7 ms·

Manuka, the World’s Most Coveted Honey (2018)

49 points by jelliclesfarm 6y ago

ggm 6y ago
A very partisan write up. I love NZ honey and make a point of buying a particular NZ manuka honey (arataki) when I see it, but the Australian manuka honey is not "cashing in" on the NZ trade, it has existed for decades and medicinal honey for tropical ulcer treatment has existed for decades in Australia. The decision to award DOC classification was itself a "cashing in" move despite manuka being patently a semi generic term for plants found throughout Australasia. It was a smart move, and I don't fault them for seeing this as a tactic in a competitive trade market, but lets not pretend there is a substantive difference between the products here. NZ manuka honey is now also riven by violent gang crime cashing in on the huge profits. Hive stealing is a thing. Sugerbag, a dark runny native bees honey in Australia is worth more per kg. Designer chefs want it.
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  there is a lot of hype w/manuka here and i dont think we have ever heard of australian honey here stateside. a lot of honey is malted sweet syrup sadly. i had to label my honey 'gluten free' and 'organic'...both claims are ridiculous, but labeling is such a headache. we do not have AOC type labeling tho'...except for lavender and orange blossom honey etc that have single floral flavours and not blended, then a radius of 5 acres worth should have the same varietal as advertised. entirely ridiculous. bees dont understand borders or labeling. i even got a bottle of poison oak honey. and no, it wasnt the name of the company. wasnt brave enough to try it. on a slightly diff note: australian father and son duo have come up with flowhive that is the scorn of old fashioned 'beeks' because it seems to make it too easy to collect honey. i do agree that apiary business can be exploitative and with bees on the loser side. having had colony collapse for a few years and having had to pay for a commissary kitchen to extract honey, the flow hive design seems more and more appealling. the australians certainly understand their bees. https://www.honeyflow.com/ https://www.honeyflow.com/ : i am pretty smitten but false pride to be a 'real beekeeper' stops me from adopting this obviously clever and elegant design. Beek shaming is real! it's a thing.
  - ggm 6y ago
    If you've got poisonwood honey.. wait til you try Turkish seasonal... HALLUCINOGENIC honey.. (sorry for clickbaity) which actually exists and is a "thing"
    - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
      I wonder how honey from marijuana would taste like...I guess they don’t have nectar? Anyone knows?
      - quixoticelixer- 6y ago
        They are wind pollinated not bee pollinated. Maybe in theory bees could collect some pollen but it would be a stretch to get THC into honey.
    - Sunspark 6y ago
      Except for the fact that it's a poisonous neurotoxin..
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-21/native-honeybees-provide-popular-bush-tucker/9333278 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-21/native-honeybees-prov... : thanks for the headsup about sugarbag honey! stingless bees even! [..]Unlike harvesting from a commercial or hobby hive, taking honey from a native sugarbag hive often means the entire colony is destroyed. But Dr Smith said land clearing, rather than traditional hunting, was the biggest threat to native bee colonies. He said sugarbag hunting had a minor impact on the overall population of Australian sugarbag bees and the skill should be preserved. "What a shame it would be to stop having this practice, this culture, that's been going on for thousands of years and is probably one of the longest honey cultures of the world," he said.[..] < altho this is discouraging. for the bees too. very interesting. we have many more native bees here in ca than italian honey bees. there is a fallen oak in one of the hiking trails. it was buzzing all the time and the hiker who was with me(and part native american) told me that bees sometimes form hives inside dead hollow trees. and not to tell anyone so they can be undisturbed. i have a lavender field and also maintain hives. the italian bees are pretty aggressive and native populations have gone down. also..a lot of california native vegetation is actually toxic to italian honey bees. like california buckeye for example. and i think in the south, yellow jessamine. their pollen can kill the italian bees. thats one of the reasons for bees disappearing too. we also truck in millions of bee cross country for almond pollination which is a bee genocide of a different kind. this is why i feel like if we dont manage habitat we are shooting ourselves in the foot.
  - cmroanirgo 6y ago
    Australian native bees, apart from not having stingers, are tiny... about the same size as a baby fly. Most importantly, their hive structure is incompatible with normal modern beekeeping hives, hence they honey is taken directly from hives on trees, in the bush. I recall that attempts are being made to have them work in normal boxes, but understand it's tricky. Also, Jelly Bush is the common name for the NZ equivalent Manuka bush, both are of the tea tree family.
- markdown 6y ago
  This sugarbag honey reminds me of the Melipona honey from Peru that I learned about in (I think it was) a Netflix documentary about fake honey.
- angled 6y ago
  Tasmanian Leatherwood honey also tastes and smells great. Not sure if it's available in the US. Quite a bit cheaper than sugarbag honey. https://www.leatherwoodhoney.com.au/index.php/our-story/ https://www.leatherwoodhoney.com.au/index.php/our-story/ https://tasmanianhoney.com/about-us/ https://tasmanianhoney.com/about-us/
- rimutaka 6y ago
  > NZ manuka honey is now also riven by violent gang crime cashing in on the huge profits. Hive stealing is a thing. I'd like to see a proof of that. The industry is very consolidated with a few dominant players and a lot of small beekeepers who happened to have manuka on their private land. It went through a boom, prices crashed and most unsavory operators moved on. There may be some opportunistic hive stealing, but that always existed even before manuka was the thing.
  - ggm 6y ago
    Headlines stop around 2019. So you're probably right, it's old news. And, to be fair, it happens/happened here too: https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2018-02-27/beekeepers-call-for-better-security-amid-beehive-thefts/9449580 https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2018-02-27/beekeepers-call...
  - EdwardDiego 6y ago
    Anecdotally, (as in, what I hear on the local grapevine) it's still going on. Intimidation, hive destruction etc.
mdifrgechd 6y ago
> Manuka is a versatile sugar substitute that’s lower on the glycemic index,” he says. “It won’t spike your blood sugar levels immediately in the way white sugar does.” The sugar in honey is roughly a 50/50 mix of glucose and fructose, there is nothing metabolically special about the sugar. Fructose has a lower glycemic index because it is metabolized first into triglycerides- it may be better for diabetics in some circumstances but has also been blamed for why people drink too much pop, because the glucose fructose sweetening doesnt leave you sated. From a purely sugar perspective, honey is basically HFCS.
- elchief 6y ago
  I like to think of it as wine vs vodka. Both have alcohol, but wine is somewhat better for you due to polyphenols
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - rramach 6y ago
    There is little evidence for wine being better than other alcoholic drinks. For example, see https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/is-red-wine-good-actually-for-your-heart-2018021913285 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/is-red-wine-good-actuall... Most of the claimed benefits are either from observational studies or on rats etc.
lukehutch 6y ago
I grew up in NZ and find it hilarious when I see a tub of manuka honey in a supermarket in the US. This is the most genius marketing ripoff of all time. Most honey you could buy in NZ back then was either clover honey or manuka honey, it cost about $3 for the same amount, and there was nothing special about manuka honey. Manuka is just teatree, by the way. And all honey has the same antimicrobial properties -- it has nothing to do with hydrogen peroxide and definitely nothing to do with UMF. The reason honey kills microbes is it has exceptionally low water content.
- mkl 6y ago
  Exactly, manuka honey was always just ordinary honey in NZ! It's like this article is from an alternate reality or something.
  - Scoundreller 6y ago
    Will trade manuka for maple syrup.
    - canada_dry 6y ago
      I've read that Canadian maple syrup is the cure for post-election-anxiety. At least that's how I figure we should market it to our friends down south!
      - lisper 6y ago
        > Canadian maple syrup is the cure for post-election-anxiety. It's been working wonders for me :-)
  - Reason077 6y ago
    > "Exactly, manuka honey was always just ordinary honey in NZ!" Not any more. Cheaper to buy it in the UK I reckon!
  - spats1990 6y ago
    Older beekeepers in NZ will tell you that until the late 1990s/early 00s, it wasn't even considered commercially viable and was only suitable as winter feed for bees, because all anybody wanted to buy was clover. There was not much space in the market for darker honeys from the NZ bush and scragglier hill country. This fit perfectly with the mindset of thousands of NZ farmers, who were diligently clearing the mānuka off their land because it was "scrub" that could be replaced with grass. Fast-forward to the year 2020 C.E. and Comvita is doing mānuka plantations...
rimutaka 6y ago
My mate has several barrels of the highest grade manuka honey from the back of his farm. It's very tingy, to the point of being unpalatable. The sad truth is that most of the commercial manuka honey is nowhere near the purity to get any medicinal benefit, but it tastes much nicer.
- quixoticelixer- 6y ago
  Most commercial grade mānuka honey is more than pure enough to get medicinal benefits. That is what UMF is.
mark-r 6y ago
I visited New Zealand in 2000, and at one small roadside shop they gave us a small jar of Manuka honey for free. At the time I didn't realize there was anything special about it. But it did cement in my mind that New Zealand had the most gracious residents in the world. Their kindness may be related to the medicinal properties of the honey. I had broken my wrist a week earlier and had a brace screwed into my arm, covered with a bandage.
m0zg 6y ago
I'd love to see buckwheat honey in the US. It's dark brown, and it's much tastier than "regular" honey IMO.
- pcmaffey 6y ago
  I see buckwheat honey all the time at farmer’s markets in the rockies. It’s a favorite of mine too. Not nearly as sweet.
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  buckwheat honey could be an acquired taste for some. i love it. it's definitely available. buckwheat is a summer cover crop. that means the (good) beekeepers would allow the bees to keep some for their own food for fall/winter feeding. also...dont know a lot of people who summer cover crop anymore. i guess its definitely niche, but certainly available in the usa. i cant control where my bees go foraging. so i just label it 'wild flower' honey. in early spring before they swarm, i make sure the brambles are flowering. at that time..even in california..there isnt a whole lot of forage for them when they come out hungry. they also gorge themselves before swarming and so usually there isnt a whole lot early spring honey. its a timing thing. so really..there is no good time window for collecting buckwheat honey. unless we steal it from them and replace it with something else for their feeding.
  - quixoticelixer- 6y ago
    Buckwheat is grown as a grain crop in some parts of the US and Canada.
    - m0zg 6y ago
      Excellent grain as well, cooked in a rice cooker.
- quixoticelixer- 6y ago
  Yeah there are a lot of honeys that are nice that you don't see that often.
- 6y ago
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
peterburkimsher 6y ago
I had an interesting chat with John McDermott at the IoT meetup in Auckland last week. He said that honey is one of the most difficult markets for IoT. What's so hard about it? Connectivity isn't great in NZ - there's no phone signal in the remote places where beehives are common. Artisan beekeepers don't care about analytics to increase their yield; they're just doing it for fun (sometimes after retiring from other careers). Larger companies already have systems in place, or can afford the loss. It seems like it would be an excellent opportunity: beehives get stolen, or overflow with honey, and the temperature and humidity of the hive have a huge outcome on the resulting product. Swarm Space or LoRaWAN might be able to help with connectivity. But the market is just really hard to get into when the customers don't have an incentive to pay for efficiency.
- quixoticelixer- 6y ago
  Getting stolen is the only thing I could think of, temperature and hive humidity aren't usually problems, the beekeeper doesn't control those things, the bees do. Maybe there are a few other things it could be used for but i'm not sure what.
  - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
    Hive theft has recently become an issue here in Ca. CA being CA...hives used for pollination services are taxed differently than hives used for honey/orchard pollination. Insurance also treats them differently. More: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/05/bee-thieves-cost-beekeepers-thousands/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/05/bee-thiev... [..] “I couldn’t think. I kept messing up the count,” he told me, sitting at a friend’s kitchen table the next morning, shaking his head. He’d hardly slept. “Over half of them were gone, 160 boxes”—days before California’s almond bloom, the biggest and most lucrative pollination event in the world. “Those thieves stole about $70,000 from me,” he said, tallying the insects, equipment, and lost pollination rental fees. Kuhnhenn, 39—tattooed, with a brown beard, and wearing a black “Right To Bear Arms” T-shirt and jeans—is a commercial beekeeper from Bantry, North Dakota. Like many others in his profession, he makes the bulk of his living from an annual pilgrimage to the Central Valley, where his bees help pollinate the state’s almond crop. In the off-season, back home on his ranch, Bulldog Honey Farms, he manufactures about 80 pounds of summer honey. Wintertime is almond season, and he’d been preparing for the bloom all year. His hives were ready to move into position in the almond orchards. Now was that time, and a bunch of his bees were gone.[..]
eightails 6y ago
I don't really understand the point of advertising the 'anti-microbial' properties. Antiseptic creams are far less expensive if you're applying it to wounds. Ingesting something for its anti-microbial properties seems a bit strange when there is plenty of research suggesting that having a healthy gut microbiome is beneficial[0]. People eat certain kinds of yoghurt for the very purpose of encouraging gut microbe activity. Is this purely to advertise to the homeopathic crowd or am I missing something here? [0] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12967-017-1175-y https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12967-017-1175-y
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  Honey is food and cheap. And easily available. And natural. What’s not to love?
  - quixoticelixer- 6y ago
    Manuka honey is certainly not cheap
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    Concentrated sugar is unhealthy in all but small doses.
    - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
      I think Manuka is also used topically.
  - eightails 6y ago
    I have nothing against honey - I enjoy it as much as anyone else. My point was more that this honey specifically costs far more than normal honey (or even other boutique honeys with a unique flavour) seemingly just because it has the marketing cachet of being 'anti-microbial', which as far as I can tell doesn't seem to be actually beneficial in any way.
- jz_ 6y ago
trixie_ 6y ago
I'm going to make so much money with my 'Scalable Manuka CBD Blockchain Honey'
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  Honey is one of the most adulterated foods. Honey blockchain is probably not a bad idea.
  - EdwardDiego 6y ago
    Fun fact, there's more "NZ manuka" honey sold annually in the UK alone than is actually produced in NZ.
teleforce 6y ago
The equivalent of Manuka honey in the Middle East and Northern Africa regions is Sidr honey. Sidr or Lote tree is very popular and revered in the regions because the tree is mentioned in both Bible and Quran: https://www.pashaintl.com/blogs/blog/sidr-honey-vs-manuka-honey https://www.pashaintl.com/blogs/blog/sidr-honey-vs-manuka-ho...

49 points by jelliclesfarm 6y ago

ggm 6y ago

A very partisan write up. I love NZ honey and make a point of buying a particular NZ manuka honey (arataki) when I see it, but the Australian manuka honey is not "cashing in" on the NZ trade, it has existed for decades and medicinal honey for tropical ulcer treatment has existed for decades in Australia. The decision to award DOC classification was itself a "cashing in" move despite manuka being patently a semi generic term for plants found throughout Australasia. It was a smart move, and I don't fault them for seeing this as a tactic in a competitive trade market, but lets not pretend there is a substantive difference between the products here. NZ manuka honey is now also riven by violent gang crime cashing in on the huge profits. Hive stealing is a thing. Sugerbag, a dark runny native bees honey in Australia is worth more per kg. Designer chefs want it.

jelliclesfarm 6y ago
there is a lot of hype w/manuka here and i dont think we have ever heard of australian honey here stateside. a lot of honey is malted sweet syrup sadly. i had to label my honey 'gluten free' and 'organic'...both claims are ridiculous, but labeling is such a headache. we do not have AOC type labeling tho'...except for lavender and orange blossom honey etc that have single floral flavours and not blended, then a radius of 5 acres worth should have the same varietal as advertised. entirely ridiculous. bees dont understand borders or labeling. i even got a bottle of poison oak honey. and no, it wasnt the name of the company. wasnt brave enough to try it. on a slightly diff note: australian father and son duo have come up with flowhive that is the scorn of old fashioned 'beeks' because it seems to make it too easy to collect honey. i do agree that apiary business can be exploitative and with bees on the loser side. having had colony collapse for a few years and having had to pay for a commissary kitchen to extract honey, the flow hive design seems more and more appealling. the australians certainly understand their bees. https://www.honeyflow.com/ https://www.honeyflow.com/ : i am pretty smitten but false pride to be a 'real beekeeper' stops me from adopting this obviously clever and elegant design. Beek shaming is real! it's a thing.
- ggm 6y ago
  If you've got poisonwood honey.. wait til you try Turkish seasonal... HALLUCINOGENIC honey.. (sorry for clickbaity) which actually exists and is a "thing"
  - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
    I wonder how honey from marijuana would taste like...I guess they don’t have nectar? Anyone knows?
    - quixoticelixer- 6y ago
      They are wind pollinated not bee pollinated. Maybe in theory bees could collect some pollen but it would be a stretch to get THC into honey.
  - Sunspark 6y ago
    Except for the fact that it's a poisonous neurotoxin..
jelliclesfarm 6y ago
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-21/native-honeybees-provide-popular-bush-tucker/9333278 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-01-21/native-honeybees-prov... : thanks for the headsup about sugarbag honey! stingless bees even! [..]Unlike harvesting from a commercial or hobby hive, taking honey from a native sugarbag hive often means the entire colony is destroyed. But Dr Smith said land clearing, rather than traditional hunting, was the biggest threat to native bee colonies. He said sugarbag hunting had a minor impact on the overall population of Australian sugarbag bees and the skill should be preserved. "What a shame it would be to stop having this practice, this culture, that's been going on for thousands of years and is probably one of the longest honey cultures of the world," he said.[..] < altho this is discouraging. for the bees too. very interesting. we have many more native bees here in ca than italian honey bees. there is a fallen oak in one of the hiking trails. it was buzzing all the time and the hiker who was with me(and part native american) told me that bees sometimes form hives inside dead hollow trees. and not to tell anyone so they can be undisturbed. i have a lavender field and also maintain hives. the italian bees are pretty aggressive and native populations have gone down. also..a lot of california native vegetation is actually toxic to italian honey bees. like california buckeye for example. and i think in the south, yellow jessamine. their pollen can kill the italian bees. thats one of the reasons for bees disappearing too. we also truck in millions of bee cross country for almond pollination which is a bee genocide of a different kind. this is why i feel like if we dont manage habitat we are shooting ourselves in the foot.
- cmroanirgo 6y ago
  Australian native bees, apart from not having stingers, are tiny... about the same size as a baby fly. Most importantly, their hive structure is incompatible with normal modern beekeeping hives, hence they honey is taken directly from hives on trees, in the bush. I recall that attempts are being made to have them work in normal boxes, but understand it's tricky. Also, Jelly Bush is the common name for the NZ equivalent Manuka bush, both are of the tea tree family.
markdown 6y ago
This sugarbag honey reminds me of the Melipona honey from Peru that I learned about in (I think it was) a Netflix documentary about fake honey.
angled 6y ago
Tasmanian Leatherwood honey also tastes and smells great. Not sure if it's available in the US. Quite a bit cheaper than sugarbag honey. https://www.leatherwoodhoney.com.au/index.php/our-story/ https://www.leatherwoodhoney.com.au/index.php/our-story/ https://tasmanianhoney.com/about-us/ https://tasmanianhoney.com/about-us/
rimutaka 6y ago
> NZ manuka honey is now also riven by violent gang crime cashing in on the huge profits. Hive stealing is a thing. I'd like to see a proof of that. The industry is very consolidated with a few dominant players and a lot of small beekeepers who happened to have manuka on their private land. It went through a boom, prices crashed and most unsavory operators moved on. There may be some opportunistic hive stealing, but that always existed even before manuka was the thing.
- ggm 6y ago
  Headlines stop around 2019. So you're probably right, it's old news. And, to be fair, it happens/happened here too: https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2018-02-27/beekeepers-call-for-better-security-amid-beehive-thefts/9449580 https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2018-02-27/beekeepers-call...
- EdwardDiego 6y ago
  Anecdotally, (as in, what I hear on the local grapevine) it's still going on. Intimidation, hive destruction etc.

mdifrgechd 6y ago

> Manuka is a versatile sugar substitute that’s lower on the glycemic index,” he says. “It won’t spike your blood sugar levels immediately in the way white sugar does.” The sugar in honey is roughly a 50/50 mix of glucose and fructose, there is nothing metabolically special about the sugar. Fructose has a lower glycemic index because it is metabolized first into triglycerides- it may be better for diabetics in some circumstances but has also been blamed for why people drink too much pop, because the glucose fructose sweetening doesnt leave you sated. From a purely sugar perspective, honey is basically HFCS.

elchief 6y ago
I like to think of it as wine vs vodka. Both have alcohol, but wine is somewhat better for you due to polyphenols
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- rramach 6y ago
  There is little evidence for wine being better than other alcoholic drinks. For example, see https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/is-red-wine-good-actually-for-your-heart-2018021913285 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/is-red-wine-good-actuall... Most of the claimed benefits are either from observational studies or on rats etc.

lukehutch 6y ago

I grew up in NZ and find it hilarious when I see a tub of manuka honey in a supermarket in the US. This is the most genius marketing ripoff of all time. Most honey you could buy in NZ back then was either clover honey or manuka honey, it cost about $3 for the same amount, and there was nothing special about manuka honey. Manuka is just teatree, by the way. And all honey has the same antimicrobial properties -- it has nothing to do with hydrogen peroxide and definitely nothing to do with UMF. The reason honey kills microbes is it has exceptionally low water content.

mkl 6y ago
Exactly, manuka honey was always just ordinary honey in NZ! It's like this article is from an alternate reality or something.
- Scoundreller 6y ago
  Will trade manuka for maple syrup.
  - canada_dry 6y ago
    I've read that Canadian maple syrup is the cure for post-election-anxiety. At least that's how I figure we should market it to our friends down south!
    - lisper 6y ago
      > Canadian maple syrup is the cure for post-election-anxiety. It's been working wonders for me :-)
- Reason077 6y ago
  > "Exactly, manuka honey was always just ordinary honey in NZ!" Not any more. Cheaper to buy it in the UK I reckon!
- spats1990 6y ago
  Older beekeepers in NZ will tell you that until the late 1990s/early 00s, it wasn't even considered commercially viable and was only suitable as winter feed for bees, because all anybody wanted to buy was clover. There was not much space in the market for darker honeys from the NZ bush and scragglier hill country. This fit perfectly with the mindset of thousands of NZ farmers, who were diligently clearing the mānuka off their land because it was "scrub" that could be replaced with grass. Fast-forward to the year 2020 C.E. and Comvita is doing mānuka plantations...

rimutaka 6y ago

My mate has several barrels of the highest grade manuka honey from the back of his farm. It's very tingy, to the point of being unpalatable. The sad truth is that most of the commercial manuka honey is nowhere near the purity to get any medicinal benefit, but it tastes much nicer.

quixoticelixer- 6y ago
Most commercial grade mānuka honey is more than pure enough to get medicinal benefits. That is what UMF is.

mark-r 6y ago

I visited New Zealand in 2000, and at one small roadside shop they gave us a small jar of Manuka honey for free. At the time I didn't realize there was anything special about it. But it did cement in my mind that New Zealand had the most gracious residents in the world. Their kindness may be related to the medicinal properties of the honey. I had broken my wrist a week earlier and had a brace screwed into my arm, covered with a bandage.

m0zg 6y ago

I'd love to see buckwheat honey in the US. It's dark brown, and it's much tastier than "regular" honey IMO.

pcmaffey 6y ago
I see buckwheat honey all the time at farmer’s markets in the rockies. It’s a favorite of mine too. Not nearly as sweet.
jelliclesfarm 6y ago
buckwheat honey could be an acquired taste for some. i love it. it's definitely available. buckwheat is a summer cover crop. that means the (good) beekeepers would allow the bees to keep some for their own food for fall/winter feeding. also...dont know a lot of people who summer cover crop anymore. i guess its definitely niche, but certainly available in the usa. i cant control where my bees go foraging. so i just label it 'wild flower' honey. in early spring before they swarm, i make sure the brambles are flowering. at that time..even in california..there isnt a whole lot of forage for them when they come out hungry. they also gorge themselves before swarming and so usually there isnt a whole lot early spring honey. its a timing thing. so really..there is no good time window for collecting buckwheat honey. unless we steal it from them and replace it with something else for their feeding.
- quixoticelixer- 6y ago
  Buckwheat is grown as a grain crop in some parts of the US and Canada.
  - m0zg 6y ago
    Excellent grain as well, cooked in a rice cooker.
quixoticelixer- 6y ago
Yeah there are a lot of honeys that are nice that you don't see that often.
6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

peterburkimsher 6y ago

I had an interesting chat with John McDermott at the IoT meetup in Auckland last week. He said that honey is one of the most difficult markets for IoT. What's so hard about it? Connectivity isn't great in NZ - there's no phone signal in the remote places where beehives are common. Artisan beekeepers don't care about analytics to increase their yield; they're just doing it for fun (sometimes after retiring from other careers). Larger companies already have systems in place, or can afford the loss. It seems like it would be an excellent opportunity: beehives get stolen, or overflow with honey, and the temperature and humidity of the hive have a huge outcome on the resulting product. Swarm Space or LoRaWAN might be able to help with connectivity. But the market is just really hard to get into when the customers don't have an incentive to pay for efficiency.

quixoticelixer- 6y ago
Getting stolen is the only thing I could think of, temperature and hive humidity aren't usually problems, the beekeeper doesn't control those things, the bees do. Maybe there are a few other things it could be used for but i'm not sure what.
- jelliclesfarm 6y ago
  Hive theft has recently become an issue here in Ca. CA being CA...hives used for pollination services are taxed differently than hives used for honey/orchard pollination. Insurance also treats them differently. More: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/05/bee-thieves-cost-beekeepers-thousands/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/05/bee-thiev... [..] “I couldn’t think. I kept messing up the count,” he told me, sitting at a friend’s kitchen table the next morning, shaking his head. He’d hardly slept. “Over half of them were gone, 160 boxes”—days before California’s almond bloom, the biggest and most lucrative pollination event in the world. “Those thieves stole about $70,000 from me,” he said, tallying the insects, equipment, and lost pollination rental fees. Kuhnhenn, 39—tattooed, with a brown beard, and wearing a black “Right To Bear Arms” T-shirt and jeans—is a commercial beekeeper from Bantry, North Dakota. Like many others in his profession, he makes the bulk of his living from an annual pilgrimage to the Central Valley, where his bees help pollinate the state’s almond crop. In the off-season, back home on his ranch, Bulldog Honey Farms, he manufactures about 80 pounds of summer honey. Wintertime is almond season, and he’d been preparing for the bloom all year. His hives were ready to move into position in the almond orchards. Now was that time, and a bunch of his bees were gone.[..]

eightails 6y ago

I don't really understand the point of advertising the 'anti-microbial' properties. Antiseptic creams are far less expensive if you're applying it to wounds. Ingesting something for its anti-microbial properties seems a bit strange when there is plenty of research suggesting that having a healthy gut microbiome is beneficial[0]. People eat certain kinds of yoghurt for the very purpose of encouraging gut microbe activity. Is this purely to advertise to the homeopathic crowd or am I missing something here? [0] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12967-017-1175-y https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12967-017-1175-y

jelliclesfarm 6y ago
Honey is food and cheap. And easily available. And natural. What’s not to love?
- quixoticelixer- 6y ago
  Manuka honey is certainly not cheap
- mixmastamyk 6y ago
  Concentrated sugar is unhealthy in all but small doses.
  - jelliclesfarm 6y ago
    I think Manuka is also used topically.
- eightails 6y ago
  I have nothing against honey - I enjoy it as much as anyone else. My point was more that this honey specifically costs far more than normal honey (or even other boutique honeys with a unique flavour) seemingly just because it has the marketing cachet of being 'anti-microbial', which as far as I can tell doesn't seem to be actually beneficial in any way.
jz_ 6y ago

trixie_ 6y ago

I'm going to make so much money with my 'Scalable Manuka CBD Blockchain Honey'

jelliclesfarm 6y ago
Honey is one of the most adulterated foods. Honey blockchain is probably not a bad idea.
- EdwardDiego 6y ago
  Fun fact, there's more "NZ manuka" honey sold annually in the UK alone than is actually produced in NZ.

teleforce 6y ago

The equivalent of Manuka honey in the Middle East and Northern Africa regions is Sidr honey. Sidr or Lote tree is very popular and revered in the regions because the tree is mentioned in both Bible and Quran: https://www.pashaintl.com/blogs/blog/sidr-honey-vs-manuka-honey https://www.pashaintl.com/blogs/blog/sidr-honey-vs-manuka-ho...