After over 20 years of harvesting honey on the coast of South Wairarapa, New Zealand we still feel excited and privileged each day to have access to such a beautiful landscape.
We get to see and experience this area at all times of the day and night, and still stop in awe to appreciate the magical sunsets and sunrises. Even in the middle of the night, the starlit skies feel like a canopy of lights that command our attention.
Farms in this part of the world rely on a multitude of incomes as the remoteness and steep hills do not allow modern high-input farming practices. As a result, we have the priviledge to harvest from pesticide-free land that is as untouched now as it was 100 years ago.
Honey is harvested from the remote edge of the southernmost tip of New Zealand’s North Island.
What has changed however is the method we track our hive health and status. We use leading edge software to capture hive location details plus all data related to what has or is about to happen in every location. This provides us with an exceptional clarity of hive health and ultimately confidence that are managing the honey quality from every location.
ORGANIC HIVE MANAGEMENT…
Varroa is the number one threat to bee health, and managing this threat using organic principles has become a key factor in sustainably managing hives now and into the future.
The German-designed Nassenheider system, one of the most widely used formic evaporator systems in Europe, is also the perfect system for cost-effectively controlling varroa mites in New Zealand’s climate.
Hunter Reilly stumbled upon this device years ago, but it wasn’t until the use of synthetic Varroa treatments began failing that we adopted organic principles to control varroa.
Our IPM (Integrated Pest Management) system includes a combination of Oxalic and formic acid treatments combined with queen caging to control varroa effectively.
Our partners on the land we harvest from.
Kawakawa Station
Kawakawa is a 2,000 acre sheep and cattle station, and now you can experience the privacy, exclusiveness and romance this location offers on a relaxing holiday.
Washpool Homestays
Palliser Bay is rich in Māori and early European history. The remains of the earliest house site in New Zealand can be visited at nearby Omoekau Valley.
Ata Rangi Vineyard
Making wine is all about working in sync with the changing seasons and conditions on the land. Ata Rangi is a small, family-owned organic winery.
Akatarawa Valley
The Good Carbon Farm is driven by a desire for less talk and more walk around climate action. Joany and Allan are inspirational land warriors.
Featherston & Upper Akatarawa Valley
We are privileged to have access to his QEII-protected land. Nigel from Mohua Trust and Matt and Deb Welton are dedicated to native bird and land conservation.
Mangatoetoe Valley
The Waiker family are dedicated to the chemical-free restoration of their land where we keep bees. They design, manufacture and market their own products.
The Drunken Nanny
The Drunken Nanny produce boutique goat cheese on the land that we create beautiful honey from, and it just happens the two taste great together.