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From Hive to Jar: How We Harvest Mānuka Honey
Mānuka honey is unlike any other type of food product - it’s valued for its powerful wellbeing properties and distinctive taste. At Primal by Nature, we know that the harvest process plays a crucial role in delivering a pure, high-quality product. From the moment our bees collect the nectar from wild Mānuka tree flowers to our careful extraction process, every step has been carefully designed to preserve our honey’s natural goodness. With Primal by Nature, you can trust in the care and transparency we bring to every step of the process, preserving its potency and delivering quality Mānuka honey. Finding the Perfect Mānuka Environment Creating quality Mānuka honey begins long before it reaches your jar - it starts with the Mānuka plant itself. Mānuka honey originates from the New Zealand native Mānuka tree (Leptospermum scoparium). While this tree is widely considered to be native to New Zealand, there has been unofficial speculation that the tree may also grow in specific parts of Australia. This native shrub produces flowers that bees flock to for their nectar, resulting in the unique flavours and well-being benefits that make Mānuka honey so prized. At Primal by Nature, we ensure that our hives are placed in untouched, pristine areas that are rich in Mānuka flowers. This sustainable, ethical approach not only supports our local bee populations, but it also guarantees that our honey is of the highest quality. By carefully selecting locations that are abundant in wild Mānuka, we create an ideal environment for our bees to thrive - which enhances the purity and potency of our honey. This commitment to sourcing means that every jar of Mānuka honey reflects our dedication to quality and sustainability, allowing you to enjoy honey that is both high grade and delicious. The Role of Bees in Harvesting Mānuka Honey The process of bees collecting Mānuka honey is done during a narrow window of only a few weeks every year, when the Mānuka flower is blooming. This short flowering season can also become easily affected by hostile weather conditions - which only further increases the rarity of collecting Mānuka. During one foraging trip, a single worker bee can collect the nectar from over one hundred flowers. Once the bees have returned to the hive, the unloading process begins. The house bees will receive the nectar and begin to produce Mānuka honey by adding enzymes and passing the nectar in a chain. This process alters the honey’s PH and chemical composition, whilst also reducing any excess water content - which helps with preservation. To properly dry the honey, the bees will spread it over honeycombs to increase the surface area, then fan their wings for airflow. This reduces the moisture content to below 20%, enhancing the viscosity of the Mānuka honey. Once dried, the honey will be stored in honeycomb cells which are capped with beeswax, further aiding the preservation of the product and keeping it secure until it’s harvested. Gentle Extraction: Preserving Mānuka Honey’s Natural Qualities The extraction methods used by Primal's beekeepers play a crucial role in preserving the pure Mānuka ingredients. The process begins with our beekeepers paying extra care to minimise any disruption to the bees. Primal by Nature is a big believer in ethical beekeeping, which means ensuring the welfare and safety of bees and their natural surroundings. When harvesting the honey, our beekeepers will avoid disrupting the work of the queen bee, allowing her to continue populating the colony naturally without artificial mating practices. We also refuse to use any harmful chemicals, pesticides or honey replacements in order to prioritise our bees’ health and sustainability. Our beekeepers remain vigilant throughout the extraction, they’ll continue to adjust their methods to ensure a thriving, healthy environment for the bees and preserve both their vitality and the quality of the honey they produce. The resulting honey mixture that our beekeepers extract is then kept in large, sterile drums to avoid contamination. From here, the product is lightly churned to break up any clumps - this process is undertaken without heating or influencing the MGO (methylglyoxal) content. This keeps the Mānuka honey pure, raw and unpasteurised. Testing Our Mānuka Honey The final step of harvesting and producing Mānuka honey is the testing stage, which ensures the Mānuka product can be certified to meet the high quality standards that we strive to meet. The testing process for Mānuka honey is essential to confirm its authenticity. Only independent, accredited laboratories should conduct testing for premium brands to ensure accuracy and impartiality. By using unbiased facilities, consumers can trust that the honey they purchase meets all the necessary quality standards.This is why Primal by Nature will use a third-party laboratory to conduct all of our testing practices. One of the key tests that we have conducted on our honey is the Unique Mānuka Factor (UMF™) certification, which assesses the essential chemical and DNA markers that verify its purity. While other certifications like KFactor, BioActive, MGS and NPA exist, UMF™ stands apart by measuring all of the key bioactive ingredients. This makes UMF™ the gold standard for authenticating Mānuka honey, saving you time in choosing the right product. Though it’s primarily for raw honey, UMF™ can also certify other Mānuka products such as lozenges. Our honey is also tested to meet the scientific definition of monofloral Mānuka honey, which is set by the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI). Each honey product that we sell meets and often exceeds the minimum required leptosperin and MGO concentrations set by UMFHA. This is our way of reassuring consumers that they’re buying 100% genuine New Zealand Mānuka honey. Harvesting Mānuka Honey With Great Care The process that Primal by Nature follows for harvesting Mānuka honey is focused on preserving the natural qualities of the product, every step of the way. From carefully selecting hives in pristine environments that are rich in Mānuka flowers, to employing gentle extraction techniques that put the needs of the bees at the centre, every effort ensures the honey remains pure and potent. Ethical beekeeping practices protect the bees and the hive, avoiding chemicals and disruptions. Plus, we incorporate rigorous testing - including UMF™ certification - as a way of guaranteeing that every jar of honey that we produce reflects the highest standards of quality, sustainability and authenticity.
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Behind The Hive: Primal's Commitment To Ethical Beekeeping
Here at Primal by Nature, we work hard to deliver a product that isn’t just high quality and great-tasting but also created with sustainable and ethical practice. Thanks to the dedicated work of our beekeepers, we can produce high-grade mānuka honey with a process we can stand by. With the growing importance of ethical practice in all food industries - especially honey - our beekeepers work hard to not just meet the standard, but raise it higher. The welfare and sustainability of our hives is a critical component to the creation of Primal by Nature's products, we remain committed as ever to maintaining this. Our beekeepers are experts - knowing exactly what our bees need and how to produce the best-tasting and highest-quality mānuka honey to leave New Zealand’s shores. What Is Ethical Beekeeping? Ultimately, ethical beekeeping is all about ensuring the welfare and safety of bees and their natural surroundings. Preserving their environment, treating the bees and their process with respect, maintaining the hives and protecting the hives from external dangers are among the practices that our beekeepers commonly follow. To care for the honey, workers must first care for the ones that create it. It’s a requirement for our beekeepers to understand not just bees and their honey-making processes, but the wider picture as a whole. It’s learning about the environment - the range of factors that influence the honey-making process. Beekeepers that understand this ecosystem will practise their craft ethically and responsibly. Caring for bees means caring about the world they live in. Our beekeepers know this, and their work reflects it. The Role of Primal by Nature's Beekeepers The beekeeping crew at Primal by Nature are trained, expert professionals who deeply understand and care for the lifestyle and work of their bees. They understand the impacts of their work - if it’s done well, the bees thrive and the mānuka honey produced is high quality. We ensure every beekeeper who joins Primal by Nature is qualified, but ongoing training is a pivotal part of our crew’s ongoing development. Our beekeepers will be regularly researching new sustainable practices and refining their craft with the best interests of the bees. There’s day-to-day responsibilities that our beekeepers hold. Depending on the weather conditions, our team might be carrying out pest checks - which ensure the bees are safe from animals that might do harm - or be monitoring the colonies for any signs of distress. The beekeepers will inspect the brood (or nurseries) inside the hives to make sure the baby bees are growing healthily, they’ll also check whether particular colonies have larger amounts of eggs appearing. This might be a sign the queen bee is actively laying. Add in the additional responsibilities of caring for the wider environment, plus harvesting the mānuka, and you quickly realise our beekeepers have a lot of work on their plate. It’s critical the process is ethically practised so our bees remain safe and the honey remains at the highest standard possible. How Do Our Beekeepers Ethically Maintain and Harvest the Mānuka Honey? Beekeeping is all about working in harmony with the bees. There’s a partnership between the keeper and the insects, when both work together the product is of the highest quality. It begins with letting nature run its course. Our beekeepers know that our bees have been producing mānuka honey for thousands of years without their help, so there’s no room for micromanagement or over-controlling the bee’s environment. Sometimes the best way to help bees when they’re overcoming environmental or health challenges, is to leave them alone. Our beekeepers practise a non-invasive approach to maintaining the hives and harvesting the honey. This is done to minimise the stress and disruption to the bees, it’s critical they remain feeling safe so the quality of their product never drops. The queen, for example, is integral to a hive’s survival. When our beekeepers harvest the mānuka, they’re trained to recognise the queen and avoid disrupting her during the honey collection. Also, we avoid any practices that encourage artificial mating within the hives, to ensure the queen does what she does best - populate the colonies. Our hives are designed for the environmental thriving of the bees. We actively avoid overcrowding the hives and we’re also intentional about the size of the hives - for instance the larger they are, the more often the bees can find themselves overworked. Our hives are sized appropriately to protect the work ethic of these productive creatures. We won’t use honey replacements or any harmful chemicals, we’ll also avoid any pesticides that can cause serious harm to bee populations. At the end of the day, our keepers are constantly working to provide a sustainable future for our bees - which means remaining vigilant to their practices and tweaking them whenever necessary. The Benefit of High Standards for Mānuka Honey Beekeeping Because mānuka is such a high quality honey product, the results must be reflected in the work to create it. The ethical practices of our beekeepers leads to a superior form of mānuka honey, free from contaminants and rich in natural nutrients. Bees need the freedom to create mānuka honey in the most natural way possible - the more human interference, the more likely the product will lose its value, either through its taste or overall quality. It’s critical that when our beekeepers are overseeing the honey making process, they understand their role is one of stewardship, not control. Some beekeepers might believe they know best and fall into the trap of over-controlling the mānuka making process. This will likely lead to a form of honey product that barely reflects mānuka’s quality, ingredients and taste. Our beekeepers are different, they understand the delicacy of the work the bees are carrying out - and what a beekeeper’s responsibility actually looks like. We’re transparent with our ethical approach to beekeeping, because it’s important our customers can trust the product they’re purchasing. We live in an age where sustainability and ethical practice actually means something - they can’t be meaningless virtues, they’ve got to be put to work. Fortunately, every team member at Primal by Nature - starting with our beekeepers on the ground - are deeply dedicated to sustainable practice. It’s not just a virtue, it’s a conviction that our entire team holds dear. It ensures the honey production remains as natural as possible, and that the product we produce is the best form of mānuka honey available on the market. Ethical Beekeeping Results in the Best Mānuka Products Available At Primal by Nature, ethical beekeeping is more than a practice, it’s a promise. Our dedication to ethical beekeeping ensures that every jar of mānuka honey is hitting the highest standards, whilst still supporting sustainable and responsible production. Our beekeepers are always concentrated on the well-being of our bees, ensuring their harvesting and maintenance work supports environmental stewardship and the health of our ecosystems. Purchase Primal by Nature's mānuka product and you’re not just buying a world class product, but you’re subscribing to the values of ethical practice and sustainability that we stand by. You’re making a choice that goes beyond honey - it’s supporting the future of the planet and the welfare of its hard working pollinators.
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