Wheki Valley, between Maungatapere and Tangiteroria, in May this year. McFarland is scheduled to appear again in court on July 31.
New walking track