Pasture/clover honey prices

[Sailabee 1,102]

2 hours ago, A J Boot said:

You need to define blending. Do you mean blending of multiple sources of Manuka Honey to achieve MPI Science Definition or do you refer to the old blending of adulterating Manuka with Bush/Clover because the rules or lack of allowed this practice and it increased profit while deceiving the consumer? - These are very different practices

Very puzzled, are you not the same identity as set up Puriti, as you only have only two posts?

[Boot 388]

29 minutes ago, Sailabee said:

Very puzzled, are you not the same identity as set up Puriti, as you only have only two posts?

Not confusing from my part. Yes it is me, Adam. One of my computers died and along withit my login and passwords for this site. I simply re registered. No big deal really. Carelessness on my part.

[Trevor Gillbanks 6,846]

3 minutes ago, A J Boot said:

Not confusing from my part. Yes it is me, Adam. One of my computers died and along withit my login and passwords for this site. I simply re registered. No big deal really. Carelessness on my part.

You could ask @Grant to amalgamate  your 2 registrations.  Grant does get a tad upset when people have 2 registrations

 

[Bighands 1,065]

13 minutes ago, Trevor Gillbanks said:

You could ask @Grant to amalgamate  your 2 registrations.  Grant does get a tad upset when people have 2 registrations

 

As I found out.

[Trevor Gillbanks 6,846]

1 minute ago, Bighands said:

As I found out.

Yes,  But it was all fixed.

[Boot 388]

That would be nice if Grant wants to do that. I had no option as there were no phone numbers to contact anyone 

[Grant 4,298]

1 hour ago, Adam Boot said:

That would be nice if Grant wants to do that. I had no option as there were no phone numbers to contact anyone 

I've merged the 2 accounts as it flags my end. Your login will be your old username, if you have forgotten your password there is a routine to reset it.

[frazzledfozzle 7,483]

2 hours ago, CraBee said:

In the North beekeepers have claimed for years to have manuka honey when there was probably some manuka in it and a whole lot of kanuka.  If there is not enough 2-MAP but it is otherwise strong on the MPI markers, then chances are it is more kanuka.  They can bleat on about 2-MAP being the problem but the problem is the type of honey they are collecting.  The real problem beekeepers with actual manuka have is keeping the C4 level below 7 for the more active honey.

 

With the amount of activity in the honey I very much doubt it was mainly kanuka .

Our very good kanuka honey  has very little NPA activity 

[Boot 388]

Hi @Grant

That was a nightmare. I have had to sign up again. Password and email did not work 

Edited March 10, 2020 by Trevor Gillbanks

[Alastair 8,627]

And this is the man who sells high end honey all over the planet. 

[Dennis Crowley 1,351]

1 hour ago, frazzledfozzle said:

 

With the amount of activity in the honey I very much doubt it was mainly kanuka .

Our very good kanuka honey  has very little NPA activity 

The thing is that there is very high activity manuka up north mixed in with a lot of kanuka, so you can still get a good reading but not be a lot of manuka in the sample.

As science grows and where it is heading as testing gets even better you will be able to actually tell the percentage of different types of honey in each sample.

[Boot 388]

25 minutes ago, Alastair said:

And this is the man who sells high end honey all over the planet. 

You must have the wrong Adam - I am the one who tries to sell high end honey all over the planet but relies heavily on every young person in the office and at home to guide me through anything even marginally IT related.  

[Alastair 8,627]

LOL, just stirring the pot Adam. 

 

I have always admired the work you do, wish i had your skills. 

Edited March 10, 2020 by Alastair

[Boot 388]

6 minutes ago, Alastair said:

LOL, just stirring the pot Adam. 

 

I have always admired the work you do. 

Cheers Alistair - Definitely an interesting time out there in the big wide world of honey at the moment. 

[Maggie James 906]

26 minutes ago, Boot said:

You must have the wrong Adam - I am the one who tries to sell high end honey all over the planet but relies heavily on every young person in the office and at home to guide me through anything even marginally IT related.  

Sounds like a beekeeper

[Boot 388]

9 minutes ago, Maggie James said:

Sounds like a beekeeper

I take it you can relate?

[frazzledfozzle 7,483]

1 hour ago, Dennis Crowley said:

The thing is that there is very high activity manuka up north mixed in with a lot of kanuka, so you can still get a good reading but not be a lot of manuka in the sample.

As science grows and where it is heading as testing gets even better you will be able to actually tell the percentage of different types of honey in each sample.

I guess my answer to that Dennis is that I don’t believe the MPI standard has anything much to do with how much Manuka is in the honey. 
It was a standard based on what ? 

So when someone tells me that the high activity is due to a small percentage of Manuka mixed in with a lot of Kanuka I just roll my eyes.

We all know consumers buy for the activity If it was me Id be blending the heck out of that high activity honey.

Buy up a heap of South Island high 2MAP low activity and bobs your uncle 

 

 

49 minutes ago, Boot said:

Cheers Alistair - Definitely an interesting time out there in the big wide world of honey at the moment. 

anything you can share here ?

 

Edited March 10, 2020 by frazzledfozzle

[Maggie James 906]

14 minutes ago, frazzledfozzle said:

Buy up a heap of South Island high 2MAP low activity and bobs your uncle 

Ironically the SI manuka will prob have a higher manuka pollen count than the Nth Is high 2MAP.

 

The Sth Is has less floral sources, therefore our manuka pollen counts are often very high.

 

I know of a number of beekeepers who sell on pollen count and they are doing very well.  Although the large amounts of manuka they sell at various outlets, due to Covid, will decrease.  

 

However, punters have taken a major liking to kanuka; particularly the retail price.  

Edited March 10, 2020 by Maggie James

[Maru Hoani 649]

Anyone know where Kanuka prices are sitting?

Edited March 10, 2020 by Maru Hoani

[CraBee 1,748]

1 hour ago, frazzledfozzle said:

I guess my answer to that Dennis is that I don’t believe the MPI standard has anything much to do with how much Manuka is in the honey. 
It was a standard based on what ? 

So when someone tells me that the high activity is due to a small percentage of Manuka mixed in with a lot of Kanuka I just roll my eyes.

We all know consumers buy for the activity If it was me Id be blending the heck out of that high activity honey.

Buy up a heap of South Island high 2MAP low activity and bobs your uncle 

 

 

anything you can share here ?

 

 

But I didn't say high activity though.  What I said is that many Northern manuka producers were producing manuka/kanuka, and that the low 2-MAP is evidence of that.

 

The development of the standard involved taking hundreds of manuka samples from through-out NZ and analysing their chemical components, then arriving at the chemical components that were representative of manuka.

 

Re blending.  Lets say I have honey that is low on 2-MAP.   I buy an equal amount of manuka with a good 2-MAP.  I blend them and that makes a mono-floral.  But, if I've blended an NPA18 with an NPA4, then I've lost value as it is now an NPA11...but disproportionately higher prices are paid for the high NPA value honey....so blending in that scenario is not so smart....

[BSB 614]

In volume? Pretty low id imagine as there doesn't seem to be a recognised market for it other than lumped in as 'Bush honey'. 

[john berry 5,636]

MPI's manuka standards are complete and utter rubbish. I had some very good manuka last year with a high UMF and it was graded as non-manuka yet mix enough clover with it and it becomes multi floral manuka. Either clover is magical or MPI don't know what the talking about..Interestingly this honey came from plantation manuka with the plants sourced from Northland and they look completely different  from our local plants.

I know I have said it before but it bears repeating. I have seen some very good lines of manuka fail and I have seen even more lines that I wouldn't dream of calling manuka pass with flying colours. Still I only have 50 years experience with manuka so what would I know.

New Zealand beekeepers brought MPI's standards on themselves but MPI could at least have got it right and now they could face up to their mistakes instead of trying to sweep it under the carpet and save face. The new standards haven't had that much effect on me but they have seriously hurt a lot of New Zealand beekeepers for no good reason and the inaction on this matter from the government is shameful.

[Stoney 1,584]

1 hour ago, CraBee said:

 

Re blending.  Lets say I have honey that is low on 2-MAP.   I buy an equal amount of manuka with a good 2-MAP.  I blend them and that makes a mono-floral.  But, if I've blended an NPA18 with an NPA4, then I've lost value as it is now an NPA11...but disproportionately higher prices are paid for the high NPA value honey....so blending in that scenario is not so smart....

What is an average 2MAP for northland Manuka? 

What would you call high 2MAP? 

[Goran 1,523]

Sorry if offtopic, but when you talk about manuka..

I think I saw first jars of your manuka honey in one our local buy/sell site - 500g jar of manuka 5+ cost around 72 nz dollars ( Arataki honey).. Must say, there will be few or none buyers of it..

 

[Maggie James 906]

10 hours ago, john berry said:

MPI's manuka standards are complete and utter rubbish. I had some very good manuka last year with a high UMF and it was graded as non-manuka yet mix enough clover with it and it becomes multi floral manuka. Either clover is magical or MPI don't know what the talking about..Interestingly this honey came from plantation manuka with the plants sourced from Northland and they look completely different  from our local plants.

I know I have said it before but it bears repeating. I have seen some very good lines of manuka fail and I have seen even more lines that I wouldn't dream of calling manuka pass with flying colours. Still I only have 50 years experience with manuka so what would I know.

New Zealand beekeepers brought MPI's standards on themselves but MPI could at least have got it right and now they could face up to their mistakes instead of trying to sweep it under the carpet and save face. The new standards haven't had that much effect on me but they have seriously hurt a lot of New Zealand beekeepers for no good reason and the inaction on this matter from the government is shameful.

In the South Island it is not uncommon to have high manuka pollen counts but not meet the new MPI standard.  That's nuts.  Often the high manuka pollen counts are due to the lack of other floral sources in the area.  

 

I know of someone this season had hives near rata and kanuka.  Unfortunately not much of a rata season.  This guy was wondering how he would survive in the current economic climate.  Turned out his kanuka/smattering of rata blend met the MPI manuka standard!  He thought all his Christmases had come at once!