Unpolluted NZ a key as new Bee+ manuka honey - UMF 30 - launches.
Producers of a manuka honey soon to be launched in New Zealand have a unique procedure for making sure the honey makes it to shop shelves - GPS satellite systems attached to each of its 20,000 bee hives.
Designed to ensure the honey used in their manufacturing process is pure and nutritional, the tracking system can also act as a deterrent to bee thieves.
The new product - UMF 30+ - is being launched by Bee+ and will be available by Christmas. This kind of extremely-rare honey is made from nectar collected from 50,000 acres of manuka forest near Lake Taupo and each hive - which contain 50,000 bees - is tracked by GPS.
Michael Kerr, a spokesperson for Bee+, says the pristine land is far away from the hustle and bustle of megacities and the company utilises helicopters for hive transportation to ensure the pure and natural quality of honey - and trace the source of products in the whole process.
“With GPS on each hive, we can trace them to make sure every drop of Bee+ manuka honey is pure and natural in the gathering.”
Kerr says only the best manuka forest and the most professional beekeepers can produce high quality honey - a key in the face of falling bee populations (known as Colony Collapse Disorder).
He says manuka honey is an iconic Kiwi product - and is also one of the rarest. “New Zealand is one of the last unpolluted lands available for high-quality honey and manuka honey comes from forests that only grow in Aotearoa.”
This and other honey products produced under the Bee+ brand come from remote pockets of bush chosen for their pure and untouched locations. They are often so isolated the hives can only be reached by helicopter.
He says UMF gradings are made independently by the UMF Honey Association and are usually between a rating of five and 25. “UMF 30-plus honey is extremely rare world-wide and only adds to the uniqueness of this new product which, we believe, contains the highest purity of manuka honey in the world.”
He says this uniqueness is also due to an exclusive eight-step scientific beekeeping training system used by the company.
All of which is why the company is anxious to safeguard the hives with GPS tracking. Globally, GPS is increasingly being used by beekeepers to counter bee hive heists which are becoming a major problem for the industry.
According to a 2020 report in The Guardian, most beekeepers have had hives stolen - this at a time when when colonies are more fragile (bee losses due to disease in winter in the US alone is estimated at 30 per cent) and demand for bees to pollinate large commercial crops has heightened.
A beekeeper in Oregon, for example, had 92 hives stolen, another in Montana was robbed of 488 while in Quebec, Canada, one of the country’s largest beekeeping families had over five million bees stolen from their premises in one night.
Some in the industry suspect an international crime network is targeting commercial apiaries. In a 2021 report in the US-based NPR media platform, the president of the French national beekeeping union, Frank Aletru, said hives are being taken by the dozens all at once - presumably to be sold to beekeepers abroad - and, he believes, is not the work of amateurs.
Kerr says New Zealand’s unique climate and mineral-rich soil creates a high density of natural manuka forests where the company has its hives (up to one million trees). This means the bees focus on collecting nectar from the trees rather than from other plants.
“This ensures the highest purity of honey,” he says. “The best collection period is when the manuka flowers in a two to six week period in November and December. It is during these rare periods when the flower bud contains the most concentrated nectar.”
Kerr says The Bee+ training centre offers a world class beekeeper eight-step training programme which includes bee selection, hive production, site layout, honey harvesting, extraction, honey storage and testing and honey mixing and packaging.
“All these unique conditions create the rare Bee+ manuka honey,” he says.
Kerr says a single bee weighs .00025 pounds with 4000 bees together weighing only one pound. A single bee can produce one tablespoon of honey in its lifetime, they can fly up to 12 mph and on every foraging trip, a bee will visit 50-100 flowers to collect nectar. Every drop of manuka honey is the natures treasure.
For more information go to: beeplus.co.nz/en